Am I Ready To Hire Queer Here?

Jul 22

Dear straight-led nonprofits and allies,

We live in an age where the divesity hires start as a checkbox on a list. Women? Check. People of color? Check. Young people? Check. LGBTQIA+? Check.

Simply checking diversity off your list does not make you welcoming or affirming. In fact, this may be a reason your diverse employees are leaving. It’s time to move beyond hiring “the office gay” and time to truly embrace inclusive practices.

Today’s inclusive practice: hiring LGBTQIA+ employees. Is your organization ready to hire queer people? Another way to ask would be: do queer people want to work at your organization? Before we dive into the list, it’s important to note that the LGBTQIA+ community is a community of communities – we don’t all look, act, or think the same. We often disagree with each other, and the right things for some of us are not the right things for all of us. The list below is designed to broad and encompassing of a very large intersection of diversity.

Do you have any current LGBTQIA+ staff?

An easy way to discover this, without straight up asking each employee if they are queer, is to conduct a staff (and board) census. Among standard demographic data like age, geographic location, marital status, etc., you can also ask about sexual orientation and gender identity. Staff demographics are often requested by grant funders, so this is not unusual data for your organization to collect.

This should also be conducted anonymously. Chances are, if your organization is seeking to hire LGBTQIA+ people, the ones who currently work there choose not to self identify because they don’t feel safe or comfortable in doing so.

Before you start projecting your initiative to priorotize hiring LGBTQIA+ people, it’s best if you know if you have any or not first, as to avoid the tone deafness of telling your staff “we have no LGBTQIA+ people on staff, so we need to find some now!”
Are your hiring practices LGBTQIA+ inclusive?

Are queer people even seeing your job postings? If you tend to post your job opportunities at “the usual” spots, you’ll receive applications from “the usual” crowd (which is straight people). So, you need to put your jobs in front of queer people.

Putting your organization in a space that is meant just for the LGBTQIA+ community communicates to the LGBTQIA+ job applicants that you are 1) comfortable in that space, and 2) you are familiar with where to find them. (Don’t be too proud, this doesn’t mean you know how to talk to them;)
Do you have LGBTQIA+-inclusive, anti-discrimination employee policies?

A typical anti-discrimination policy in an employee handbook typically includes protected classes like sex, gender, age, disability status, etc. It’s important to point out that “sex” does not equal “sexual orientation.” Sex, for all intents and purposes, defines the genitalia of a person. Here’s a wrench: what if someone doesn’t binarily have the components of the male or female reproductive organs? Someone fitting this description is defined as an intersex person (the I in LGBTQIA+). Further, “gender” does not encompass “gender expression” or “sexual characteristics.” Someone’s perceived gender based on their sex may not match society’s normal portrayal of that gender. Does your anti-discrimination policy cover that?

Is your Human Resources team well-versed in LGBTQIA+ cultural competency? Are they aware of your state’s or the federal anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTQIA+ people
What does your healthcare coverage actually cover?

Healthcare is a significant competent of a job when an LGBTQIA+ person is considering working for you. First, your healthcare policy needs to cover transgender health needs like gender-affirming surgery, hormones, medicine, therapy, among others. In a country where healthcare is more often than not tethered to our employers, where Transgender people choose to work can literally be a matter of life and death.

As a intersectional minority, LGBTQIA+ people experience health disparities at increased rates as compared to their heterosexual peers. This is not to say that straight people don’t have health issues or don’t deserve proper healthcare – because they do, healthcare is a human right – but it simply acknowledges that LGBTQIA+ people have a more difficult time receiving care for increased health risks and issues solely based on their LGBTQIA+ identity. Entire organizations and networks exist just to combat these disparities – and there are a lot. Your healthcare policies should include coverage, to start, for cancer care, mental health treatment, HIV treatment, and more. The list goes on.
How are staff members who are parents/guardians treated within your organization?

If you first thought of “maternal leave” when thinking about your employees who are parents, you’ve got some work to do. It is also a disservice to the LGBTQIA+ community to assume all queer couples are D.I.N.K.s – double income, no kids. LGBTQIA+ people make great parents, and our community has fought long and hard to achieve the rights we have today for child adoption and contraception. LGBTQIA+ couples can look like two men, two women, two non-binary people, even one man and one woman. Make sure your policy is a “parental leave” policy and not just for women. Besides, believe it or not – though it’s not common, it does happen – “women” (or people expressing themselves the way society defines a woman), are not the only people with uteri capable of giving birth (I’m taking about transgender men here).
What happens when harassment occurs between staff members?

This could be harassment between any two staff members, not only involving an LGBTQIA+ person. Does your organization follow through with discipline? If your straight cis-women are being harassed and there is no punishment or consequences being doled out, a queer person has no hope of being protected by your system.

Similarly, if your organization does punish harrassers for harassing straight cis employees, but allows for transgender people to be misgendered and deadnamed…well, I would hope you don’t have any transgender employees.
In what sort of DEI trainings does your organization participate?

If you’ve read this far, and your mind has collapsed into hopeless despair because your organization has a lot of opportunity for growth, let’s talk about DEI training. Specifically, LGBTQIA+ cultural competency training. This is a very simple and effective way to partner with experts in your community who can train your staff on all levels over a variety of topics as identified as the most pressing needs of your organization to make sure that you are operating inclusively.

Cultural context is always changing, too, so this is not a once and done, OK we’re experts after a single one-hour training! No, you need to continuously train your staff, new and experienced, despite how well you think you know the community.

And don’t, for the love of Lady Gaga, don’t ask your LGBTQIA+ employees to do this training for your staff. First, it’s not their job. And second, that puts them in an extremely uncomfortable situation, not to mention the whack power dynamics it creates.
Does your organization provide services for the LGBTQIA+ community?

This one may be obvious. While there are organizations and mission that have no business specifically serving the LGBTQIA+ community, your existing services should at the very least address LGBTQIA+ disparities that exist within your mission.

I also know queer people who have no interest in working for LGBTQIA+-specific organizations. We live as LGBTQIA+ every day, which, in the current state of the world, can be fucking exhausting. For some queer people, being a professional homosexual – someone who is exposed to the disparities and injustices against our community all day long at work too – is just too much weight to bare.
Who does your organization partner with and/or support?

LGBTQIA+ people tend to do their research, especially when making a life-altering decision like where to work. You aren’t just making sure they are the right fit for you; they need to make sure you are the right fit for them. You need to make sure you aren’t partnering or supporting any organizations that are blatantly engaging in anti-LGBTQIA+ practices or behavior. Straight-led organizations can all do better in being more LGBTQIA+ inclusive, sure, and so an organization who is trying or even being performative is better than organization which is actively anti-LGBTQIA+.
How does your organization react to uncomfortable conversations/situations?

By this I mean how does your organization stand up for the LGBTQIA+ community, especially when they aren’t in the room or at the table? Are you uplifting LGBTQIA+ voices in your community in the face of disaster, or are you choosing to ignore a problem “that doesn’t affect you”? Supporting LGBTQIA+ issues – both local and national, and yes both matter very much – loudly and proudly, goes a long way and will be noticed by the right people.

You may be thinking this “Am I Ready to Hire Queer Here” list has produced more questions than answers for you. Which is a good thing. You need to keep asking yourself questions. If you think you’re done with becoming the ultimate LGBTQIA+ inclusive entity, that’s when you need to start sweating.

Once you start actively putting effort into making progress, LGBTQIA+ people will notice. Some may even be inspired to help you as “the office gay.” Our standards for where we want to work vary across an immeasurable spectrum, but as soon as you start asking “Am I ready to hire queer here?” then you’ve made the correct first step in the right direction. But we’ll be watching you the entire way.

Sincerely,

Queers

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