Lord Browne: testimonies on life inside the glass closet

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/24/lord-browne-life-inside-glass-closet-gay

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The act of coming out happens in a moment, but gaining the confidence to do so can take decades. Anxiety still grips LGBT employees, from the factory floor all the way to the chief executive's office, and the fear that closeted employees experience makes it difficult to speak to them, even when people are offered the protection of anonymity. The paranoia is present even among employees who work at firms known for embracing LGBT inclusion.

George, an investment banker, is a case in point. He has spent the past six years working at the London office of one of the US's largest banks. His employer is regarded as having one of the most gay-friendly workplaces and sponsors a number of charities that advance gay rights. Yet among the 300 people who work on George's floor, no one is openly gay. "While you think there is a 99% chance that coming out will be fine, the consequences of that 1% could be terrifying," he says. "If someone doesn't like me, he doesn't need to be in my face about it or rude or homophobic. He can be smart and just say in my review that I didn't handle clients well. He can just make up a story and all of a sudden my ranking is in jeopardy."

Making calculations of that kind on a daily basis is exhausting, especially when the working day sometimes stretches to 16 hours. So, too, is having to obscure details of what you did over the weekend, changing the pronoun used to refer to the person you are dating and making sure you do not accidentally reveal aspects of your life on social media. "I am tired of having to lie to people," George says. "Given the job I do and the hours I work, it affects quite a large chunk of my life." He says he will come out once he becomes a director or managing director in a few years' time. For now he will just have to keep up his cover.

Alexander says homophobic banter from colleagues pushed him deep into the closet during his nine-year stint as an investment banker in New York and London. "It's not the type of thing where you can say I was overtly threatened, but it's clear tacit homophobia exists. It makes you wonder if you're allowed to be yourself when you're at the office." Most of the comments came from a managing director who was also his line manager. One week the team travelled from London to a stately home in the countryside for an off-site meeting, a company tradition designed to build camaraderie. Over dinner, the group of mostly male bankers went around the table and each person revealed one thing someone had whispered to them in bed. "I said, 'Someone told me I had very nice arms.'" His boss, sitting at the other end of the table, yelled back, "What was his name?" Alexander had no choice but to laugh along with everyone else.

The jibes continued next day when the team headed for a bike trail. "As we were walking to the bikes, he said, 'See that pink one? That's for you.'"

Although the firm has an LGBT group, Alexander says the stigma attached to joining means it was "only for assistants and HR". No bankers attended its meetings. He did have one confidant: another closeted banker from the firm whom he bumped into once at a gay nightclub. He advised Alexander to remain closeted and to hide every sign. "He said, 'You will never find proof of it, but there's a glass ceiling. You can progress to managing director, but no further. If you're gay, you are not part of the club.'"

Alexander eventually came out, and was let go by the firm six months later. He likes to believe his redundancy had more to do with the recession than discrimination. But working in a new, gay-friendly atmosphere has helped him see just how stressful his old life was. "In the closet, you always need to ask yourself how you are behaving and if people will perceive something that you don't want them to perceive," he says.

Erika Karp, the founder and CEO of Cornerstone Capital Inc, says it is only on the outside of the closet that one can truly understand the toll that hiding takes on a person inside. She spent seven years in the closet while working at Credit Suisse in New York. She felt intense pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. ''You want to be evaluated and judged based on your contribution," she says. "When you're lesbian, it adds a level of difference that people might be uncomfortable with, or at least distracted by. That takes attention away from what your mandate is."

In spite of being in a long-term relationship with a woman named Sari, she spoke about her partner Sam. The constant lying created a barrier between Karp and some of her closest colleagues, and drained her of energy. Inevitably, the stress of keeping up appearances bled into her personal life. "I remember when Sari and I were walking in Central Park. I don't have all that good vision. I would think that 100 yards off I was seeing someone from my office. I'd get stressed out and drop Sari's hand. That was so painful.'

The threat of homophobia is not the only reason some women stay in the closet. Gay and bisexual women also say that some men are fascinated by their sexual orientation. That can create a major barrier to business performance.

Chloe is a confident, outspoken 28-year-old who works as a team leader in the oil and gas division of a major international services firm. A trained geophysicist, she started her career at one of the world's largest oil and gas groups. She worked alongside rig crews drilling oilwells; she was always the only woman on site. Once, during a long break between assignments, her team was sitting in a meadow. Someone had arranged for food to be delivered, along with a pair of strippers. "There were two naked women on drugs, and they were dancing in front of 20 men and touching each other," she says. "The men were saying disrespectful things about women, and they only had positive thoughts about women when there was a sexual connotation."

Chloe never thought about coming out. Eventually, her unhappiness led her to swap the oil rigs for a place in graduate school. She casually revealed to her classmates that she was bisexual. Within days, one of them had propositioned her for sex. "He said, 'You are clearly open to many things sexually, so let's do this.' He loved the fact that I was bisexual."

Chloe declined and their relationship soured. "The level of harassment was intolerable," she says. "I didn't have enough strength to manage it." She promptly returned to the closet and refused to discuss her private life.

Her current employer actively fosters an inclusive environment – but Chloe remains in the closet. "You cannot succeed if you're gay," she says. She remembers my own resignation from BP well and strongly believes that I did the right thing by denying who I was: "If you're at the heart of this industry, it's a huge risk." This is the wrong lesson to draw from my experiences. The double life I led should not be seen as a workable blueprint for a business career.

I hear so many stories of young people hiding in the closet. That makes me both angry, because of the pressure that society is putting on them, and sad because of the consequences. The stories of the people I have spoken to bring back memories of encasing myself in a hard shell and making sure that no one got inside it. I was convinced that no one should get close enough to see the real truth, or the real me. Alexander, the former investment banker, still remembers his boss's taunt about riding a pink bicycle. But rather than getting angry at his old colleague, he gets angry at himself for staying in the closet for so long. "If I had just been honest with everyone from the start, would my life really have been so difficult?" he asks. "Homophobic people hold the power because we allow them to hold it. If we allow them to make us feel shame, we will remain second-class citizens." Fear kept him in the closet. Now freedom keeps him out.

"What's the fun of telling me there's a pink bike if I'm proud of being gay? It's only funny because I'm trying to stay in the closet. Coming out kills the joke."

When leaders think it is funny to make homophobic jokes, the group will tend to laugh and mimic their behaviour. This leaves gay employees feeling marginalised and powerless to speak up. That was very much the experience of one project manager at a leading international PR firm in Brussels. On several occasions, a senior manager sent sexually aggressive emails from a gay colleague's computer to junior employees and blind-copied other members of staff who were in on the joke. "A junior trainee on a six-month trial would think the gay guy was hitting on him, which would lead to a panic," he says. At a company Christmas party, the homophobic manager gave an employee a gift, which he had to open in front of the entire staff. It contained a latex glove and a jar of Vaseline. Whenever he walked past the manager's office to use the toilet, the manager would ask, "Are you going to the laddies' room?"

"It was clear I'd never get to the top of the tree there because I'd never fit into their model," the project manager recalls.

In August 2013, my partner and I visited some friends at their house in the English countryside. Among the guests was a man in his early 30s who was introduced to us as Thomas, a footballer from Germany. After tea, he took a walk with both of us in the garden. In those most unlikely surroundings, he then described how, during the latter part of a 12-year career in professional football, he had dealt with the realisation that he was gay. By the time we met, he had reached the point of having to decide whether to retire from professional football. A long career playing for various clubs meant that injuries were a factor. But he was also preoccupied with whether to come out and when. He was very interested in my story. He wanted me to describe the fears I had had and how my life had changed. Less than three weeks later, the Hammer, as he was known for his powerful left foot, officially hung up his boots. Thomas Hitzlsperger announced his retirement at the beginning of September 2013.

Thomas visited us in London in December, and debunked some of the conventional wisdom about homosexuality in football. "I didn't really have a problem with gay jokes among the players – some of them are funny – but homophobia is more difficult to deal with. I think, though, that if I had come out, some players would have supported me, and others would have followed."

Even though it comes from the world of football, in which openly gay players and former players are so rare, Thomas's story is like so many others. It was my strong impression that, like many in business, he was worried that a poor performance could have been blamed on his sexuality. I suggested to him that there is never a good time to come out, nor a bad time. We also discussed the positive impact that his coming out would have on the younger generation of footballers.

Within a week of our interview, Thomas had taken the decision to come out. On 8 January 2014, he disclosed his sexual orientation in an interview with Germany's newspaper Die Zeit. Reaction from the media and fellow players was swift and overwhelmingly supportive, including a Twitter message from English footballer Joey Barton: "Thomas Hitzlsperger has shown a lot of courage today. Sad times when people have to wait till they retire from their chosen profession before they feel other people will judge them solely on who the human being is. Shame on all of us as a society."

For decades, I believed that it would be socially unacceptable to come out. I worried that the negative stereotype of a gay person would overshadow the reality of who I was. I am sure that staying in the closet did prevent some people from forming unflattering opinions about me. However, I am no longer convinced that they matter. By avoiding one stereotype, I conformed to another: that of a gay man in the closet. Coming out does not mean your life will be peace and serenity. You will still encounter people who make you uncomfortable. You will still have to make difficult decisions. You will still face challenges big and small, meaningful and trivial. But you will be better able to cope with all of them.

Some names have been changed.

© John Browne, 2014

• This is an edited extract from The Glass Closet: Why Coming Out Is Good Business, by John Browne, published by WH Allen at £16.99. To order a copy for £13.59, with free UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846.

To watch a film by Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills talking to LGBT people in business, go to theguardian.com/video.

For more stories and information go to GlassCloset.org.

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