From Organizational Sexuality To Queer Organizations

From Organizational Sexuality to Queer Organizations:
Research on Homosexuality and the Workplace

Christine Williams
1
* and Patti Giuffre
2
1
Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
2
Department of Sociology, Texas State University-San Marcos
Abstract
Organization scholars historically ignored the crucial importance of sexuality in the workplace.
But in the last 20 years, scholars inuenced by the sexuality in organizations perspective have
documented the ways that the management and deployment of workers sexuality are key ele-
ments in organizational life. While most of these studies have documented persistent privileging of
heterosexuality in work organizations, a recent trend is to investigate a new organizational form:
the gay-friendly workplace. We review legal and policy changes in US workplaces that have made
them more accepting of gay and lesbian employees. Then we examine ethnographic studies of
gay-friendly organizations. Although they are certainly an advance over previous homophobic
workplaces, the literature suggests that they may reproduce inequalities of race, class, and gender.
Few studies have investigated queer organizations, which we identify as a rich area for future
scholarship.
Over 20 years ago, a small group of mostly British sociologists challenged researchers
studying work and organizations to take sexuality seriously (Hearn and Parkin 1987;
Hearn et al. 1989). Most organization researchers at the time considered sexuality irrele-
vant to the public sphere of paid work; the private sphere was the rightful setting for
emotions, intimacy, and sexuality. This notion can be traced to Max Weber, who long
ago characterized bureaucracies as attempt[ing] to eliminat[e] from ofcial business love,
hatred, and all purely personal, irrational, and emotional elements which escape calcula-
tion (Weber 1946, 216). Weber proposed this model of bureaucratic organization as a
socio-cultural ideal, but many researchers elided it with reality, permitting them to ignore
or downplay the sexual dynamics of the workplace (Pringle 1989). Thus in their 1987
review of the scholarly literature on work, Hearn and Parkin (1987, 4) found that organi-
zation sociologists typically treated workers as a breed of strange, asexual eunuch gures.
Organization sociologists took sexuality seriously only when the private sphere
encroached on the public sphere, as it did in the case of total institutions (like the prison
and the military); in the performance of sex work; in womens experience with sexual
harassment; and in the lives of gays and lesbian workers. In these cases, the literature rec-
ognized that people may be assessed on sexual grounds; they may be conscious of their
sexual oppression; and their own sexual behavior may be severely controlled or pro-
scribed in the organization (Burrell and Hearn 1989, 22).
The binary, public work and private sexuality, was evident in early studies of gays and
lesbians. These studies took place during the heyday of the closet, which according to
Seidman (2002), occurred from 1950 to 1980 (see also Seidman et al. 1999). During this
period, gay and lesbian workers faced a single choice: either keep information about their
Sociology Compass 5 7 (2011): 551563, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00392.x
2011 The Authors
Sociology Compass 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
sexuality private and stay gainfully employed, or come out and risk nearly universal
public ostracism and shaming. In response to this rampant homophobia, some gays and
lesbians formed work organizations in gay enclaves; sociologists responded by studying
their unique features, mostly under a sociology of deviance framework (e.g. Achilles
1967; Perkins and Skipper 1981; Reitzes and Diver 1982; Taub 1982; Weinberg and
Williams 1975; Weston and Rofel 1984).
The new sexuality in organizations perspective offered an entirely different paradigm.
Advocates proclaimed that, far from exceptional or deviant, sexuality is a basic feature of
all workplaces. Workers in virtually every industry and occupation experience sexual
desire, eroticism, and sexual violence in their daily work lives. Sexuality could never be
removed from workplaces. Instead, they argued, work organizations reproduce themselves
through the management and deployment of workers sexuality. Also key to this perspec-
tive is the claim that certain social groups are advantaged by organizational sexuality,
while others are excluded or oppressed. Thus, the guiding question for the new sexuality
in organizations research agenda was: Whose sexual interests are being served or are
dominant in a particular organization? (Burrell and Hearn 1989, 18).
This new sexuality in organizations perspective inspired studies of heteronormativity
in the workplace. Heteronormativity is the taken-for-granted assumption that heterosexu-
ality is natural, normal, and superior to all other forms of sexual expression (Valocchi
2005). Studies found that heteronormativity is institutionalized in the workplace in the
following ways: (1) through benets policies that recognize and privilege nuclear family
arrangements with clearly demarcated gender roles; (2) through the ritualized celebration
of heterosexual norms (dating, engagements, marriages); (3) through informal joking, gos-
sip, and irtations among co-workers and clients that assume heterosexuality and dispar-
age alternative sexual expressions; and (4) through the division of labor that reinforces
stereotypes about gender and sexuality (Adkins 1995; Dellinger and Williams 1997; Filby
1992; Giuffre and Williams 1994; Herek 2004; Skidmore 2004; Williams and Britton
1995; Woods and Lucas 1993).
Heteronormativity continues to characterize many if not most workplaces. However,
its hegemony is currently being contested. In recent years, many societies have become
more accepting of lesbians and gay men. In the United States, where we are located,
public opinion polls have shown that, starting around the year 2000, those with negative
attitudes toward gays and lesbians became the distinct minority. The magnitude of this
change is greatest on the topic of workplace acceptance. When the Gallup Poll asked
Americans in 2003 whether they think homosexuals should or should not have equal
rights in terms of job opportunities, 88% of respondents said that they should, represent-
ing a 57% increase in acceptance since 1977 (Hicks and Lee 2006, 67).
These shifts in public attitudes have been mirrored in dramatic changes in many work-
places. Between 1998 and 2002, for example, the number of US Fortune 500 companies
extending domestic partner benets to gay and lesbian employees more than doubled
(Davison and Rouse 2004; also see Raeburn 2004). The annual survey of the largest and
most successful U.S. employers by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation
(2010a, 4) found that 94% of the 590 employers evaluated offered domestic partner bene-
ts to same-sex couples. The US military is the latest organization to join the gay-friendly
bandwagon, as the dont ask dont tell policy that discriminated against openly gay and
lesbian soldiers nally has been overturned (Britton and Williams 1995; Stolberg 2010).
This vastly changed social and policy landscape has inspired some researchers to study
gay-friendly workplaces that are accepting and even welcoming to gay and lesbian
employees. Following in the footsteps of the sexuality in organizations theorists,
552 Homosexuality and the Workplace
2011 The Authors Sociology Compass 5 7 (2011): 551563, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2011.00392.x
researchers are asking whose sexual interests are being served or are dominant in these
new organizational forms. While gay-friendly organizations are clearly superior to the
alternative of the closet, studies question whether they go far enough to include the full
range of sexual expression. As we will show, some research suggests that to be successful
in gay-friendly workplaces, gays and lesbians must appear virtually normal, that is, indis-
tinguishable from heterosexuals. A new homonormativity may be replacing the old het-
eronormativity allowing gays and lesbians to succeed but only if they enact a narrowly
circumscribed and conventional performance of gender, family, and politics in the work-
place. It also appears from the limited studies that have been done that gay-friendly does
not necessarily mean racially inclusive or welcoming of other kinds of diversity, leading
some to wonder what is really new and improved about this organizational form. In this
paper we will review this new research on gay-friendly workplaces, much of which is
US based. These studies highlight the promise and the perils of the gay-friendly organiza-
tion.
In the nal section of the paper, we develop the concept of the queer organization as
an alternative to gay-friendly. Combing the terms queer and organization may strike
some readers as hopelessly paradoxical. While organization implies a system of hierarchi-
cally arranged categories and rational procedures, queer resists such boundaries and sug-
gests an attitude of unceasing disruptiveness (Parker 2002). But as we will suggest, the
concept of a queer organization can usefully highlight how the heterosexualhomosexual
binary continues to operate in many work organizations, and can reveal exactly what is at
stake in designing a truly inclusive workplace.
We begin, however, with an overview of the changing legal and policy context that is
shaping the new gay-friendly workplace in the United States. Unlike many countries
around the world, the United States does not have a federal law that protects gays and
lesbians from workplace discrimination. We review unsuccessful attempts to implement
one (Employment Non-Discrimination Act [ENDA]), and discuss criticisms of these
efforts. Next we turn to a discussion of workplace policies. Many large US corporations
now include protections for gay and lesbian employees in their diversity policies. The third
section of the article addresses workplace culture. We describe the ethnographic research
on gay-friendly workplaces which points to limitations in the gay-friendly model, and lead
us to develop the concept of the queer organization. Here the research is even more lim-
ited, but we draw on an eclectic mix of studies to formulate a new agenda for organiza-
tions and organizational researchers committed to sexual justice and equality.
Legal protections for gay and lesbian workers
Despite changes in public opinion toward more acceptance and tolerance, the United
States currently lacks federal legal protection for gay and lesbian workers. Some individual
states do outlaw discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. (The
website of the Human Rights Campaign [2010c] offers comprehensive and up-to-date
information on statewide anti-discrimination policies.) In contrast, several other nations
have enacted laws to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ)
workers (Humphrey 1999; Saguy 2003; Skidmore 2004; Williams 2003; Zippel 2006).
For example, the U.K. outlawed workplace discrimination on the grounds of sexual ori-
entation in 2003 (Rumens and Kerfoot 2009). According to Colgan et al. (2007, 2008),
this new law combined with strong union support will eventually transform workplace
cultures in the U.K. by enabling more workers to come out without fear of losing their
jobs.
Homosexuality and the Workplace 553
A bill to change US law to protect sexual minorities in the workplace was rst intro-
duced in Congress in 1994. The ENDA would guarantee basic protections to gay and
lesbian workers, prohibiting discrimination in hiring, ring, promotions, and benets pro-
vision based on sexual orientation (Human Rights Campaign 2010d). ENDA would
allow employees who have experienced sexual orientation discrimination to le a case
with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
In addition, ENDA would protect and offer legal recourse to gay and lesbian workers
who suffer sexual harassment. According to current US law, sexual harassment is dened
as a form of sex discrimination (Schultz 2003). Consequently, to prove a case of sexual
harassment, individuals must show that they suffered harassment because of their sex (i.e.
because they are male or female). This legal denition excludes harassment against gays
and lesbians (Crouch 2001). For instance, Margaret Crouch cites a 1989 legal case in
which a worker at Chrysler named Martha Grevatt experienced sexual harassment from
male co-workers because of her sexual orientation. According to the discrimination suit,
a co-worker kept a spray can on his workbench labeled Dyke Repellent [and] crude
poems and pornography regularly appeared at Grevatts work station (Stewart 1997, 42).
Grevatt led sex discrimination charges with the EEOC, who declined to proceed with
the case when Chrysler argued successfully that she was harassed because of her sexual ori-
entation, rather than for being female. ENDA would allow harassed workers like Grevatt
to pursue cases of discrimination with the EEOC.
The ENDA has had a long and somewhat tortured history. It has been introduced to
every Congress since 1994, but it has only been voted on twice, in 1996 and 2007
(Vitulli 2010). In 2007, gender identity protections were included for the rst time in
ENDA. This means that in addition to outlawing discrimination against workers on the
basis of sexual orientation, ENDA would also protect gender expression in the workplace.
Gender expression is how an individual denes and presents him or herself, as a man,
woman, or as an androgynous or transgendered individual, regardless of biological or ana-
tomical characteristics (Lucal 2008; Vidal-Ortiz 2008). The inclusion of gender identity
in ENDA was considered an important milestone in the advancement of transgender and
transsexual rights, but it also would provide workplace protections for gays and lesbians
(as well as heterosexuals) who are gender non-conformists (Avery and Crain 2007; Traut-
ner and Kwan 2010).
Unfortunately, as Vitulli (2010) documents, gender identity was ultimately removed
from ENDA in 2007 before it came to a vote. Most LGBTQ organizations strongly
opposed this decision. The exception was the Human Rights Campaign, which main-
tained that a bill stripped of gender identity protection had a better chance of passage.
However, Vitulli argues that the HRC opposed freedom of gender expression because it
contradicted their assimilationist worldview. According to Vitulli, the HRC had begun to
promote homonormativity, which following Jasbir Puar (2007) is dened as the exten-
sion of heteronormative privileges to certain normative gays and lesbians. Vitulli writes:
While heteronormativity is one of the most important, basic structures of the U.S. state and
dominant society, the emergence of homonormativity signals the reentrance of white, gender-
normative gays and lesbians into the rights and privileges of U.S. citizenship, allowing them to
access racial and class privileges by conforming to gender and sexual norms. Homonormative
gays and lesbians mimic (white) homonormative gender, sexual, and family structures, strength-
ening both heteronormativity and white supremacy. (Vitulli 2010, 157)
Vitulli argues that ENDA without protection for gender identity does little to challenge
structural sources of privilege that are based on race, class, and gender. In his view,
extending equal employment opportunities to gays and lesbians will enable those who are
gender conforming to gain access to workplace benets and opportunities. Without pro-
visions to protect gender expression, poor minority queers in particular will remain
excluded and oppressed.
The debate, however, is moot, since ENDA did not pass even in its stripped down
version. Consequently, no member of the LGBTQ community has US federal job pro-
tection. Nevertheless, the current Presidential administration has made a few gay-inclusive
policy changes for transgendered and gay workers. For example, President Obama revised
the language on the federal jobs web listings so that it bans employment discrimination
based on gender identity (Knowlton 2010). In 2009, Obama also extended some domes-
tic partner benets to federal government workers (for example, the ability to take a leave
for ill partners but not health insurance coverage) (Zeleny 2009).
Workplace policies
In contrast to the federal government, most major US corporations have instituted
policies banning discrimination against LGBTQ employees. Based on previous research
(e.g. Woods and Lucas 1993), the corporate world would seem like the last place to nd
the cutting edge of non-discrimination policies. Yet the Human Rights Campaign Foun-
dation (2010a), which monitors the growing acceptance of sexual minorities in major US
corporations, has documented a revolution in their support for gay-friendly policies. The
HRC provides an annual rating of companies inclusiveness based on the following crite-
ria: the existence of a non-discrimination policy, diversity training, benets provisions
(e.g. retirement and domestic partner benets), availability of a LGBT resource group,
appropriate marketing and advertising, sponsorship of LGBT events, and evidence that
the employer shows responsible behavior towards the LGBT community [and] does not
engage in [any] action that would undermine LGBT equality (p. 5). Using these criteria,
the most recent report found that 305 businesses achieved the top rating of 100%, com-
pared to 260 businesses in 2009, and 195 businesses in 2008. Of the 590 businesses
included in the report, 581 include sexual orientation as part of their anti-discrimination
policy. The number of businesses that provide health care coverage to partners also
increased: 94% of the businesses evaluated provide partner health coverage, an increase of
3% from 2009.
Greater corporate acceptance of gays and lesbians did not happen without a ght.
Raeburn (2004) studied how lesbian and gay workplace activists mobilized and suc-
cessfully encouraged many Fortune 1000 corporations to add gay-friendly policies. She
found that activists were successful when they had access to resources and support
from decision makers at the top of corporate hierarchies. In addition, the successful
activists she studied co-opted corporate discourse (p. 229) and used the language of
costs and benets as opposed to arguing that passing policies was the ethical thing to
do. Framing gay-inclusive work policies as prot based and not as civil rights, social
justice, or fairness issues helped to create alliances with key decision makers in
corporations.
Many companies have also recently adopted policies prohibiting discrimination on the
basis of gender identity and expression, again despite the absence of federal mandates to
do so. According to the HRC study, 427 (72%) of the major corporations now protect
gender identity as well as sexual orientation. Munsch and Hirsh (2010) examine the
impact of several contextual factors thought to inuence gender identity and expression
non-discrimination policy adoption among Fortune 500 rms from 1997 to 2007. One
of their key ndings is that companies imitate their rivals, adopting these policies when
other companies in the same industry do so.
This research on the proliferation of gay-friendly policies has focused on the largest US
corporations. Corporations are powerful in the US legislative process even leading the
way for adoption of anti-discrimination law (Dobbin 2009). Although it remains unclear
whether and how everyday norms and interactions have transformed as a result of these
policies (a topic we address in the next section), it is promising that work sites once
described by sociologists as homophobic (Woods and Lucas 1993) are today embracing
gay-friendly policies.
In addition to studying the major corporations, it would be fruitful for sociologists to
conduct similar analyses of small businesses. Since smaller companies often lack formal
personnel departments, it is more challenging to monitor trends in their adoption of gay-
friendly policies so we know less about them. However, a number of workplace ethnog-
raphies have detailed changes in the acceptance of sexual minorities in a range of smaller
work organizations. We now turn to an overview of these studies.
Gay-friendly workplaces
The rubric of gay-friendly can apply to a broad range of different work cultures (Giuffre
et al. 2008). For example, some work organizations are gay-owned and or -operated, and
are dedicated to serving the needs of a predominately gay and lesbian clientele. Other
workplaces that are labeled gay-friendly are dominated by heterosexuals, but have formal
or informal policies that prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ workers (the major cor-
porations in the HRC data would t this characterization). Recent studies document this
variety of gay-friendly organizational cultures, identifying the benets as well as the per-
sistent obstacles to sexual minorities in these workplaces.
Giuffre et al. (2008) analyze what a gay-friendly workplace means to gay and lesbian
employees. Although their 32 respondents described a wide range of work organizations,
from heterosexual-dominated to LGBTQ-owned and -operated, they all reported that
they felt safe, welcomed, and supported where they worked. However, despite their pal-
pable and genuine relief at nding workplaces that accept them, many respondents
described interactions that marginalized them because of their sexuality.
For instance, some men and women said that their straight co-workers and members
of the public asked them uncomfortable questions about what it means to be gay or les-
bian, including details about their sex life, how they got pregnant, what other gay people
are like, and whether they considered dating anyone of the opposite sex. These workers
confronted stereotypes at every turn. Although some respondents claimed that they rel-
ished the opportunity to educate straight people about the meaning of homosexuality,
others felt performance pressure to be appropriate role models. Similarly, Conley et al.
(2001) found that many of their respondents were personally offended when straight peo-
ple asked them questions about their sexual practices, especially if they felt singled out for
such inquiries (see also Irwin 2002).
A stereotype that is especially damaging to gay men in professional and managerial jobs
is that they are effeminate and sexually promiscuous. Rumens and Kerfoot (2009) explore
how gay men who work in a U.K. National Health Service Trust negotiate their profes-
sional self-identity in the context of these persistent beliefs. The 10 men they interviewed
said that their workplaces were gay-friendly, yet some men felt the need to repress any
expression of their homosexuality for fear of reinforcing these stereotypes and undermin-
ing their professional credibility. Rumens and Kerfoot (2009, 776) write:
Dominant ideas about what it is to be professional are premised on the belief that professional-
ism and sexuality are mutually exclusive. Yet, even in gay friendly work cultures where such
dichotomies are perhaps more prone to collapse, some interview accounts suggested that partici-
pants sometimes felt their sense of professional identity was in tension with their sexuality.
For some men, achieving a professional identity meant emphasizing their similarity to
straight men and distancing themselves from a camp style of self-presentation associated
with homosexuality.
The imperative to repress any sign of homosexuality is also a theme in the article,
The Gay Friendly Closet (Williams et al. 2009). This article argues that lesbian and gay
workers often face a paradox: to be accepted in the gay-friendly workplace, they must
exhibit allegiance to conventional gender roles, conservative politics, and middle class val-
ues. Yet this conformity means that many co-workers and clients do not identify them as
lesbian or gay their homosexuality is essentially invisible to outsiders. To be recogniz-
ably gay or lesbian at work requires that they exhibit stereotypical behaviors that are often
considered unacceptable in heteronormative workplaces, such as being overly promiscu-
ous in the case of gay men and being overly solicitous in the case of lesbians. Similar to
Vitullis critique of homonormativity in ENDA, this article indicates that acceptance of
homosexuality in gay-friendly workplaces may extend only to those who can convinc-
ingly enact and embody heteronormativity.
Toward a queer organization
The limited research suggests that gays and lesbians are welcomed into and can succeed
in the gay-friendly workplace only if they appear virtually normal, that is, indistinguish-
able from their straight co-workers. Where does this leave queer people, those who
refuse the hetero homo binary, reject conventional family values, engage in non-norma-
tive sexual practices, and pursue queer activism? Do organizations exist that can accept
and cultivate the unceasing disruptiveness associated with queerness (Parker 2002)? What
would a queer organization look like?
One place to nd the answer is in organizations led by queer activists. Goulds (2009)
history of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), describes the queer eroticism
that pervaded every element of this social movement organization. Prior to this
movement, gays and lesbians participated in mostly separate organizations, but through
ACT-UP, many came to embrace a new queer identity. She describes an intense feeling
of sexy solidarity that developed among the activists as a consequence of the move-
ments early success. They implemented new forms of organizational decision making that
rejected hierarchies and leaders. Meetings were not boring; they were opportunities for
cruising and irting. Through their often very public displays of eroticism that intention-
ally aunted social expectations of sexual propriety, activists attempted to dismantle the
heterosexual homosexual binary.
ACT-UP was no doubt a queer organization, but it was short-lived and based entirely
on volunteer labor. Gould joins others in questioning whether any queer movement can
sustain itself over time, or if they are always destined to self destruct (Gamson 1995). In
the case of ACT-UP inghting was a factor; the movement shattered on the basis of race
and gender differences. Interestingly, those differences were there all along, but in the
earlier period they were seemingly overcome by the sexual and emotional energy that
pervaded the group.
The issue of whether or not queer organizations can sustain themselves overtime and
also pay their workers is taken up by Jane Ward in her book, Respectably Queer: Diver-
sity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations (2008). This ethnographic study examines three
LGBTQ organizations in Los Angeles: the organization that puts on pride parade; a
large LGBTQ community center; and an organization that caters to the needs of HIV-
positive Latinos. Assuming that non-prot organizations that serve the queer community
would be especially dedicated to the goal of achieving race, class, and gender diversity,
Ward sets out to determine how well they achieve this goal. She nds that diversity is
thwarted by the desire of organizers to successfully compete for economic support from
foundations and local governments. Consequently, she nds that the interests of lesbians
and poor minority queers are often sacriced in the quest for respectability even in
reputedly queer organizations.
Using the scholarly literature as a guide, it appears that work organizations that actively
challenge heteronormativity and serve the interests of diverse queers are clustered in the
entertainment and sex industries. These contexts apparently allow for more play with
gendered and sexual presentations of self. Barton (2001, 2006) conducted an ethnographic
study of heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual exotic dancers about their sexual identity.
Barton claims that sex workers are frequently stereotyped as lesbians. She asked exotic
dancers how they felt about this stereotype and found that many of her respondents
described complex tensions between dancing for men and having queer desires for
women. This particular workplace subculture appeared to encourage sexual exploration.
Barton contends that queer desire and the sex industry positively reinforce one another
(2001, 5) because strip clubs give women access to other women, invite them to break
taboos, and simultaneously teach them disdain for men (see also Lerum 2004).
Rupp and Taylor (2003) conducted an ethnography of drag queen performers at a cab-
aret in Key West, Florida. They found that the drag queens (all of whom identied as
gay) enjoy playing with audience members ideas about gender and sexuality, particularly
in trying to sexually entice and arouse straight men. This workplace culture allows eco-
nomically marginalized gay men who otherwise face stigma and homophobia to have
more control over interactions with others and their own presentations of self. According
to Rupp and Taylor, performers feel empowered and liberated while at the club.
Through the celebration of gay male sexualities, the authors argue, their performances
constitute a protest against heteronormativity.
In a similar study of a gay workplace culture, Orzechowicz (2010) studied the Parade
department, referred to as Parades, in a theme park he calls Wonderland. This work
force at Parades is comprised of dancers, choreographers, directors, and managers. It
includes men and women, both gay and straight, but it is numerically and culturally dom-
inated by gay men. In a reversal of typical beliefs, all of the men in the workplace were
assumed to be gay. Although straight men did not try to pass for gay in this context, they
did engage in behaviors and presentations of self that challenged heteronormative mascu-
linity. Backstage interactions were characterized by gay-coded language, joking, and ges-
tures. Physical contact (intimate and not necessarily sexual) between and among men was
the norm. According to Orzechowicz (2010, 248),
[The Parades department] challenges the subordination and exclusion of homosexuality in the
workplace. The work culture upends the power dynamic of the gay straight dichotomy, subor-
dinating heteronormative masculinity in a social domain it typically claims. Many performers
experience very real benets from this power shift, including greater acceptance, visibility, and
ease at work.
Despite these important advantages, Orzechowicz notices that there is little discussion of
lesbian sexuality among the Parade workers, nor do performers openly challenge racial-
ized assumptions that are embedded in the performance of this particular gay esthetic.
Hammers (2008) studied a feminist and queer bathhouse in Canada that she refers to
as the Pussy Palace. This is an unusual case, Hammers notes, because public places to
celebrate womens sexuality and engage in casual sex have been notably absent (567).
The women who organized the bathhouse wanted to build a safe, sexually liberating
space for women, and indeed, many reported that they felt empowered and gained
condence there. However, the author nds that the bathhouse was not as diverse as it
set out to be, as most participants were White and few trans people attended. The
bathhouse organizers also claimed that they would welcome all sexualities, but Ham-
mers found that some sexual practices were encouraged over others. For example, the
website for the club includes tips on what to wear and for those interested in hooking
up, advice on how to approach others and cruise (565), thus setting boundaries on
sexual expression.
In each of these organizations, heteronormativity is questioned, and workers openly
express and endorse queer sexuality. In this sense, these queer organizations provide an
alternative to both the closet and to homonormativity. However, we argue that their
impact on wider organizational arrangements is limited for two reasons. First, their inu-
ence on the mainstream is restricted because these organizations are not considered
respectable or professional, a situation that is unlikely to change so long as professional-
ism is equated with heterosexuality (Rumens and Kerfoot 2009). Professional organizations
are sexual; that is the basic insight of the sexuality in organizations perspective reviewed
at the beginning of this article. However, professional workplaces do not appear sexual
since they endorse heterosexuality, the taken-for-granted hegemonic norm. Conse-
quently, respectable professional workers can wear wedding rings at work, dress in
gender-differentiated clothing, date their co-workers, display photos of their heterosexual
nuclear family, bring their spouse to a company event, and attend after-work parties at
strip clubs all without appearing the least bit sexual. In contrast, organizations that
embrace queer sexuality are not considered professional. They stand out as explicitly
sexual and erotic precisely because they deviate from these heterosexual norms. Workers
may wear gender-ambiguous clothing; they may eschew monogamy; their sexual partners
may not act like normal heterosexual wives or husbands; their sexual desires may aunt
conventional frameworks. From a mainstream perspective, these organizations are
disrespected and unprofessional because they are sexual, when in reality they are just as
sexual as straight organizations. But that perception probably limits the wider social
impact of queer organizations.
The second reason why queer organizations have a limited impact on the mainstream
is because the larger context in which they operate continues to privilege male domina-
tion and White supremacy. For example, the woman-only bathhouse operates only a few
times a year in a setting that is usually a bathhouse for men. The Parades department
constitutes a backstage of a theme park that otherwise celebrates and romanticizes hetero-
normativity. And the strip club studied by Barton serves a mostly heterosexual male cli-
entele. The impact of these queer organizations is contained within a larger structure that
continues to privilege heterosexuality.
What these studies do show, however, is that alternative expressions of sexuality in orga-
nizations are possible. Bringing them into the mainstream of sociology and of society is
the next challenge.
Conclusion
Over the past 20 years, a body of research has developed to show that sexuality is an
inherent part of organizational life. Inspired by the sexuality in organization perspective,
a plethora of studies have documented the ways that workplace laws, policies, and inter-
actions privileged heterosexuals and either conned gays and lesbians to the invisibility of
the closet or outright excluded them. Today, as tolerance and acceptance of gays and les-
bians have increased throughout society, a new organizational form has developed: the
gay-friendly workplace. In this essay, we have reviewed recent studies examining both
the promise and the limitations of this important innovation.
We have shown that in the United States, there is no federal legal protection for
LGBTQ workers. However, major US corporations have taken the lead in developing
gay-friendly policies. They have also implemented protections for gender expression
despite lacking a political or social mandate to do so. This new policy context contributes
to LGBTQ workers feeling comfortable and accepted at work. For many gay and lesbian
workers, the gay-friendly workplace represents a huge advance over the blatantly homo-
phobic workplace, which still exists in many organizations.
But following the sexuality in organizations perspective, we asked the question, who
benets from the organization of sexuality in gay-friendly workplaces? Studies suggest that
a new homonormativity is ascendant in the gay-friendly workplace. Thus, gay men are
accepted if they are masculine and lesbians if they are feminine, and everyone is expected
to embrace middle class family values. Moreover, professionalism continues to be associ-
ated with asexuality although this obscures the ways that heterosexual privileges are
built into job descriptions and organizational hierarchies. As research has shown, gay-
friendly workplaces also tend to marginalize men and women of color.
In conclusion, we return to the question raised by Jane Ward: Can an organization be
both queer and respectable? Currently, workplaces that include and celebrate queer
sexualities tend to be located in the not quite respectable entertainment and sex work
industries. Aside from social movement organizations like ACT-UP, these seem to be the
only organizations that accept individuals who do not conform to conventional gender
expressions and who challenge stereotypes about what it means to be heterosexual or
homosexual.
Some might argue that moving queerness from margin to mainstream is theoretically
impossible since the political vitality and power of queer sexuality depends on its marginal-
ity (or non-normativity). However, the studies we have reviewed suggest otherwise. Work
organizations today exist that celebrate and encourage expressions of queer sexuality.
Granted, these studies demonstrate aws and limits in these organizations. In particular,
these organizations are short-lived, and struggle with issues of inclusivity, especially with
regard to race ethnicity and class. Furthermore, they have limited impact on society
because they are not considered respectable or professional, and they are contained by a
larger structure of heteronormativity. A respectably queer organization is an unrealized
goal, at least in the United States, the location of most of the studies we have reviewed. It
would be interesting to explore how queerness is incorporated in organizations located in
settings that offer greater legal protections to and social acceptance of LGBTQ workers.
What seems clear from our review is that, instead of foreclosing the possibility of a
queer organization, researchers should be on the lookout for queerness in every organiza-
tion. As Valocchi (2005) has argued, sociology itself is not yet queer enough. He argues
that researchers often unwittingly reify gender and sexual identities instead of recognizing
the performative nature of all identities and the non-normative alignments of sex, gender,
and sexuality that occur all the time. Sociologists must become more attuned to these
transgressive moments. By incorporating queer theory along the lines he suggests, organi-
zational sociologists can begin to dismantle the gender and sexual binaries that undergird
the world of work, and thus help to promote queerer organizations.
Short Biographies
Patti Giuffres areas of research are gender, sexuality, inequality, work and occupations,
and qualitative methods. She has conducted research on gender and sexuality in different
workplace contexts. She has published articles on experiences of elite women chefs (with
Deborah Harris, which recently appeared in Gender Issues and Research in the Sociology of
Work), gay-friendly workplaces (with Christine Williams and Kirsten Dellinger), and sex-
ual harassment (with Christine Williams). Giuffre is an associate professor of sociology at
Texas State University-San Marcos, and received her MA and PhD from the University
of Texas at Austin.
Christine L. Williams is professor and chair of sociology at the University of Texas at
Austin, where she teaches courses in gender, sexuality, and work. She is the former editor
of Gender & Society, and the past chair of the Organizations, Occupations, and Work sec-
tion of the American Sociological Association. Her most recent books are Inside Toyland:
Working, Shopping, and Social Inequality (California, 2006), and Gender & Sexuality in the
Workplace, edited with Kirsten Dellinger (Emerald, 2010). She is currently studying
women geoscientists in the petroleum industry.
Note
* Correspondence address: Christine L. Williams, Department of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 Uni-
versity Station A1700, Austin, TX 78712, USA. E-mail: cwilliams@austin.utexas.edu
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