Deon Pillay has won awards for his diversity and inclusion initiatives, but not after facing bullying discrimination because of his sexuality. Deon came to the UK with nothing but a suitcase and a £2.65 an hour job, all in a bid to find freedom as a gay man. Instead, he was forced ‘back into the closet’ to avoid discrimination and bullying in the workplace – only to be publicly outed and shamed in front of his colleagues years later.
At the age of 24, the new graduate from South Africa took up a holiday visa to clean toilets in a hotel in Basingstoke to escape the homophobia in his home community. ‘Gay people were seen as a disease,’ Deon said. ‘I chose to leave everything in South Africa to have my freedom, to be me.’ Within three years, he landed a job in the City, but his success came at a price. ‘Going into the finance world, I had to go back into the closet again. It was challenging,’ said the now 47-year-old. ‘You can’t be yourself because you are scared of losing your job. I was always having to lie and make up girlfriends I never had. ‘It was not a great place for gay people. ‘People working on the trading floors were being bullied and losing their jobs because of their sexuality.’ After keeping his head down and hiding his sexuality at work for a decade, his cover came tumbling down at the leaving drinks of a colleague in 2017. Deon, who had told only two trusted work friends of his identity, went to leave the chatty and fun evening when a different male colleague aggressively called him a ‘homo’ and a ‘f*****’ in front of the gathering. ‘I was in shock, I stood there wanting the ground to open up and to be swallowed in,’ Deon recalled