In this study, young queer people experienced the workplace as a regulatory space. Participants did not have to encounter the practices of exclusion discussed in the previous chapter to experience the impact of homonegativity. The anticipation of homonegative attitudes and actions from others in the workplace, as well as previous encounters with homonegativity, had regulatory effects over participants’ spoken words and bodily actions. Accordingly, young queer people engaged in a process of self- regulating and modifying their actions, speech and self-presentation in the workplace to ensure that their bodies and identities were not perceived or interpreted as non-
heterosexual; in short, ensuring that queer sexualities remained invisible. I describe these processes as ‘bodywork’: the self-regulation of the queer body to sustain invisibility and protection from homonegative harm.
In this core theme, I outline participants’ reflections on how they engaged in various processes of bodywork within work cultures and relationships that did not feel safe, accepting or valuing of queer sexualities. I focus on four central aspects of bodywork: 1) the imperative to sustain invisibility; 2) the monitoring and modification of speech and communication; 3) the performance of what participants described as ‘straight’ personas; and 4) the use of selective silence as a protective measure. The final sub-theme acknowledges that bodywork is not a totalising process in the workplace. Young queer workers did not always undertake processes of self-regulation, in spite of their concerns about being visible as queer subjects under the judgmental gaze of others.
i) The imperative to sustain invisibility in the workplace
There were certain work contexts in which participants believed they had to remain invisible as queer workers; these were contexts in which participants felt they had to
contexts: working in highly masculinised work settings, working with clients dependent on care, working with children and adolescents, and working under previous memories of homonegative abuse in the workplace and in other social settings.
The imperative to keep queer sexualities invisible was explicit in participants’ accounts of working in what were described as ‘straight’ and masculine-dominated territories. This was a necessity for four (4) young men in this study and was founded on fears of exclusion, reprisal and hostility from male co-workers. Jack discussed the imperative to stay invisible during his employment within the highly masculinised setting of a manufacturing factory. Fear of homonegative abuse was a highly influential factor:
Jack – I knew there was no way it could be safe for me in this workplace. Um so I avoided as much as possible any sort of social contact between the [male] workers, tried to just go and do my job and go home, and whenever there was lunch or smoko or whatever trying to stay out of the conversation or just let them do their own thing which tends to work most of the time…
Luke reflected on the male-dominated setting of the beach and the pool where he worked as a surf lifesaver and swimming instructor. While physical contact between men was a regular component of lifesaver training, Luke perceived lifesaving as a largely ‘male’ and ‘heterosexual’ occupation. He believed that due to the high level of physical contact between lifesavers it would be too uncomfortable to be ‘out’ as a gay man. The safest alternative was to ensure that his same-sex attractions remained undetected by his co- workers. His attractions were not always easy to conceal:
Luke – And it was awkward too because when I was doing my surf lifesaving I had to– cause when we’re learning how to carry people out of the water and how to put people on a board, it was really awkward working with the other guys [smiles] both of them were pretty attractive and we we’re just wearing our speedo’s or whatever and you sort of had to lie on top of them—like getting them on the board and then lie on top of them and I’d be thinking ‘If only you knew! I wish this over quickly’ [laughs]… like that would have been uncomfortable.
Participants’ sexual lives were frequently ruled out as an unacceptable subject for discussion while working with people who were dependent on their care, such as people living with debilitating physical or intellectual disabilities. For two (2) participants, the threat of being perceived as a sexual predator and being falsely accused of ‘taking advantage’ of vulnerable clients overshadowed their work as carers. For a short time, Ruby was employed as a carer for clients with disabilities. While having to participate in a highly physical and intimate caring relationship with a male client, Ruby believed she had to ‘hide’ her sexuality in fear of losing both their relationship and her employment:
Ruby – ... It was a very personal atmosphere. I was in his home. There was a lot of trust involved in the role. He was basically helpless and I had complete control of him. I didn't want him to feel uncomfortable with me or disgusted. I felt in a way that I had to hide to protect him but also to protect myself because I desperately needed the money and couldn't afford to lose the job... I was afraid that maybe he wouldn't like me anymore.
Fear was a pervasive theme in the context of maintaining acceptable work-relationships with children and adolescents; in particular, fear of being perceived as a sexual threat to the moral sanctity of younger bodies. This was a concern raised by five (5) participants (Steven, Luke, Madeleine, Ingrid and Nadi) located across occupations such as teaching, child-care and youth work. Sustaining invisibility in the presence of children and
queer employees were working directly with their children and second, participants’ awareness of dominant sexual stereotypes, in particular the association of queer
individuals with child sexual abuse and moral misconduct. Participants were well aware how any arising accusations could jeopardise their current employment, future careers and organisational status.
In this work context, children and youth were the symbolic conduits through which dominant cultural messages of acceptability were transmitted. Queer sexualities and same-sex relationships were believed to be unacceptable and therefore dangerous topics to discuss with children. This group of young people were highly alert to the
homonegative association between queer bodies and sexual abuse:
Ingrid – To be honest I think it’s the connotation that often people put all non-heterosexual people in the same bucket as murderers, rapists and paedophiles, often you’ll just be reading any old article in the newspaper and they’re listing all these sub-groups and suddenly we pop up as well! Like why not, you know, we often wield a sword and harm children! So I think that paedophilia aspect of it is something that really creeps me out, I mean that’s the most horrendous thing I can think of being connected to my sexuality…
While none of these young people had been directly confronted by parental accusations, it was the frightening possibility of facing accusations that had a powerfully debilitating effect on their spoken words and actions:
Madeleine says: It's frightening. Because I've been worried that their [children’s] comments will get back to parents, who will then judge me. That they'd either get angry that I'd been supposedly discussing personal and potentially sexual issues with young children (which is not true, because even though I might challenge things, I always try to distance myself from it), or the old homosexual-paedophile link will spring to mind, and people will get paranoid.
Four (4) young people described how they had altered their actions and movements under the keen gaze of parents, managers and other staff members. For example, Ingrid was deeply concerned about being on her own with individual children and believed she always needed to be in sight of other children and colleagues. Ingrid reflected on how this vigilant practice sometimes compromised her attention to individual students’ needs:
Ingrid – And so I guess I’m conscious of being alone with kids at all, and I mean all teachers really have to be as you know, um but I’m always in sight, I always sit by the window, I try to have more than one person in the room at once, so just automatically… I guess you’re just very aware of everything else and your possibly not 100% into what’s going on, into what you should be doing.
As a swimming instructor, Luke was ever vigilant of the appraising gaze of parents in his work with children in the learn-to-swim program. This program routinely involved physical contact as part of his instruction:
Luke – And I was very uncomfortable being gay in a– [pause] simply because I knew how other people react or some people reacted to being gay, and especially working like with young children, like I didn’t really want to have to deal with—like its bad enough having to deal with legal issues working with young children like where you have your hands and, you know, stuff like that and how hold you hold them in the water, and you have parents watching like a hawk, and the swimming establishment really focusing on you.
In assuming positions of care and responsibility with children and adolescents,
participants felt compelled to erase any significations to their sexuality from their speech and conduct—to stay invisible as queer workers.
other social settings. Former experiences of abuse and discrimination in the workplace had heavily influenced the decisions of three (3) young people (Kat, Chester and Franky) to keep silent about their sexuality in later employment. For example, Franky preferred to stay invisible as a queer employee based on his previous experiences of discriminatory treatment from a member of management.
Traumatic experiences in secondary schools influenced the decision of three (3) participants (Jack, Ingrid and Sam) to keep silent about their sexuality in later
employment. Not-so-distant encounters with homonegative abuse during their secondary schooling seeped into their perceptions and anxieties about the workplace. Jack believed that his fears of ‘anti-gay’ bullying that had occurred during his secondary schooling later accompanied him into the workplace. During his first few years of work-life, Jack consequentially remained wary of having to re-live these haunting experiences:
Jack – ... I mean especially in high school, I mean high school boys are so anti-gay, you know, that every second day you are hearing really strong anti-gay sentiments so that really entrenched that for me I suppose at that time. So by the time I actually left high school and started working I had all this fear based around being openly gay.
This was particularly challenging for Ingrid and Sam whose work required them to participate in school-environments. These environments reminded them of their own painful experiences as school students. As described by Sam: ‘…what I went through at school... It’s like being put back in that situation all over again...’
ii) First process of bodywork: Monitoring and modifying speech and communication
Many participants reflected on the methods through which they sustained invisibility in the workplace, the processes by which they regulated their speech, actions and self-
presentation. Accordingly, the first process of bodywork undertaken by young queer people was to monitor and modify their speech and spoken communication to remove any direct or telling references to their sexuality.
For some young people this required selecting terms and language that did not reveal either the gender of their partner or the existence of their same-sex relationship. Seven (7) young people elaborated on the methods of obscuring this knowledge in work-
relationships. Careful consideration was given to how much information was necessary to disclose in conversations at work, as illustrated in Madeleine’s account of disguising her partner from her manager’s knowledge:
Madeleine says: Oh, I've told white lies to one boss. He's a nice guy so I do care what he thinks of me, but he seems very conservative. And twice he asked me if I could work, and once was the night of my girlfriend's 21st, and the other time was when we'd planned to go away for the weekend. So I said it was my “best friend”. But that's frustrating because it doesn't have the same impact—As in, most people would see time together as a couple being more precious than time with a friend.
Other young people (Joseph and Bubbles) had preferred to use gender-neutral pronouns to disguise the gender of their partner, while Mia had substituted references to her girlfriend as ‘her boyfriend’ when in the company of her co-workers.
Sustaining this process of bodywork was extremely laborious. To illustrate, Alexis agonised over monitoring her speech to ensure that she did not accidentally disclose the gender of her partner while working as a cleaner at a Christian elderly retirement home:
Alexis – What's frightening about not being out is the fact that I know that it's going to come out of my mouth sometime soon and I know also that I've had a few very close calls. It's hard talking about relationships without reflecting back on your own. Saying ‘my ex’ and then trying not to be gender specific is very hard for me... I feel sick to the base of my stomach when someone asks me if I have a boyfriend.
During work conversations, some young people attempted to dodge sexuality-related questions. Regardless of some participants’ attempts to keep their sexuality invisible when working with children and adolescents, this did not prevent students and younger clients from asking very public questions. Participants were perceived as sexual subjects in the eyes of children who demanded answers. It was hard work having to evade these questions, as Madeleine discovered during her employment in an out-of-school care program. In this instance, other colleagues supported Madeleine in staying invisible:
Madeleine – It's hard sometimes. Even in my main job, where I'm out to all the staff, I have to be careful around the kids. A couple of them have overheard something said between staff members and have directly asked me if I'm a lesbian or if by ‘girlfriend’ did I mean ‘a girl who is your friend, or someone who you are going out with?’. That is always a bit scary... Then they might ask one of the other staff members, who will tell an outright lie and the matter will be forgotten. Sometimes I want to just be open and honest with the kids because if I don't, then who will? But then it's hard to know how parents will react.
Similarly, Steven and Ingrid were confronted with questions in the confines of the classroom. When faced with the taunting and inevitable question of ‘Are you gay?’ from the mouths of primary and secondary students, both Ingrid and Steven chose to ignore this question or to respond in third person: