Over a decade ago, LGBTQ+ Americans couldn’t serve freely in the military. The “Defense of Marriage Act” prohibited same-sex couples from being given the same treatment as heteronormative couples under federal law. It was a time when violence against LGBTQ+ Americans was not legally acknowledged as a hate crime by the U.S. government. But even now, many years later, discrimination in the workplace is still an issue that almost half of LGBTQ+ Americans face.
According to one UCLA Law School report, nearly one in 10 LGBTQ+ Americans have experienced discrimination in the workplace, with a whopping 46% of LGBTQ+ workers report incidents of unfair treatment at some time in their career because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Rita Casaverde is the executive director of the Diversity Coalition San Luis Obispo County. The group’s mission is to create and uphold a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community through education and advocacy work. Casaverde said discrimination in the workplace can take many forms.
"I think discrimination, especially to the LGBTQ community is anytime that you would make a person feel uncomfortable about showing up as they are," Casaverde said. "Hey, this happens with skin color, this happens with your sexuality, with the way that you dress, with your gender, with your pronouns. And it goes beyond, because it can become systemic."
A 2021 journal article from Harvard and Princeton scholars describes systemic racism as “the processes and outcomes of racial inequality and inequity in life opportunities and treatment.” It is deeply rooted in institutional and social structures, and even collective beliefs, habits and behaviors that uphold the unjust treatment and oppression of marginalized communities — such as people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. Casaverde said it can have harmful health and societal consequences.
"If those are practices that your, for example, company or organization is actually allowing at an organization level, then it should be unlawful," Casaverde said. "And I think there's so much more to learn from each organization on how we already do it, without us realizing — without a lot of us realizing that we are discriminating against [others]."
Casaverde has been doing advocacy work since she was living in Peru years ago. She feels a deep connection working alongside undocumented people, in particular. She works with SLO County UndocuSupport, a nonprofit that helps immigrant families access financial support they’re not eligible to receive from the government.
Casaverde said her work with Undocusupport has shown her how being part of multiple marginalized groups at once can lead to even more workplace prejudice.
"For example, being undocumented, or being an immigrant and being LGBTQ now, being a person of color, having a darker skin than most people — are each one of those things overlaps and creates more and more discrimination," Casaverde said. "And it can make you feel more isolated."
This feeling of isolation, especially in the workplace, can lead to many negative health outcomes. The American Psychological Association calls discrimination a public health issue that affects people's mental and physical health.
"We need to create brave spaces — a space where somebody’s gonna say something that makes somebody uncomfortable, but we are still going to be like, ‘Alright, let’s deconstruct that. Let’s talk about it.’"Dale Morenx
Ruby Balcazar is a licensed marriage and family therapist and the clinical director for SLO County’s Council on Adolescent Mental Health. She’s been in the mental health field for over a decade and has seen the negative effects discrimination in the workplace has had on the LGBTQ+ community.
"It affects not only their performance at work, but also in their personal lives, you know, challenging themselves," Balcazar said. "Where, questioning to the point like, ‘Should I even have come out of the closet in the first place? Do I even want to continue to go through transition?’ You know, so it does make an impact on their mental health."
Dale Morenx is a transfer student at Cal Poly. She works as a waitress at a restaurant in downtown San Luis Obispo, where she sometimes feels out of a place as a queer person of color.
"Unfortunately, racism is something that I do see," Morenx said. "I think it’s just [that] I have that face, you know — I look indigenous, I'm brown."
Morenx said there was one instance where she was looking for housing and was called an “illegal alien,” though she is here on the DACA program and likes to refer to herself as “DACA-umented.”
She isn’t “out” at work, but she said her act of rebellion is taking up space in places she may not be wanted.
"Sometimes, like, even when I go partying, there's certain things that my white friends could get away with," Morenx said. "But if we get caught up drinking or being somewhere [we’re] not supposed to, I'm pretty much the one they're gonna come, like, bother, you know, and that has happened."
"So, I find a lot of comfort in the fact that my existence in SLO and in Cal Poly — which is a dominantly white campus — I feel like that's my form of revolution, you know, taking up space," she said.
Morenx worked at a well-known restaurant in downtown San Luis Obispo before her current position. She’s an experienced waitress, but was surprised to be hired because they didn’t seem to usually hire people of color. She said she soon found herself assigned to the back of the restaurant while less experienced hires waited tables.
"And it took me a while to understand, why would you put this person who doesn't necessarily, like, have the experience but they look the part, right, like colors — you know, blonde hair color, blue eyes, you know?" Morenx said. "How do they get sent, but I ended up being the runner in the back, right? So again, micro-aggressions."
Morenx said her experiences with micro-aggressions and racism at work have pushed her to “check out” mentally in the break room before the day begins. But it’s her coworkers' experiences that have shocked her the most — especially in an instance of an older woman she worked with who didn’t speak much English.
"There was this dishwasher woman and she was like, ‘I want to go on vacation,’ and I asked her, ‘What do you have, sick days? Like, sick pay?’ And she's like, ‘I didn't even know I got that.’"
"And I told her exactly how to do it, like, ‘Request a month in advance,'" Morenx said. "'Say you want to use your sick days,’ [and] I guess she had a bunch because she's never taken them. I remember my manager coming up to me and, again, not scolding me, but just being like, ‘Well, did you tell her she could do that?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, because that's the law and she can.’"
This unfair treatment is a nationwide problem, especially as many states are passing anti-LGBTQ+ laws like Tennessee’s recent ban on public drag performances — and the more than 450 bills being considered that target LGBTQ+ rights. However, there is some progress at the federal level, like President Biden's 2021 executive order protecting LGBTQ+ federal employees from discrimination and theEquality Act moving through Congress.
Ruby Balcazar said she has seen instances with her own clients where their career growth has been affected by coming out, whether it’s about their sexuality or gender identity.
"They can't go up the ladder anymore, sometimes to the point that they feel like they have to quit," she said. "It's illegal to discriminate and get fired for that."
Balcazar said being a company that embraces LGBTQ+ people takes more than simply not discriminating against them — it takes acknowledgment that diversity is important. Having diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training, holding people accountable when they don’t follow that training, and encouraging allies to speak up when they see an issue are all practices that both Balcazar and Morenx said would help foster a more inclusive workspace.
"I think accountability and having somebody actually do something about the [discriminatory acts] that are being committed," Morenx said. "We need to create brave spaces — a space where somebody’s gonna say something that makes somebody uncomfortable, but we are still going to be like, ‘Alright, let’s deconstruct that. Let’s talk about it.’"
We’re going to talk about it on next week’s episode of In Between. We’ll look at the need for safe and brave spaces in SLO County, particularly looking at how to create queer-friendly areas outside of the city of San Luis Obispo. We’ll talk to people who are creating their own spaces and how the LGBTQ+ community is benefiting from this inclusivity.
In Between is made possible by a grant from the Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County.
