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Where The Truth Lies

Lauren

The following is an actual transcript of my coming-out conversation with Dina.

Me: “Blah blah blah I’m a lesbian.”
Her: “Oh, I love Melissa Etheridge!”

So begins an often hilarious but poignant look into homophobia, self-doubt, and sexuality in the work environment. Emily DePrang writes about her experience being a lesbian fired from a corporate loans office for sexual harassment.

I used to think I’d escaped the self-loathing that plagues most gays. I’d grown up well-loved and free of religious condemnation. I had moved to New York City from Austin, Texas, where you can’t throw a rock without hitting a lesbian. But sitting in Ms. HR’s office, I felt like I did when I got busted playing doctor with Eileen Gospel in fifth grade: that I was bad in a way so base that doors had to be closed before I could be reprimanded.

She continued. “I’ll be meeting with the management to decide how to proceed. And we’ll need to make your placement agency aware of the situation.”

The stain grew. I wasn’t just losing my job — I was losing my means to get another one. I’d have to start over. I saw her reading my file to the lazy boss who loved me, and to Andy, the jokey guy at OfficeTeam who once considered me his finest temp. I saw their faces change as they listened to her. I saw myself change in their minds. I saw Andy explaining to his bosses why my file was being terminated. And everyone, in my mind, regarded me like the plague. Sexual harassment is too dire for the benefit of the doubt. No one would associate with me now. Shit, shit, was this really happening?

via Paul

31 thoughts on Where The Truth Lies

  1. No matter what the policy looks like on paper, any available discretion in administering it will incorporate the biases of the administrators. And I’m not just talking about the overt biases. There’s also the almost imperceptible assumptions: that a member of a sexual minority is more sexual, so that everything he or she does is read that way, when for a straight person it would not be.

    I had a really strange experience once when a woman I interned with gave me a ride home. She was essentially coming out, telling me how sick she was of being hit on by men and how she thought she was attracted to women. So, coming out story for coming out story, I started telling her that I was realizing that my interest in BDSM was more a part of who I am than just something I do. I had no intention of hitting on her — she was just telling me that she didn’t like getting hit on by men! But the next day, I got called into the intern coordinator’s office and told to get back in the closet because my fellow intern thought I was hitting on her.

    (And you know who I’m angry at over this? Straight guys. This very attractive young woman had for so long been treated by so many men as the keeper of the Pussy Oversoul that she automatically perceived straight men as attempting to get in her pants.)

    In the Nerve article, the author ultimately says that she would rather live in a world where she got discriminated against for being a lesbian than one where the guy in the next cubicle could watch porn on his lunch break. But those shouldn’t be the choices.

    I’m almost totally closeted at work. Only one close personal friend in my firm, and one other friend in my bar, know I’m a sadomasochist. In the practice of law I have seen plenty of situations where people had relationships with people they supervise (always with the man supervising, of course), that I thought were just too fraught with power imbalance to be tolerated. I, on the other hand, am a monk. I don’t date at work, I don’t look at my workmates as potential sexual partners, and I don’t engage in sexually charged banter with my colleagues. But let someone find out I’m kinky, and watch everything I do get flyspecked.

  2. Great… welcome to the Closeted-at-work club! As the Straight White Guy, I find this hilarious. You decry the despicable Heteromale for “creating” this woman’s neurosis (for which ALL straight guys are responsible… and I thought stereotypes were unbecoming) while simultaneously feigning shock that other-than-straights could possibly harass sexually! Why, what is this world coming to!… and why are you so special??

  3. Of course gay people can harass. So can straight people harass gay people in predatory same-gender ways. Discrimination against gay people is well-documented in that sphere as well.

    The problem illustrated in the original article is that queer people are held to a much higher standard of desexualization. Because we are queer, anything we do is considered potentially offensive. Behavior that would not be worthy of comment from a heterosexual is suddenly a come-on from one of us because our sexuality is more conspicuous in its difference. We are special because we are treated in especially punitive ways.

    This level of suspicion amounts to the kind of hostile-environment discrimination that sexual- and minority-harassment laws attempt to prevent. That aside, it’s wrong on its face to treat someone differently because they’re gay.

  4. that sexual- and minority-harassment laws attempt to prevent.

    Wrong, hate crime legislation help get revenge for past wrongs. That’s why the penalty for killing a gay man is greater than for killing a straight man. It’s an “enhancement”, as if the murder were not enough. Much more press coverage, too…

  5. Remember how this conversation was about harassment? Murder, assault, rape, and vandalism are not generally included in the definition of harassment. Unless you work in a really tough office.

    Harassment, especially in the context of this discussion, describes behavior that is usually perfectly okay when it occurs between private citizens. More extreme versions constitute illegal battery (blocking someone’s path), sexual assault (groping someone), and vandalism (destroying someone’s ACT UP mouse pad), but most stuff is only out of order in the workplace.

    It is just fine to ask some random woman on the subway out. It is even okay to offer her various perks in exchange for dating or sleeping with you, or to treat her better for doing so. It is okay to stop liking her if she says no. It is even okay to be verbally abusive. She is considered a free agent who can go ahead and tell you to shove it if she is not interested. It is also okay to wear a pornographic or misogynist tshirt on the subway.

    It is also perfectly fine to use racist, homophobic, sexist, or transphobic slurs on some random stranger on the subway. It’s okay to spew bigoted rhetoric. It’s okay to refuse to sit near minority passengers. It’s okay to give them mean looks. They are free to walk away from you, and you have the right to free speech.

    When you do these things in the workplace, however, you are doing them to people who are not free. Someone whose boss has asked her out on a date cannot just say no. Someone whose supervisor has groped him in the elevator cannot just stop working with him. Someone whose workplace has become deeply hostile cannot just stop coming to work.

    That’s why harassment is illegal in the workplace even though it is protected speech elsewhere: when it is permitted, it disadvantages minority groups through no fault of their own, and makes it more difficult for them to participate in the workforce.

    Hate-crimes laws are completely different. They arise out of the same desire to make people more equal and more safe, but they’re not otherwise related. A hate-crime describes an act that is always a crime: murder, theft, rape, assault, vandalism. A hate-crime law adds a greater penalty to that crime when it is committed as an act of hatred against a minority group. Hate-crimes laws have nothing to do with employment law.

  6. Wrong, hate crime legislation help get revenge for past wrongs. That’s why the penalty for killing a gay man is greater than for killing a straight man. It’s an “enhancement”, as if the murder were not enough.

    It’s because hate crimes are very often the equivalent of a terrorist act against anyone of the group targeted. It’s not just the crime, it’s about the ideological display of the attackers. Otherwise, terror attacks would be prosecuted as crimes of murder and property damage instead of specifically as terrorist activity. It’s not just about one gay person, it’s also to show that “their kind” aren’t tolerated. It’s not about assaulting or killing purely as a personal punitive measure, it’s a vulgar display of brutally insecure power.

  7. Hate-crimes laws have nothing to do with employment law.

    I know you can’t help but nuance it, but the concepts are roughly the same. They in effect help avenge the past by ensuring that men are now behind the 8 ball, guilty at the outset of the allegation. That’s how it’s implemented in the majority of workplaces today, the above example notwithstanding. I could be wrong though. I’m sure I don’t have nearly your legal acumen nor sociological insight.

  9. Dear Thomas, you are straight. Deal.

    As for Emily the fired sex harrasser, when her own version of the story is that full of holes, I agree with her that leaving that place was probably the best decision for everyone. Treating the new “girl” to some sort of ebonics-style comment about how good she looks? Totally inappropriate, I don’t care where you work.

    Sex harrassment is serious, and harrassment policy enforcement is very important. And frankly, Nerve is the type of publication that would publish a story like that NOT to point out the double-standard concerning gay and lesbian sex (which is prevalent and a huge problem), but to use the double-standard to get everyone to feeling sorry for harrassers. Which ultimately reinforces in straight men’s minds that they can harrass women if they’re “Nerve” and “edgy” enough to claim they’re discriminated against, too.

    Take Thomas, for example. Stating that one is a lesbian is not equivalent to a woman hearing a man discuss what kind of sex he has with women. The fact that this story made him feel he’s “closeted” because he can’t tell women about his sex life proves my point.

  10. What happened to her is indeed illegal, right? I mean, last I heard, it shouldn’t matter what or who you do in your spare time. What were those people afraid of? Catching gayness?

  11. Reading the whole article, I kind of feel like her behavior was out of line. I’d definitely be uncomfortable if someone had leveled that kind of attention at me. That said, she definitely should have only been warned – I’m surprised someone could be fired for such hostile-workplace-type behavior of that limited intensity. Definitely exaggerated b/c of her sexuality.

  12. Pepper, no, what happened is not illegal. She was fired for violating the sexual harrassment policy, which she did indeed violate.

    Assuming the male ex-co-worker who said he hadn’t been punished for similar incidents is telling the truth, the policy was selectively enforced on her. Though firing her but not a straight man who acted similarly is unfair and discriminatory in a broad sense, it that isn’t necessarily illegal, as in most places in the US orientation isn’t a protected class like race or sex.

    In the absence of sexual orientation antidiscrimination laws, she might still be able to prove it was illegal if she could prove she was singled out for being female rather than for being a lesbian. But that would be very difficult to prove, as it would require proving incidences of harrassment in which she was not involved.

  13. Having worked for a long time in the food service industry, most of her behavior is not unlike a lot of stuff I have seen. Not that it is excusable, but for all the talk about sexuality in the workplace it stands that the workplace is still highly sexualized in my experience. I know nothing of corporate atmospheres.

    I have seen things that constitute real sexual harassment. I think the grossest was getting corned in a walk-in freezer by a manager who then made sexual advances. He was fired after I and a few others came forth to report his behavior to a higher boss.

  14. Workplaces being highly sexualized has nothing to do with what constitutes “real” sexual harrassment. And commenting on a coworker’s level of attractiveness isn’t surreal harrassment, particularly when that coworker is a member of the sex you date.

    Service jobs are usually much laxer than office jobs, but that doesn’t make her behavior any more within the bounds of their policy.

  15. I can understand immediate firing in cases of quid quo pro sexual harrassment, but most office policies (and I thought the law) would require a discussion and a warning with the alleged “harrasser”, and then more severe punishment if the behavior is repeated.

  16. Incidentally, Rob is as accurate in his characterization of hate crime laws as he is in most other things. Hate crime laws add penalties for crimes targeted at victims due to the victim’s perceived race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. A Black man kills a white man because he’s white? That’s a hate crime. A gay street gang picks a random straight guy to attack based on his straightness? Hate crime. If the black gay thugs pick out someone they presume to be a straght white man and beat the crap out of him, only later to find out their victim was actyually black and gay? Hate crime.

  17. Anonymous, you missed my point. Folks outside the sexual mainstream — GLBT or otherwise — are under a microscope, and behavior that is not a sexual advance gets read as if it were.

  18. but most office policies (and I thought the law) would require a discussion and a warning with the alleged “harrasser”, and then more severe punishment if the behavior is repeated.

    I had the misfortune to work in corporate HR for a few years (not many options where I was living). In the past this statement was true, but as sexual harassment awards balloon, more and more companies take on “zero tolerance” policies, so it’s possible that what happened in this case was by the book.

    I do suspect that the enforcement was selective, and her sexuality played a big role. A lot of times homophobes have bizarre ear horns that amplify gayness. Merely being open about your sexuality and talking casually about your parnter – or even just correcting people when they assume you are straight – is labled with the very played “flaunting.” The same people will go onandonandon about their spouses and the dating habits of celebrities.

    As for corporate environments – it’s like an alternate reality, and no satire I’ve seen overstates the wierdness (though they don’t really show how boring it all is). I’ve had people cry to me about bad photocopies and misplaced staples – Office Space, Clockwatchers and the rest… it’s really like that.

  19. A lot of times homophobes have bizarre ear horns that amplify gayness.

    Quote of the week.

    Some of the behavior she describes is a little odd, but WTF is with the cartwheeling? When did cartwheels become harassment?

  20. I think–I’m confused, as well–that the, erm, cartwheeling incident was harassment because the writer mimed as though she was going to flash onlookers. Probably while her feet were in the air, when her shirt could have fallen down over her shoulders anyway. Not sexual flashing, just, “Look at me make a fool of myself!” I don’t think the come-on connotation would have occurred to me, either.

    And I’m not comfortable with this idea:

    Workplaces being highly sexualized has nothing to do with what constitutes “real” sexual harrassment. And commenting on a coworker’s level of attractiveness isn’t surreal harrassment, particularly when that coworker is a member of the sex you date.

    So, lesbians should be treated differently from straight women after all? What about potentially-sexualized attention from straight women towards coworkers who are known to be dykes? Should they be extra careful, too, lest “I love your hair!” be construed as harassment?

  21. Something else to consider is that the writer (like all of us) is remembering her own actions in the best light, so to really be able to judge this situation, I would want to witness it myself – or at least hear the other side.

    A highly sexualized workplace is a “hostile work environment” that is both part of the legislated definition of sexual harassment and the most common form of sexual harassment. Quid pro quo sexual harassment (where a boss requires sexual favors for a promotion or some other such reciprocal relationship) is very rare at this point (sexual harassment laws, and dumb movies have had a profound effect on this phenomenon.)

  22. Something else to consider is that the writer (like all of us) is remembering her own actions in the best light, so to really be able to judge this situation, I would want to witness it myself – or at least hear the other side.

    Good point. And even the writer seems to admit that she isn’t entirely clear on why her behavior was construed as harassment.

  23. Also off of what otherRyan said:

    There are two broad categories within sexual harassment law.

    quid pro quo: “Sleep with me and I’ll give you a promotion.” Or sexual attention from a superior. Sometimes, quid pro quo is implied: if an employee just happens to notice that lots of other employees who sleep with the boss get perks, she might be able to bring a sexual-harassment claim even if she was never propositioned herself.

    hostile environment: pornographic pictures, sexual or sexist jokes, comments on appearance, sexualized conversations. These do not have to be personal or misogynist to make people, particularly women, very uncomfortable; therefore, they do not have to be personal or misogynist to fall under the definition of hostile environment. Take the recent Friends case as an example: a woman who wrote for Friends claimed that her workplace environment was hostile because she had to listen to the rest of the writing staff talk about how much they’d like to bone Rachel.

    There’s also retaliation: negative consequences when you complain about sexual harassment of any kind, opt out of a sexualized work environment, or refuse advances.

  24. 1. For one thing, temps seldom get policy warnings, they just get discontinued. The article’s a little unclear about whether she was an employee or still working through the placement/temporary agency.

    2. Thomas, I got your point plenty. You think your straight bondage behavior is “outside the mainstream” just like being gay/lesbian is. You are wrong. And I think it is not only inappropriate but also hostile for you to tell a female coworker about being a BDSM practitioner. Outing oneself as gay or lesbian is NOT comparable to that.

    3. Piny, no, lesbians shouldn’t be treated differently than straight women. If a straight woman made a spectacle of a new coworker by introducing him as “This is Robert, he FINE,” she should be treated the same as a lesbian. But not, I think, the same as a man saying it to a woman. Comments about appearance are considered by most people to be more harmful the more apparent it is that the commenter is sexually objectifying a coworker. A straight woman telling another straight woman, “hey, that blouse is HOT!” is not the same dynamic as a straight man saying it to a woman. And while I’m sure there’s no legal way to measure objectification dynamics, I think that’s the right way to frame workplace morality questions.

  25. Piny, regarding misogyny, I wanted to point out that there’s more to the “Friends” case than mentioning that one wants to have sex with Rachel.

    http://writ.news.findlaw.com/grossman/20040504.html

    The alleged comments Lyle lists in her complaint revolve around certain themes. One theme is banter about the actresses on “Friends”: discussion of which ones the writers would like to have sex with and, if they did, different sexual acts the writers would like to try; speculation about with which “Friends” actresses the writers had missed opportunities to have sex; speculation about the supposed infertility of one of the “Friends” actresses; its supposed cause (her “dried up pussy”); and speculation about the sexual activities of the “Friends” actresses with their partners. She also complains of derogatory words used to describe women.

    Another theme of the alleged comments was the personal sexual preferences and experiences of the writers, emphasizing anal sex, oral sex, big breasts, young girls and cheerleaders.

    Then there were the drawings: cheerleaders with exposed breasts and vaginas; “dirty” coloring books; and penned alterations to ordinary words on the script to make “happiness” say “penis” or to make “persistence” say “pert tits”.

    Finally, the sexual gestures cited in Lyle’s complaint include: pantomiming male masturbation and banging under the desk to make it sound like someone masturbating.

  26. 3. Piny, no, lesbians shouldn’t be treated differently than straight women. If a straight woman made a spectacle of a new coworker by introducing him as “This is Robert, he FINE,” she should be treated the same as a lesbian. But not, I think, the same as a man saying it to a woman. Comments about appearance are considered by most people to be more harmful the more apparent it is that the commenter is sexually objectifying a coworker. A straight woman telling another straight woman, “hey, that blouse is HOT!” is not the same dynamic as a straight man saying it to a woman. And while I’m sure there’s no legal way to measure objectification dynamics, I think that’s the right way to frame workplace morality questions.

    That’s not what I meant. Should a straight woman be allowed to say things to another woman that a gay woman can’t? And should a straight woman be allowed to speak to a gay woman in ways that a gay woman would not be allowed to speak to her?

    And I’m familiar with the case. I didn’t mean to imply that the Friends complaint was limited to that problem, merely that it did count as an example of hostile-environment sexuality even though it was not specifically misogynist or directed at the plaintiff. The AA case is the same way: even if Dov Charney weren’t also guilty of behavior that can definitely be construed as quid-pro-quo (IIRC), creating a deeply sexualized work environment counts as creating a hostile environment.

  27. I didn’t mean to imply that the Friends complaint was limited to that problem, merely that it did count as an example of hostile-environment sexuality even though it was not specifically misogynist or directed at the plaintiff.

    Wait, that’s unclear. I mean that it would have qualified even without the context of the other behaviors she complained about.

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  29. Anonymous, I do not think that being a sadomasochist is “just like” being gay, lesbian, bi or trans. All of those things are, of course, a much larger part of one’s life, and having to hide them is a much, much bigger imposition. If you think I was asserting that the situations are indistinguishable, I’m telling you that’s not what I meant to convey.

    I do contend that BDSM is outside the mainstream — it’s just easier to hide because it involves a narrower part of my life. (But for me and for some of us, it really is who we are rather than what we do — Pat Califia (pre-transition) famously said he’d rather be trapped on a desert island with a leatherman than a vanilla dyke). The fundamentalists would hang me just the same as they’d hang all the gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders, and if I don’t stand up for those folks, they will not be around when the bad people come after me.

  30. our country is so backwards about sex. we cant talk about without giggling, angry, embarassed, or offended. Sexual Harassment law is a band-aid on a stab wound. American ideas about sexuality, people’s sexual behaviors are so bass-ackwards… I feel as if people were not so shamed about sex and sexuality in the first place half the problem would go away. People are sexual creatures… isnt it ridiculous to ban sex and sexual expression in the workplace? Or in any forum?

  31. Sexual Harassment law is a band-aid on a stab wound.

    So what if it’s a band aid? Like I said above, quid pro quo sexual harassment has been reduced pretty dramatically. The “band aid” law you’re belittling has changed culture and eased one of the most eggregious mechanisms of gender discrimination in the workplace as our culture transitions towards women’s equity at work. You’re mixing up the problem of puritanical sex oppression with sexism. They are linked, but in this case a distinction is important because of the power and privilege dynamics involved.

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