The Bottom Is Falling Out of Corporate Queer Individualism

LGBTQ employees, DEI, & our changing corporate world

Photo by William Warby on Unsplash

Have you noticed the sudden shift neoliberal corporatists have made as they attempt to adjust to Trump’s more isolationist rhetoric? Where once there was widespread talk of diversity and inclusion in their workplaces, we are now seeing many companies retreat from it, in favor of greater conservatism.

This backtracking means that many employees who once felt protected by a sort of pseudo-queer corporate safety net are now seeing promises and programs axed in the name of profit. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs have shuttered. Employee resource groups have closed down.

It’s bleak all around.

We are potentially living through the collapse of corporate, queer individualism (i.e. queer employees receiving some form of acceptance by being useful workers). There was a class of queer workers who thought they could recieve acceptance and safety by being good capitalists. And while the collapse of that promise is inevitably scary for those who felt represented by this limited form of politics, it does point us in the direction of something new:

A world where we build queer power outside the compromises of the corporation.