Towards a Politics of the Rainbow by Jill C. Humphrey

Author:Jill C. Humphrey [Humphrey, Jill C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781351744034
Google: Te1HDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 14822715
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2002-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART III

THE COLOUR PURPLE

6 Out of the Workplace Closet

This working lives of lesbians and gay men in the public sector are the centre-piece of this chapter, since it is workplace discriminations which prompted the development of self-organization in public sector trade unions in the first place. Whilst much of this material has already been published elsewhere (Humphrey, 1999 b), I have incorporated new material which is particularly pertinent to the trade union setting of this book. The chapter opens with an account of the historical discriminations facing lesbian and gay employees, and ends with a discussion of sexual politics in public sector organizations. The bulk of the chapter consists of an analysis of case-study material from over twenty members of the UNISON lesbian and gay group who were interviewed during the second stage of the project. The majority of interviewees were employed in large bureaucratic organizations such as social services departments, housing departments and health authorities, but a few worked in smaller agencies in the voluntary sector. All of them could be classified as professionals or managers – whilst about half of them were qualified social workers, the others included counsellors, community workers, trainers, HIV/AIDS workers, a housing manager and a solicitor. Since many of them had incorporated consultancy on sexuality and other equalities issues into their professional role they were far from representative of most lesbian and gay workers. However, these atypical profiles do enable us to explore the nature of career trajectories beyond the closet, and I shall delineate three of these pathways. The first is the ‘out and proud’ pathway chosen by almost everyone in the study, although the closet may continue to cast shadows over out and proud people. The second is the ‘out and persecuted’ pathway – here, the strategy of being out and proud backfires in terrible ways, so that public servants are condemned for their private perversity, which may result in compulsory outings in the national media. The third is the ‘out and pursued’ pathway – here, the specialist skills and knowledges of lesbian and gay staff are treated as a resource to be mobilized for the benefit of employers, colleagues and citizens. It should be noted at the outset that these pathways are not mutually exclusive, and several of my colleagues have lived and laboured at the intersection of all three pathways for long periods of time. It is also noteworthy that the trade union’s response to the most serious incidents of workplace oppressions still leaves a lot to be desired.

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