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Empowering employees to stand up and be counted

For a measure of how the business attitudes to sexual orientation have changed in recent years, just look at the history of the index of Stonewall's Top 100 Employers for lesbians, gays and bisexuals . When the first index was compiled by the charity campaign in 2005, six organizations in the top 100 to be named. Today, just six years and a place in the 100 Stonewall is coveted by large employers, a sign of openness and inclusiveness, with the Kitemark proudly displayed on the corporate literature.

Index 2011, with the Home Office to beat 378 other organizations in 25 different sectors to take the top spot, came on the heels of the Equality Act, which came into force in October 2010. This legislation, which consolidates the 2003 Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation), provides legal protection for the United Kingdom estimated 3.7 million lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) employees from discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

So far, so good. Or is it? Campaigners say that many gay people are still suffering routine harassment, hostility and discrimination in their workplace.

“Just because this sort of discrimination is no longer legal doesn’t mean it no longer happens,” says a spokesperson for the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard (LLGS), a charity helpline that regularly receives calls from gay people harassed at work.There is a factory worker facing "every day low of wickedness" (sarcastic, elements from his job and social exclusion), the physician ostracized by his community or professional manager excluded a new role when the existence of its civil rights partners has been revealed.

"It happens at all levels in the private sector and public sector organizations and can be very stressful, isolating and demoralizing," said the spokesman LLGS. “People can be scared to report it, then try to soldier on, but sometimes they reach a stage of quiet despair and that’s when they call us.”

Peter Purton, policy officer for LGBT at the Trades Union Congress (TUC), says it’s important not to suffer in silence. “Quite often it doesn’t take a lot to challenge a hostile culture,” he says, pointing out that employers have a legal duty to act once a problem is reported. “Sometimes it’s just one person who’s the problem, with the other workers going along with it because they feel unable to challenge this behaviour. Once they see management taking action, they feel able to challenge it and help develop a more positive attitude.

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