Sexuality as a Diversity Factor: An Examination of Awareness

Abstract

The problem and the solution. Lack of awareness of the facets of sexuality-sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sexual attraction-can be stressful and distracting, has the potential for creating workplace misunderstandings and tension, and may lead to allegations of unfair treatment and/or a hostile work environment.The purpose of this article is to examine how facets of sexuality may be viewed differently within the same workplace context, based on individual employees' stage of awareness development around each facet. The results of an exploratory study demonstrate that employees within the same workplace context have different stages of awareness development around the five facets of sexuality. The results also show that the awareness development around sexual orientation and gender identity is substantially different-less developed-than the awareness development for sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual attraction.The discussion includes implications for practice.Lifestyle and societal attitude changes around aspects of diversity are occurring at such a rapid pace and with such complexity that they are sometimes difficult to manage. Much of the inequity in organizations occurs because managers treat employees the same and differences are ignored (Wilson, 1997). Effectively managing diversity means acknowledging differences, including "acknowledging individual employee needs and then accommodating these needs" (Wilson, 1997, p. 18). Told to treat every employee the same in compliance with statutes on workplace equity, managers are confused when told to treat employees differently because of individuals' diversity. Sensemaking-developing understanding and a subsequent course of actionabout aspects of workforce diversity is difficult (Roberson & Stevens, 2006).

Effectively Facilitating Gender Transition in the Workplace

“…Employees may be unfamiliar with what being transgender truly means, and defining general terms and concepts can be beneficial in the organization as confusion on this topic abounds. One recent study, for example, found that employees in the same workplace context can have substantially different levels of awareness around gender identity, and sexuality more generally (Kormanik 2009). The clarification of responsibilities will help to give a sense of what each party's role in the process is (HRC 2008).…”

“…And managers and supervisors must understand that they are responsible for ensuring their staff remains productive and professional. An employee who feels unfairly treated, ostracized or neglected will likely experience stress, distractions at work, and/or lower performance (Kormanik 2009). …”

Queering the Workplace

“…However, employers can help workers understand the experiences of, and challenges faced by, GLB employees as opportunities clearly exist to enhance capacity in an attempt to foster a supportive work climate and a truly diverse workplace. Kormanik (2009) articulates that people are at different stages of understanding the various facets of sexuality, described as sex discrimination, were decisions are based on sex or gender; sexual harassment, a form of sex discrimination, which includes inappropriate behaviors; sexual orientation, which describes attraction toward the same and/or opposite sex; gender identity, which is an individual's sense of being male or female; and sexual attraction, described as an individual's inclination toward another person. Using his cycle of awareness development model, Kormanik examined individuals' awareness of the various facets of sexuality with respect to pre-encounter, where there are no experiences with the issue; intellectualization, where there is recognition of the issue, with little involvement; encounter, where an individual has experience with the issue, but may or may not alter existing schema; empowerment, where an individual has experience with the issue and personal judgments are suspended in favor of understanding; and integration, where the person has been transformed and old schemas are replaced with new ones.…”

“…Creating a workplace environment conducive to these positive outcomes is the responsibility of managers and supervisors; however, Kormanik (2009) attributes workplace inequities to management attempting to treat all employees the same. Indeed, for workplace engagement equity to exist, management must explore ways to navigate the muddy waters of workplace diversity in order to fully engage GLB people.…”

An Investigation of the Underlying Mechanism of Discrimination: The Prototype Matching Model

“…Early discrimination research focused largely on sex (e.g., Arvey, 1979;Fidell, 1970;Goldberg, 1968;Rosen & Jerdee, 1974) and race (e.g., deJung & Kaplan, 1962;Farr, O'Leary, & Bartlett, 1971;Fox & Lefkowitz, 1974;Landy & Farr, 1973;Schmidt & Johnson, 1973; see Landy and Farr, 1980, for review). More recently however, interest in a wider range of characteristics (e.g., weight, Puhl & Heuer, 2009;Roehling, 1999;sexual orientation, Croteau, 1996;Kormanik, 2009;Lee Badgett, 1995) has grown.…”