How to Be an Ally to the LGBQ Community
Four LGBQ individuals explain what it means to be an ally.
Introduction
Disclaimer: The quotes and opinions reflected in this article are those of the interviewees, and do not represent the companies that they work for.
In the coming months, I will be releasing a series of articles called How to be an Ally. I’ll be interviewing people that identify with various demographic groups — Sexual Orientation (LGBQ), Sexual Identification, Latinx, Disabled, Veterans, etc. — to understand how they define an ally, why it’s important to have allies, and what people can do to become allies to them at work. I hope to learn more about the experiences of different minority groups and to share what I’ve learned with readers.
I have followed (with the permission of my interviewees) many of the responses that appear in this article with my own interpretations and musings. For other responses, particularly those that are story-based, I have refrained from making commentary in the hopes that you, the reader, will reflect more thoroughly on the answers.
This introductory piece will be focused on Sexual Orientation, with a focus on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer communities. there will be a separate piece for the ‘T’ in LGBTQ titled How to be an Ally: Sexual Identification. Below are the profiles of people that I interviewed for this article:
James Lopata — James is a diversity speaker, author of The Secret to Career Happiness, and Executive Leadership Coach. He has over 20 years of executive management experience, and he holds a Bachelor of Philosophy from Miami University of Ohio and a Master of Theology from Harvard University.
James identifies as a Gay White man.
Grace Moreno — Grace is an executive, startup coach, and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience leading not-for-profit organizations. She currently works as the Executive Director for the Massachusetts LGBT Chamber of Commerce. Grace has a Bachelor of Political Science and Biology from Rice University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Florida.
Grace identifies as a Lesbian Latina woman.
Tanya Moronge — Tanya is a Strategy Consultant with Accenture. She has experience in customer experience, marketing, and business strategy. She has a Bachelor of Business Administration and International Business from Boston University.
Tanya identifies as a Queer Black woman.
Rodrigo Valdes — Rodrigo is a Digital Business Integration Consultant with Accenture. He has experience in customer relationship management and global-scale business transformations. He has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Boston University.
Rodrigo identifies as a Gay Latino man.
What does it mean to be an ally?
“Everyone should be treated with kindness and respect, regardless of how you identify. However, when you are part of a majority group and you’re interacting with someone in a minority group, it is important to realize that there are certain things that unite minority group members that do not apply to you. Recognizing those differences is a start to making a good ally”
- Rodrigo Valdes
“I’m not a Black person; I’m a Latina person, so I can’t know the full experiences of a Black man, but we do share some of the same struggles.”
- Grace Moreno
The dictionary definition of an ally is “a person that helps another with a particular activity.” For the LGBQ community that activity might simply be navigating corporate America.
At the core of ally-ship is the willingness to provide support for people different from you when they need it. At the bare minimum, that support for the LGBQ community must come in the form of respect. Understand that as someone who doesn’t identify as LGBQ, you are inherently different from people that do identify that way, and that’s totally fine. Allies are people that are conscious of this fact and actively try to learn more about the experiences of their LGBQ counterparts.
Why is it important to have allies in the workplace?
“There are so many things that people deal with on a daily basis at work; having an ally means there’s one less thing that you need to worry about”
- Tanya Moronge
In my previous article about Impostor Syndrome, I wrote about the concept of psychological safety, which is the confidence someone has that she won’t be ridiculed for making a mistake. Part of psychological safety is being able to fully focus on the task at hand without worrying about external factors. For someone that identifies at LGBQ, there are additional things that they feel obliged to do for fear of making someone on their work team uncomfortable. For example, a gay man might be timid about mentioning his upcoming ski trip with his boyfriend to his co-workers. Instead, he might say “I’m going skiing with a friend this weekend,” or even avoid bringing up the trip at all. Having to consistently monitor what you say around others can become so burdensome that it feels like an entirely different job responsibility. Having allies around means that LGBQ people don’t have to continually worry about censoring their speech because their teammates accept them. That same gay man can openly tell his team that he’s going on that ski trip with his partner without the apprehension that he won’t be accepted.
Can you think of a moment when you felt isolated because of your sexual orientation?
“I was at a client, less than a year in at the firm. There was a lot of company leadership on the project. I kept feeling like when I spoke during meetings, no one was listening. Even in conversations outside of work, like lunches or social events, no one paid attention. I felt like an outsider because I couldn’t connect with anyone. I was unsure if I was being ignored because of my race, my gender, my sexual orientation, or age. An ally on that project would have let me know that I was part of the team and helped me feel like I had a voice.
Eventually, I left that project and went to a different project where the team was very welcoming. I had a senior manager and manager that both identified as gay. They helped me feel more comfortable. They were both white men, which allocates them some privilege, but them being there made me feel more comfortable. This project actually had every letter of LGBTQ represented. Those two managers were ingrained in the LGBTQ community in Philly, so they invited me to social events and helped provide a sense of community both inside and outside of work.”
- Tanya Moronge
“For me, it’s more about those minor comments like “do you have a wife or girlfriend?” or when straight men are talking about dating women or dealing with women in relationships and they turn to me and say, “you know how it is!” This makes me uncomfortable because I’m not straight, and I actually don’t know how it is.”
- Rodrigo Valdes
What types of language or behaviors should people avoid?
“Specifically, it’s better to say ‘gay’ than to say ‘homosexual.’ It came out of a Freudian psychological past. Homosexuals used to be called ‘inverts’ and <homosexuality> was treated as a psychological condition that needed to be fixed. The Catholic church uses it a lot; they refuse to talk about gay people in any official literature. It’s a way of saying that this is a scientific condition and, like any other condition, it can be adjusted. It’s also better to talk about “sexual orientation,’ rather than ‘sexual preference.’ A preference sounds like I could prefer to be straight.”
- James Lopata
“You always run into the white people that say, ‘I have a Black friend; my kid is dating a Black guy!’
When trying to sound like a supporter, don’t pretend like you’re not prejudiced against something… we don’t understand the reality of what we’re prejudiced against.”
- Grace Moreno
As a minority myself, I could relate to most of these discussions because a lot of our experiences and sentiments overlap. However, it was eye-opening to learn about specific words or phrases that I was guilty of using that could be offensive to the LGBQ community. Being an ally is a journey; you’re always learning more about the LGBQ experience and ways that you can support people that identify that way with the hope of sharing what you learn with those around you that could stand to hear it.
How can people recover from missed opportunities to be allies or moments when they messed up?
“People do more damage when they try to explain their point. Avoid ‘I wasn’t trying to offend you…’ and, instead, say ‘how can I make it better?’ or ‘how can I fix it?’”
- Grace Moreno
“It’s wasted breath for me as a gay man or you as a black man to make people feel better about some offense they committed”
- Rodrigo Valdes
Unless you identify as LGBQ or are consistently around people that do, you won’t always be aware of when you are doing or saying something that might exclude a co-worker. Even further, you might not realize when someone else has done or said something that could isolate someone on your work team. When you mess up and you’re conscious enough to realize it, it’s important to own that mistake. Make it a point to reach out to your LGBQ co-worker to first: apologize for the incident, second: pledge to be more conscious about your behavior in the future, and third: ask if there is anything that you can do to make it right. When people see you acknowledge your mistake, they are more likely to accept that apology and try to help you prevent it from happening in the future. However, be aware that some people might not be willing to forgive your apology right away — or at all, for that matter — and you’ll just have to deal with that.
One of the worst things that you can do after committing an offense is trying to explain how your actions were somehow justifiable. Furthermore, realize that regardless of the sorrow or negative emotions you’re feeling, you are not the victim. Consider an instance like what Rodrigo shared where straight male co-workers ask him about his wife or girlfriend. If you’re the person that asks that, and then after realizing your mistake, you go to Rodrigo and say “I’m so embarrassed! I can’t believe I said that!” you are taking attention away from the person that was actually offended. It’s not Rodrigo’s, or any LGBQ person’s job to have sympathy for you.
Takeaways
You can be an ally to the LGBQ community by:
- Respecting LGBQ people for their differences
- Using inclusive language and avoiding historically-disrespectful phrases
- Learning to be aware of your prejudices, then acting to release them
- Acknowledging mistakes and working to fix any potentially broken relationships
June was Pride Month. It was a great opportunity for non-LGBQ people to show support for a historically underrepresented community. However, that support shouldn’t stop after June. We can all learn from our LGBQ counterparts and actively lift them up both in and out of the workplace — it’ll be a boost to us all when we do.
