Should you come out at work?
The Supreme Court of the United States only recently decided that it violates queer people’s rights to be fired from work simply for being queer. Yet, we still don’t know what the interpretation of the US Constitution looks like in real life. Will employers get more creative with how they fire us? Will we get stuck in dead-end jobs? Some studies show that it can cost an LGBTQ person over $50,000 in additional education, certification, unpaid wages and more to keep up with our straight peers. It’s not fair, but is it worth it?
For this reason, many in our community may try to pass or cover as straight. But this hurts the push for equality and disproportionately harms the already more marginalized in our community.
On this, the very first Queer Money® Follow-Up, we’re following up on Queer Money® podcast episode #1, Coming Out at Work. On that episode, we talked about the risks and concerns with coming out at work as LGBT with former Executive Vice President of Human Resources for Charles Schwab, Jay Allen, and former Executive Director of One-Colorado and former Chief of Staff of GLAAD NYC, Dave Montez.
We’re David and John Auten-Schneider, the Debt Free Guys (www.debtfreeguys.com) and hosts of the Queer Money® podcast. We help queer people (and allies) live fabulously not fabulously broke by helping them 1) pay off credit card debt, 2) become part- or full-time entrepreneurs and 3) save and invest for retirement.
