Guest post by Melissa Martini-Morales

What It’s Like to Look for a Job as a Queer Person

I was a couple months away from graduating when I had my first real job interview – which, ironically, was only a couple of months after I first came out as bisexual. I was surrounded by the supportive peers of a liberal English department. But I wasn’t so sure about the world of work and what would happen after college: the handful of part-time jobs I’d had in high school and college consisted of older coworkers who were more traditional, even banning me from eating Froot Loops at work. If I wasn’t even allowed to eat what I wanted, how could I expect to feel safe?

I knew that gay people had jobs – my mom had a handful of gay coworkers as I was growing up that she befriended, but being gay was still very much considered “the other.” I think I entered the workforce at a unique moment, though – gay marriage had been legalized a few years prior, and that political shift was part of what made me feel safe enough to come out as bisexual in the first place. My expectation going in was that things were going to keep getting better.

I got lucky with my first real job. During the interview, the interviewer casually mentioned that she had a wife. “The benefits are really good here,” she’d said – “my wife just had our baby, and they were really great about maternity leave and everything.” “Oh, wow, that’s good to know,” I replied – but it wasn’t because I was concerned with maternity leave or the prospect of having a baby at the time. I was more concerned with the fact she openly had a wife at work… meaning the company was a safe place. I ended up taking the job, and there were multiple LGBTQIA+ employees on the team – every single letter was covered. But, this also introduced me to a fear I couldn’t fully name at the time: a gay coworker at that job once told me about a previous job where he’d given a presentation dressed in a way that wasn’t traditionally masculine – and afterward, his boss tore him apart about it. That story stuck with me. It reinforced how lucky I was to be where I was, but it also planted something: a quiet dread of what could be waiting at the next job if I ever left. As the political climate began to shift and more anti-LGBT laws and ideaologies began being promoted, that dread started to feel a little less irrational.

When You Actually Get to Feel Safe at Work

At that first company, allyship showed up in ways that felt both big and small. When one of my early short stories was published – a story about a lesbian relationship – my team celebrated the publication. Coworkers sent messages afterward, and one in particular commended me in a way that made it clear she didn’t know I was queer prior to reading, but she was happy for me, encouraged by what I’d written and shared with the world. 

That kind of reaction – where someone meets you with warmth before they even fully understand what they’re affirming – is its own kind of allyship.

There were also lunch conversations where I was figuring out how to talk about my sexuality openly for the first time in a professional setting. When I got nervous or stumbled, my coworkers were patient and never made me feel like I shouldn’t be there. Those moments don’t make headlines, but they’re the ones that make you feel like you can keep showing up as yourself.

When I left that first company, I came back to Three Ears Media… a company that is trans-owned. I knew Kat was LGBTQIA+ from working with them during my college internship, so I went from one safe company to another. That’s not the reality for most.

What The Data Really Says About LGBTQ+ Employees

The data makes clear that my experience was the exception, not the rule. While around 72% of LGBTQ+ employees are broadly out at work, that still means more than one in four are not – and among junior employees, that number drops to 32%. A 2023 Williams Institute study found that 46% of LGBTQ+ employees are not open with their current supervisor, and 21% are not out to any coworkers at all. Nearly 45% of employed LGBTQ+ Americans believe being openly LGBTQ+ at work could hurt their careers.

And even among those who are out, the experience at work is measurably different. LGBTQ+ employees report lower levels of inclusion than their straight coworkers across self-expression, connection, access to support systems, and psychological safety. Only 14% of straight employees report discomfort discussing mental health at work – compared with 29% of LGBTQ+ employees and 47% of transgender employees. 

As I chatted with my friends and peers to get first-hand tips for this post, I quickly realized something. Many of my LGBTQIA+ peers haven’t considered how their coworkers can be better allies at work, because they’re not even out at work. Because their coworkers don’t know that they’re LGBTQIA+, their dynamic doesn’t seem to allow the opportunity for them to be an ally. But I’d argue that they can still be better allies whether they know their coworkers are LGBTQIA+ or not. So what does that actually look like? Here’s what I’ve learned – from my own experience and from the people I talked to for this post.

Allyship At Work: What Can You Do? 

You don’t have to be a manager to be an ally. Some of the most impactful allyship happens peer-to-peer – in the small, everyday moments that either build safety or quietly dismantle it. 

FOR TEAMMATES
Take “jokes” seriously.	We all have different senses of humor, and you can genuinely consider yourself an ally and still make a joke that lands wrong. It doesn’t have to be a slur. It can be a passing comment about someone you and a coworker encountered during the workday, or a reaction to something in the news, or just one of those little offhand things you expect everyone to laugh along with. But if you’re not aware that someone on your team is LGBTQIA+ – and you make that joke – you’ve just quietly dismantled whatever sense of safety they had. Intent doesn’t erase impact. Allyship means holding yourself accountable to that even when no one is watching.
Respect identity in all contexts.	If someone goes by a name that isn’t on their paperwork, use that name. If someone uses different pronouns in different settings – at the office versus around clients, or around family – check in with them about what they need in each context rather than assuming. It takes about thirty seconds to ask and it means everything to the person on the receiving end. Deadnaming someone in a client meeting isn’t a minor slip. It forces someone to either correct you in a professional setting or stay silent and feel erased. Neither is okay. Convenience is never a good enough reason to override someone’s identity.
Practice everyday respect – not just when it’s visible.	Are you being an ally because an LGBTQIA+ coworker is in the room and you want them to see it? Or are you practicing allyship even when no one who would “benefit” from it is around to notice? It’s kind of like when people film themselves giving food to someone experiencing homelessness. The gesture might be real, but the documentation makes you wonder who it’s actually for. Real allyship doesn’t need an audience. It’s the thing you do in the meeting when no one LGBTQIA+ is in the room, or in the group chat, or in the conversation where it would have been easier to just let it go.
Correct pronouns gently and move on.	When someone uses the wrong pronoun for a coworker, you don’t need to make it a moment – you just need to make it a correction. A quick line in an email, a soft redirect in conversation: “As a reminder, their pronouns are they/them.” That’s it. No lecture, no drama. The point isn’t to embarrass anyone. The point is to make sure the person being misgendered knows someone noticed and said something.
Practice names before they’re official.	If a coworker is considering a new name – whether they’re exploring their identity or in the process of transitioning – offer to practice using it. It costs you nothing and means everything to them. Getting comfortable with someone’s name before it’s on their paperwork is one of the quietest, most generous things an ally can do.
Remember that not every LGBTQIA+ person looks the part.	Bisexual and queer people who are in straight-presenting relationships exist. Trans people who haven’t publicly come out at work exist. LGBTQIA+ people who don’t fit anyone’s mental image of what queer looks like exist – and they’re watching how you talk about and treat the community even when you think none of them are in the room. Assuming someone’s orientation or identity based on who they’re with or how they look isn’t just inaccurate. It’s its own kind of erasure.

Next week, we’ll talk about Allyship For Leaders – because being an ally at work is different for teammates vs. leadership. Leaders have the unique ability to make change at a larger scale. The power to set the tone, challenge systems, and make it structurally safe (or unsafe) to be out at work. That’s a responsibility, not just an opportunity.