Abstract
LGBT employees encounter a lot of challenges in their place work. Most of them are forced to adopt various tactics to aid with concealing their LGBT status. It is not easy for these individuals to live openly or honestly in the same way. Therefore, the goal of this research was to determine to what extent people’s LGBT status impacts how other perceive them in terms of professionalism, hiring and overall assessment. The researcher relied on 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) data. Guided by mixed research method, the author’s aim was to find out how revealing LGBT status impacts the perception of other employees. The researcher further employed several measures, among them, workplace experience and treatment as employee measures to help with obtaining accurate results. Overall, this study holds that revealing of LGBT status affect how these individuals are treated in the workplace.
Problem Statement
In the U.S, only a few states have put in place measures to prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual identity. From this, only a 20 percent have managed to include protection for transgender workers (Badgett et al., 2019, p. 139). According to Badgett et al. (2019) “legislature in some states is currently working to walk back anti-discrimination protections passed at the local level” (p. 140). Furthermore, most of the available benefit policies in the US organization tend to exclude LGBT employees. More specifically, one-third of Fortune 500 companies do not have domestic partner benefits with another 72 percent lacking transgender inclusive benefits (Badgett et al., 2019. p. 140). The specific problem to be addressed revolve around the fact that majority of the people have been denied employment or promotion due to their LGBT status. The issue of LGBT is relevant in general world since it strives to address the silent challenges, such as discrimination, that these people go through.
Literature Review
LGBT Status
LGBT employees encounter a lot of challenges in their place work. According to Denier and Waite (2019), about half of Americans hold some level of disapproval toward individuals with LGBT status. Denier and Waite (2019) utilized an experimental research design to determine how broadly held cultural belief may bias how others assess the worthiness of their colleagues. With this research design the authors had a firm control over variables as the subject cannot impact the effectiveness of the study. However, the only limitation with this approach is the risk of creating situations that might not be unrealistic. Guided by predictive analysis, Denier and Waite (2019) noted these beliefs end up affecting LGBT worker’s overall performance – most of them are excluded in informal social interactions.
LGBT employees are occasionally forced to adopt different status management tactics in order to avoid workplace harassment. As Rengers et al. (2019) observed, it is not easy for them to live openly or honestly in the same way. In fact, those working as humanitarian aids are forced to engage in tactics such as concealing or downplaying their LGBT status. The authors relied on an explanatory design to aid with investigating the impact of the tactics used in managing LGBT status in the workplace, especially for those working as humanitarian aid (Rengers et al., 2019). From this they concluded that “concealing status makes one more vulnerable to hearing heterosexist and transphobic comments from colleagues who assume they are in the company of heterosexual and/or cisgender” (Rengers et al., 2019, p. 23). Overall, Rengers et al. (2019) and Denier and Waite (2019) reveal that LGBT inequality operates in workplace regardless of whether their status is visible or salient to other workers and supervisors.
LGBT Inequality in the Workplace
LGBT is one of the groups that experience intense workplace discrimination. In the U.S one in every ten LGBT people face discrimination in their place of work (Cech & Pham, 2017). The authors relied on an exploratory approach to explore how inequalities vary by agency, supervisory status, and gender. From this, the findings indicated that while most of them report positive experiences in regulatory agencies, “supervisory status does not improve LGBT persons’ experiences” (Cech & Pham, 2017, p. 213). With this approach Cech and Pham (2017) were able to understand the issue of LGBT with clarity. The main disadvantage with this approach is that it lacks conclusive results. This explains why they utilized inferential statistics which allowed them arrive at conclusive results by comparing their sample data to those of previous research.
Another form of inequality that is common today emanate from interactional-level biases. As evidenced in Lewis and Pitts (2017) study, colleagues and supervisors may call LGBT workers’ competence into question. The authors adopted a comparative approach in comparing “LGBT and heterosexual employees’ perceptions of the treatment they receive” (Lewis & Pitts, 2017, p. 45). They noted that most federal policies explicitly discriminated against LGBTs in various ways. The most dominant form revolves around pay gaps between educated and experienced gay people. This design approach helped the authors discover cause of effect relationships between different groups of LGBTs. Similarly, this approach is effective since it poses no ethical issues. The only disadvantage of this approach is that authors may lack control over variables. This explains why the authors utilized descriptive statistics to help identify how widespread discrimination has become in the workplaces.
Theoretical Considerations
Queer theory (QT) gained prominence in the 1990s due to its strong stand on debate about empowerment issues. This theory is concerned with “the non-essentializing nature of sexual identities and is premised on the notion of resistance to forms of domination, such as heterosexism and homophobia” (Giffney and O’Rourke, 2017, p. 146). QT traces its roots in the homosexual rights movement which emanated from the gay liberation movement. This movement focused exclusively on the grassroots efforts of the members in this group to gain control of representing their own experience. This history provides insight into the psychological issues the LGBTs individuals experience in workplaces. For instance, the theory provides a framework of understanding the mental issues the individuals encounter within the workplaces. Most importantly, Queer theory, from a psychological point view strives to challenge the assumptions regarding the issue identity-based sexual politics.
Research Question
The general research question that will form the basis of this study is to what extent does people’s LGBT+ status impact how others perceive them in terms of professionalism, hiring, and overall assessment? The dependant variables evidenced in the research question are perceptions of individuals in terms of their professionalism, hiring, and overall assessment. On the other hand, the independent variables revolve around people’s LGBT+ status. The researcher hypothesizes that people’s LGBT+ status can have a significant influence on how other individuals perceive them. Similarly, the inequalities in the workplace may affect the quality of LGBT employees’ work lives. The given research will explicitly demonstrate, through an experimental design that if a person’s LGBT + status is revealed, and then they would be likely to suffer from discriminatory attitudes.
Methods
Participants & Recruitment
This study will rely on 2022 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) data. While the researcher understands that FEVS has several limitations such as cross-sectional, it included specific LGBT subcategories in the survey. They include gay or lesbian, bisexual and transgender. According to the researcher, FEVS data is the only available multi-organizational data that focuses on LGBT workplace experiences. The 2022 survey covered 89 items that focused on federal employees’ perceptions about how effectively agencies manage their workforce. FEVS was chosen as source data because it included LGBT status in 2012 and the subsequent surveys have been incorporating their experiences especially on how other workers perceive them. The 2022 survey was administered within treasury between May 31, 2022 and July 15 via email by the Office of Personnel Management (von Schrader et al., 2022).The sample that will be used for analysis includes 557,778 responds out of which 12,094 identified as LGBT, this number exclude those with missing data or those who indicated “prefer not to say”.
Materials & Measures
The most important measure that was used to operationalize the independent and dependent variables is workplace experience measure. The responded were asked the extent to which they are agree with workplace experience statement after revealing their LGBT status. The responses were based on 1-5 response range: “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” “agree,” and “strongly agree”. The specific question asked was – to what extent do you agree with each workplace experience statement? In an effort to understand how LGBT are perceived and treated in the workplace, treatment as employee measures was adopted. This measure looks at issues such as adequate resources, respected by supervisors and satisfaction with pay. The questions asked are: considering everything, how satisfied are you with your pay and do you get the required resources to get your job done.
Procedures
In the survey, the respondents were asked to mark one or all on the question about whether they consider themselves to be one of following: Heterosexual or Straight, “Gay or Lesbian, “Bisexual, “Transgender,” and “Prefer not to say.” OPM coded as LGBT those respondents who indicated gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender status. In this study, the researcher will first exclude the 12 percent of the respondents who “who preferred not to say” from the main analysis. Secondly, the researcher will compare this group with LGBT and non-LGBT-identifying individuals in supplementary analysis. The author will further rely on recent estimates of Badgett et al (2021) that 3.5 percent of the US population and 2.8 of those with college degree are LGBT to determine the current population (p. 142). From the sample size, this research concludes that LGBT individuals represent 2.97 of the population.
Research Design & Planned Data Analyses
The type of research design utilized in this research proposal will be mixed methods in order to advance knowledge in the field. This method integrates both qualitative and quantitative which will aid with determining how revealing of LGBT study impact the perception of other employees. Inferential statistics will be used examine the difference between LGBT and non-LGBT employees’ responses on the identified measures in order to understand why LGBTs tend to suffer from discriminatory attitudes once they reveal their status. More specifically, the research will run a multilevel generalized linear models using “gllamm” command in Stata 14, which will be used to multiply imputed multilevel models with proportional survey weights. In preparing data for analysis, this research will use Microsoft Excel to help format and organize data. This will then be followed by a careful examination and rechecking the data for accuracy. One way of doing this is through spot-checking a random assortment of participant data group.
References
Badgett, M. L., Waaldijk, K., & van der Meulen Rodgers, Y. (2019). The relationship between LGBT inclusion and economic development: Macro-level evidence. World Development, 20(1), 1-14. Web.
Badgett, M. V., Carpenter, C. S., & Sansone, D. (2021). LGBTQ economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 35(2), 141-70.
Cech, E. A., & Pham, M. V. (2017). Queer in STEM organizations: Workplace disadvantages for LGBT employees in STEM related federal agencies. Social Sciences, 6(1), 12.
Denier, N., & Waite, S. (2019). Sexual orientation at work: Documenting and understanding wage inequality. Sociology Compass, 13(4), 12-66. Web.
Giffney, N., & O’Rourke, M. (Eds.). (2017). The Ashgate research companion to queer theory. Routledge.
Lewis, G. B., & Pitts, D. W. (2017). LGBT–heterosexual differences in perceptions of fair treatment in the federal service. The American Review of Public Administration, 47(5), 574-587. Web.
Rengers, J. M., Heyse, L., Otten, S., & Wittek, R. P. (2019). “It’s not always possible to live your life openly or honestly in the same way”–Workplace inclusion of lesbian and gay humanitarian aid workers in doctors without borders. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(3), 320. Web.
von Schrader, S., Shaw, L., & Colella, A. (2022). Perceptions of federal workplace attributes: Interactions among disability, sex, and military experience. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 10(4), 44 -73. Web.