Over the years, I've had a lot of emails asking me what it's like to be 'out' as a gay guy working in investment banking, for example I did a 'Dear GB' posting about it last year. On this subject, I recently had an interesting conversation with a young gay guy called M who works at the same bank as me as a junior sales person but on a different trading floor. Having established that we're both gay, we ended up going out for drinks together one evening.
"Have you always been 'out' at the bank?" I ask him, when we eventually get onto the subject of being gay.
"Yes," replies M, "I've never hidden it. Actually the guy who recruited me was gay, although I ended up reporting to a different guy who originally didn't know."
"But your boss knows now I guess?"
"Yes, one day he asked me outright, in the middle of the trading floor!"
"Really? What on earth did you say?"
"I just said Of course I'm gay! and carried on with my work, it's not a big deal to me. I'm sure I could make a complaint to the personnel department about harassment or something, but it wouldn't get me anywhere. My boss doesn't mind anyway, he just wanted to know."
"Actually," continues M, "I was getting a price on a deal from one of the traders recently when the trader suddenly sneered at me and said I'm not used to working with GAYS. I guess the news had spread!"
"So what did you do?"
"I simply said Well I'm not used to working with arseholes! and walked off. Since then, no one's mentioned it!"
I think this guy has got the perfect attitude for dealing with his colleagues in the banking environment. However, the only reason he can pull it off is because of his high level of confidence, and the fact that in his mind he's dealt with all the issues relating to being gay so that it's now just one component of who he is. None the less, it does prove that with the right personality, being gay isn't a problem in investment banking these days :-).
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