Email from an out gay guy who works for a bank

Just under 4 weeks ago, I got an email about the prejudices that straight guys can have about working with gay guys. The email was as follows:

Dear GB,

I've been following your blog for quite a while, which I think is very useful and entertaining at the same time. Can I please ask for your kind help and advice?

I'm a 27 gay man who has recently joined a large UK bank. I grew up in Amsterdam where I've never had any issues with being gay and I didn't make a secret out of my sexual orientation when I applied for this position. My line manager appears to be quite comfortable with it. Also my team members are fine with too and have even joined me on a boys night out in Soho (3 guys all straight). I have a straight appearance and manners, so in general I seem to hit it off quite well with straights. The job, line manager and colleagues are the best I could've asked for.

I haven't really had a great relationship with the department's head from the very first start though. It always surprised me from the very beginning how he actively reached out to my team members and my subordinates, while I felt I was always shut out by him (seriously, although I've tried to initiate conversations or reach out to him, he would just ignore me. He even never responds to my greetings in the mornings). Although not very nice, it wasn't something that I was too bothered about, so I decided not to let it affect me. I always wondered: is it because I'm gay??? Until today!

We had a team lunch to welcome a new team member and I sat in front of the department's head and the new team member. They seemed to hit it off quite well. I was engaged in a conversation with a couple of colleagues when I heard my name a couple of times in their conversations. Didn't exactly catch what they were saying. At a certain point, I decided to listen carefully and again my name fell. I then clearly heard the head saying ' X definitely choose the wrong sector, he should have tried fashion media and design" followed by a loud laughter. For a couple of seconds I couldn't breath; I felt like someone stumped me intensely hard in my stomach. Although I'm very ad rem and have a strong personality and can control my emotions well, tears filled up my eyes and I couldn't say a word; I felt paralysed and weak. I couldn't believe what I heard: were they really saying that?

I felt deeply offended and humiliated. Are gay people incapable of occupying professions other than fashion media and design? Are we still living in that era that gay people should hide their true identity for the sake of being accepted and not subjected to public humiliation?

I'm very confused as to how to handle this situation. Am I over dramatising this??

Being a gay professional who is well experienced in investment banking here in the UK, I'd really value and appreciate your opinion and advice on how to handle this. I'm not per se looking for vindication, I simply don't want this to ever happen again. Would it be wise to speak to my line manager (who reports to him)? Or should I speak to him directly, or someone else or simply keep my mouth shut and get on with my work???

Thank you so much!

I'm sure that lots of gay guys who work for banks or for other big corporate firms could run into this kind of thing during their career, so it's an important issue.

At the time when I received the email, there were three other pending advice requests in my "Dear GB" queue on this blog's right-hand side bar. However, I felt that this reader needed some immediate advice, so I sent him the following email:

Because you're 4th in my "Dear GB" queue at the moment it'll be a few weeks before I can get round to posting your email, so meanwhile there are two things I can say:

1. you need a thick skin to work as an out gay guy in any corporate environment. It's like being in the school playground - any weakness is seized upon. So don't let them get to you.
2. you need to earn the respect of you co-workers, and that won't happen if you speak to anyone about this and make some kind of complaint. The standard way of earning respect is a work environment is to do an excellent job, but if you're able to interface socially then that can help too. Or if you overhear a similar comment again, if you've got a quick wit and can make a cutting remark about the guy who said it, that would earn immediate respect - problem solved! But that takes a lot of confidence, of course, and is hard to do.

Within a day I received his reply:

Hi GB,

Thank you so much for your quick response! That's kind of you.

I really appreciate your advices, thanks! I ran through your comments and you're absolutely right! I think I might have become too comfortable with the fact that my direct colleagues (who know me quite well) are quite open-minded and have no issues with an out gay co-worker. Also, that I need to develop a thicker skin (which I kind of thought I had). The corporate world is indeed not the easiest place for openly gay men, no matter in which country.

I had to smile when I read the comparison with the school yard, it so made sense. I guess I kind of expected the department's head (a 60 yo man) to act more like a head teacher who would protect you against bullies rather than to bully you himself, which is a foolish assumption: boys will always be boys.

Luckily, I believe I'm doing a good job, which is acknowledged by many people within the department and that's what count at the end! I believe this makes the head look foolish if and when he talks negatively about me.

I was thinking today that indeed, if I were to tell or complain to anyone about what happened yesterday at the restaurant, it might put me in a weaker position and that it won't serve me at all. I decided to put this aside, keep on performing well, while being positive and true to myself. Again, thanks a million.

Now that I've got round to posting this guy's emails, I'm not sure that there's much more to say. As an example of gaining the respect of colleagues, I did a post last year about how my colleague M was able to earn the respect of his co-workers on one of the trading floors of the bank that I work for. But to do that kind of thing one needs to be able to think of a good reply quickly. As I said above, it also requires a lot of confidence.

It's true that in the UK these days, there are employment laws to protect minorities such as gay and lesbian workers. However in the corporate world, one should never fall back on those laws, because one will be seen as someone that needs special treatment because of one's sexuality and that damages one's reputation. As I said in my email to this reader, the key here is to earn the respect of one's co-workers. In my experience, good work coupled with an open, friendly and helpful manner is a perfectly good way of achieving that :-).

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?