A long march ahead: The challenges of LGBTQiA+ community coming out at the workplace

From facing their colleagues’ crude remarks to delayed promotions to a lack of sensitivity around gender identity and implementation of D&I policies—queer folk are still paying the price for coming out at the workplacea

If there’s a queer event happening in the city, you’ll likely spot Suhail Abbasi there, particularly if the event is being held in collaboration with a corporate entity. Abbasi, a seasoned activist and the co-founder and chairperson of The Humsafar Trust, is easily identifiable by his signature waistcoats over a T-shirt and jeans, silver peekaboo bangs and his mild mannerisms. But only a few in the community are aware of the 65-year-old’s illustrious corporate career that began in 1995, back when inclusivity was not even a concept.

In fact, Abbasi was among the handful of queer people to make the first strides on progress in the corporate sphere in India, helping create diversity and inclusivity (D&I) policies for a well-known media multinational where he spent most of his corporate career. “In those days, there was no semblance of D&I, and all these terms were very alien. In fact, the atmosphere was quite homophobic,” Abbasi tells us over the phone.

Illustration/Uday Mohite

One of the greatest fears that holds people back from coming out at the workplace is not being taken seriously or being treated differently because of it. Many a time, this affects an employee’s prospects of growth at the workplace. “When people find out [about your sexual orientation or gender identity], you face discrimination. It’s like you are marked for your identity and aren’t taken seriously,” says  Abbasi, “You are perceived as a lesser professional; as someone who may not do justice to the job. This can also stall your chances of promotion. This doesn’t happen in every case, though.”

In other cases, coming out to colleagues can result in ridicule and hostility. “I have seen some instances where people might not say anything to your face, but the moment you turn your back, they start laughing and passing sly remarks,” says Versova-resident Abbasi.

Nandani Saban has gone back to collecting “badhaai” with fellow kinnar community members Laxmi and Girija

To this day, fear of homophobia discourages many queer people from coming out at work. The Deloitte Global 2023 LGBT+ Inclusion @ Work survey, held across 13 countries including India, found that while a majority (six in 10) believe it is important to be able to be out at the workplace about their sexual orientation—three quarters of respondents said the same for gender identity—less than half of them feel comfortable being out with all of their colleagues. One-third of respondents say that they are only comfortable being out at work with select colleagues. The same study found that 42 per cent experience non-inclusive behaviours at the office.

So, it’s heartening when Abbasi assures us that change might be slow in spreading, but quite a few companies have taken great effort to understand the issue and genuinely work towards more inclusive policies.  

Praful Baweja and Parikshaat Wadhwani who have started the Bill of Pride for more awareness among corporates, location courtesy Hitchens Cocktails & Ideas, Khar. Pic/Ashish Raje

This month, as Mumbai celebrates Pride month, culminating with the Pride March   on February 1, the queer community is united in its hope that the corporate world goes beyond “rainbow-washing” and tokenism. 

“My message to corporates would be that we are not seasons that come once in a year. We don’t shine only during Pride. We are here to stay. We are like the colours of the rainbow—we won’t fade once June passes,” says Abbasi.

Harish Iyer and Zainab Patel

One of the first organisations that started D&I policies even before the term made its way into the Indian corporate vocabulary is The Godrej Industries Group. “Non-discrimination has been core to our values as a group for a very long time; we followed that up with gender-neutral, queer-affirming benefits related to insurance, family leave and more. We have had a gender-neutral PoSH policy for several years now, which protects both queer and straight employees,” Parmesh Shahani, Head of the Godrej DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) Lab.

The company has been able to create trust among younger queer folks, particularly among Gen Z. “Two of our six companies run active internships inviting LGBTQiA+ folks to begin their careers here. These internships succeed because we offer all our queer employees the assurance that they are valued and safe, that their identities matter here regardless of their government identities, and that any discrimination on the basis of their sexuality and gender will not be tolerated,” adds Delhi-resident Shahani, who is considered as one of the most approachable corporate figures in the community. 

Suhail Abbasi, co-founder of Humsafar Trust who has a 35- year career in the corporate world. Pic/Ashish Raje

In the future, inclusive workplaces are likely to be the norm and not the exception, especially with the rise of the Gen Z employee, who has grown up amid greater conversation around gender and sexual orientation and is, therefore, unapologetic about their own identity.

By 2025, Gen Z is expected to make up 27 per cent of the global workforce, states American human resources consultancy Paychex in its May 2024 report, The Rise of Generation Z. 

A 2024 survey by market research consultancy IPSOS further found that Gen Z employees are most likely (17 per cent) to identify as lesbian, gay, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, asexual, transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, genderfluid and/or other than male or female. This is a far greater percentage than Millennials (11 per cent), Generation X (six per cent) and Baby Boomers (five per cent). 

With the changing profile of employees, employers would do well to initiate inclusive policies rather than wait for Gen Z to force their hand. Unfortunately, as of now, the Indian corporate sector is still woefully behind the times when it comes to gender sensitivity, which can result in pushing employees away.

Take the case of smart and sassy 26-year-old Nandani Saban from the kinnar community, whose very first encounter with a corporate employer traumatised her. In 2022, Saban finished her training in public relations and joined a company in the hospitality sector. The company was anything but hospitable to Saban though. Despite the company being known for queer-friendly policies, Saban was deadnamed during her onboarding process itself. 

A dead name is the name a transgender or non-binary person was given at birth, but no longer uses. It’s also known as a birth name. Insisting on using someone’s deadname can be emotionally triggering and painful for them. It can also “out” a person, which can lead to harassment and discrimination.

“They [company officials] asked for my documents, but all my papers had my dead name. So I told them that while I would give the documents, I would appreciate it if my dead name were not revealed to my colleagues. But they still introduced me to my colleagues by my deadname,” says the Malad resident, “I asserted my identity and told everyone, ‘Please call me Nandani’, but honestly, that was a big trigger for me.”

Starting off on this unsavoury note, Saban lasted barely a few months in the company. Eventually, she left so she could take care of her dementia-stricken father. 
For the last three years, Saban has gone back to collecting “badhaai” with her tribe. Saban and her kinnar friends, Laxmi, Girija and Karan, go from shop to shop between Malad and Kandivli, collecting money in exchange for blessings on auspicious occasions. The past week has been busy for them, with many business owners seeking their blessing for Makar Sankranti festivities.

“I feel safe with my community members. I can rush back if my father’s health suddenly deteriorates. They equally divide the day’s earnings—there is no salary cut or applying sick/privilege leave,” she says. The lack of support from the corporate sector during a family crisis is something the self-confessed motor-mouthed Gen Z-er refuses to accept. “I have job offers but I just can’t accept them now. That’s okay, at least I can say I did everything I could for my father,” she says, loud and proud.

While for Saban, it was a conscious choice to eschew a corporate job, for so many in her community, it is not even an option. Data from the 2011 Census shows that only 46 per cent of those who chose the “third gender” were literate, compared to the 74 per cent overall literacy rate.

Saban’s unpleasant experience at the office is why many queer folks who have climbed the corporate ladder are now trying to introduce sensitive and inclusive policies at their workplace.

One of the major issues that plagues the community, though, is the lack of representation in leadership positions in the corporate world. It’s up to senior queer people who have clawed their way up to now pave the way for the younger generations, feels Harish Iyer, Senior Vice-President and D&I head at Axis Bank.

“I think the onus is on every queer person in leadership positions to bring more visibility [to the community], more agency, and more strength—not just in numbers, but also aptitude,” he says. The path ahead is long and uphill, he cautions. And in the initial years, until companies have well-established policies to ensure fair and sensitive treatment of LGBTQiA+ employees, there are bound to be conflicts as well. This is why it’s all the more important to have queer representation in leadership roles, he says, so they can help with conflict-resolution. “It’s not like any organisation is picture perfect. We have had escalations also, and will continue to have them. But as a bank, we take a stance that we are not going to stand for homophobia,” he says. 

“But why do we need a D&I policy when we don’t have any queer employee?” This is a line that Praful Baweja hears a lot as the founder of 6 Degrees Diversity Counsel, which provides consultation services on diversity policies to companies. “This is like the chicken and egg question,” Baweja chuckles, “Until you have a policy or a space in your organisation that is D&I-friendly, how will you know who needs it?” 

“These kinds of statements are often nothing more than deflection. No matter how you crunch the numbers, in any working population, there are bound to be people from the queer community,” he posits. 

And the challenges are not just limited to the introduction of D&I policies. Some companies might set out with the best of intentions, but have trouble sustaining the effort. “One of the things we are trying to help corporates put in place is after the policy, how to sustain the efforts via tools that we help them build. For example, a lot of women who come back from a health break—for a myriad of reasons, including recovering from a gender-affirming surgery—or caregiving responsibilities, are asked the ill-informed questions about why they took the break. It’s here that we come in and tell the companies what we can do better,” explains the 
Santacruz resident.

Baweja is currently working with Parikshaat Wadhwani, founder of PW PR, a marketing and brand consultancy, on an initiative called the Bill of Pride, as part of which they are drafting standard operating procedures for corporate employers in the city. This month, they also held their first round-table with corporate groups to discuss these SOPs. 

For Wadhwani, one of his main concerns is going beyond tokenism, and the Bill of Pride initiative is a way for him to walk the talk. “Brands are always shouting about Pride Month in June and giving discounts and so forth—which we appreciate—but I think, it’s the right time to go beyond that and give the right kind of support to the community with a great work environment. This, in turn, helps companies because then the person works at 100 per cent of their capacity; the byproduct of being comfortable is productivity,” he says.

Rainbow-washing, where companies often indulge in practices like adding rainbow colours to their marketing materials during Pride Month, sans any substantive work that helps members of the community, has become a growing concern. 

Zainab Patel, the state chief of the LGBTQiA+ vertical of the All India Professionals Congress, facilitates conversations between leadership and queer employees to ensure policies aren’t just on paper. “While many companies in India have progressive policies on paper, there is a disconnect between policy and practice,” says Patel, “Hiring managers and colleagues may not always be aware of the lived realities of queer individuals—from micro-aggressions in daily conversations to the lack of safe spaces for trans and non-binary persons to express their identities.” 

Patel has been challenging the “tokenism trap” for a long time through her advocacy. “Corporates often hire queer individuals to meet diversity quotas, without investing in their long-term growth or creating pathways for them to succeed in leadership roles. Queer representation in decision-making spaces is crucial,” she adds.

All the same, the community’s memory keepers, such as Abbasi and Shahani, are testament to how much has changed since their own early days in the corporate world. “When I joined Godrej over a decade ago, I knew of only one other queer colleague who was out. Today, I can celebrate Pride Month with nearly 200 out and proud LGBTQiA+ employees, a majority of whom are out at work, as well as hundreds of allies. My trans colleagues, who work on everything from customer experience to HR to marketing, lead our culture in advocating for equity and justice,” he says. 

“But of course, I think there’s a lot more progress we could make. As much as I like going from two to 200, I want to see 2,000 queer employees at Godrej, all of them thriving and safe and leading our business and our values. That doesn’t just mean striving to change our workplace—it means striving to change our culture. And we’ll keep pushing, we’ll keep fighting,” he concludes.

17%
of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQiA+ 
*Source: IPSOS Pride Survey, 2024

42%
people have experienced non-inclusive behaviours at the workplace

Six
out of 10 believe it is important to be able to be out at the workplace 
*Source: Deloitte Global 2023 LGBT+ Inclusion @ Work survey

How important diversity is for job applicants

Gen Z 
71%

Millennials  
73%

Gen X  
62%

*Source: Deloitte Global 2023 LGBT+ Inclusion @ Work survey

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