Originally published here.

Though strides have been made in the fight for workplace equality for lesbian, gay,bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identified Americans, LGBT employees are stilldiscriminated against in workplaces in alarming numbers. In 2011, the WilliamsInstitute published a report that included data from the 2008 General Social Survey(GSS), which indicated 42 % of LGB respondents had experienced workplacediscrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation in their career (Sears andMallory 2011). Even more startling are the experiences of transgender employees.A 2011 report published by the National Center for Transgender Equality indicatesthat 90 % of transgender persons surveyed reported experiencing harassment ormistreatment on the job (Grant et al. 2011).

The present research extends the current LGBT microaggression research byexploring microaggressions in the workplace. Participants described LGBTmicroaggressions as they contributed to a hostile and/or heterosexist workplaceclimate, were situated within the organizational structure of the workplacereflecting the power dynamic inherent to the employees’position, and were specif-ically related to workplace policy. In many cases these microaggressions revealed adisconnect between an existing workplace policy and the ability or willingness toenforce the policy, the workplace diversity statement and existing policy, and/orstate laws and workplace policy. Focusing on LGBT microaggressions in theworkplace provides unique insight into the challenges of negotiating LGBT identitywithin organizations.

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