Is it safe to bring myself to work? Understanding LGBTQ experiences of workplace dignity

Abstract

Despite increased efforts by more organizations to be seen as "gay-friendly," workplaces remain challenging sites for LGBTQ employees to navigate. We examine the ways in which LGBTQ employees experience dignity threats in the workplace and the protection strategies they use to deflect those threats. Interviews with 36 LGBTQ working adults revealed that their dignity is threatened by a range of identitysensitive inequalities that undermine their safety and security when they claim authentic gendered/sexual identities. Specific safety and security threats to dignity include social harm, autonomy violations, career harm, and physical harm. To (re)claim their dignity, they engage in four primary dignity protection strategies: avoiding harm by seeking safe spaces, deflecting harm with sexual identity management, offsetting identity devaluations by emphasizing instrumental value, and creating safe spaces for authenticity and dignity.

Workplace Dignity: Communicating Inherent, Earned, and Remediated Dignity

“…For instance, Sayer () asserted that one's experience of dignity relies upon ‘words and deeds’, as respectful communication recognizes another person as ‘someone who is more than what they do for a living, who demands respect simply as a person’ (p. 572; see also Bolton, ; Hodson, ). Additionally, numerous empirical studies noted violations of human dignity that arose from rude or disrespectful interaction (e.g., Apostolidis, ; Baker, ; Cleaveland, ). The current study extends this original thinking by revealing that communication is not limited to meeting desires for respectful interaction associated with inherent dignity, but instead plays an equally prominent role in the earned and remediated components.…”

“…Another response to dignity threats is engaging in resistance, such as absenteeism, labour organizing, striking, sabotage, and quitting (Cleaveland, ; Hodson, ; Roscigno and Hodson, ; Stuesse, ). Resistance to indignity also has been shown to be: subtle, such as cynicism communicated by employees rejecting offensive organizational cultures (Fleming, ); productive, such as advocacy and organizing efforts by LGBTQ employees experiencing dignity threats due to sexual orientation and/or gender expression (Baker, ); and creative, such as the myriad tactics captured in a collection of organizational misbehaviour narratives (e.g., wearing ugly ties to resist a company dress code; Karlsson, ).…”

“…In fact, Bolton () says, ‘to date there are only limited available insights into what dignity at work might mean to workers and managers in their day‐to‐day working lives [and] how this impacts upon their experiences of work’ (p. 161). Instead, dignity research tends to draw upon researchers’ a priori assumptions, retrospective interpretations, and/or outsider judgments of dignity (for exceptions, see Baker, ; Khademi et al, ; Lucas, ). While researcher‐centred interpretations may indeed reflect judgments consistent with workers’ lived experience, much more needs to be done to privilege subjective meanings to gain a full sense of the meanings and experiences of both indignity and dignity in workers’ lives as they navigate the instrumental and unequal world of work.…”

Development and Validation of the Workplace Dignity Scale

“…The majority of research to date has been conducted with ethnographic methods, which has revealed rich and nuanced accounts of problematic workplaces, employee vulnerabilities, and responses to dignity threats ranging from identity work and coping to resistance and retaliation. For example, researchers have studied the abuse and humiliation of nurses (Khademi, Mohammadi, & Vanaki, 2012), the social and career harms inflicted on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) employees (Baker & Lucas, 2017), the stigmatization of custodians (Rabelo, 2017), the undervalued occupational status of child care workers (Nelson & Lewis, 2016), the economic insecurity of day laborers (Purser, 2009), the objectification of fashion models (Mears & Finlay, 2005), and the dehumanization of professional athletes (Dufur & Feinberg, 2007), to name only some. On one hand, this ethnographic approach is a strength as it points to the multitude of ways dignity can be threatened in the workplace.…”

Validating the Workplace Dignity Scale

“…Research undertaken on workplace dignity thus far has primarily relied on ethnographic methods, exploring, for example: the lived experience of nurses facing dignity violations (Khademi et al, 2012), discursive analyses of neoliberal discourse of dirty work (Purser, 2009), and the protection strategies that minority groups use when facing workplace dignity violations (Baker & Lucas, 2017). These idiographic approaches demonstrate the breadth of manifestations of workplace dignity.…”