A few years ago, during my internship as an engineering student, I learned from my co-mentee that my mentors were asking around about my sexual orientation behind my back. They were hypothesizing because I don’t present myself as traditionally masculine. Being closeted at the workplace, their curiosity caused a level of defensiveness that followed me around for the rest of my stay with the company.
Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, these experiences aren’t uncommon in masculinized industries. They are usually male-dominated workplaces, where power is inequitably distributed in favor of heterosexual men. In these offices masculine traits, such as aggression, competitiveness, assertiveness, dominance, and independence, to name a few, are given utmost value. While writing this, I asked fellow queer males who are likewise working in fields that are masculinized about their experiences.
Among the people I talked to, only one was out and proud about his sexuality at work. He says that his co-workers are generally respectful of who he is, but there is an evident lack of understanding about gender-related topics. “Sometimes, they treat being gay as being weak,” he shared. According to him, there were moments when people were so uncomfortable about gender labels that they used euphemisms such as the infamous limp wrist.
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