Salzburg Global Fellow Layla McCay publishes book on the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ professionals
This op-ed was written by Layla McCay, who attended the Health and Health Care Innovation program on "The Greatest Untapped Resource in Healthcare? Informing and Involving Patients in Decisions about Their Medical Care" from December 12 to 17, 2010.
If someone had asked me a few years ago if being a gay woman had affected my career, I’d have said no. The concept would have felt ridiculous. After all, I’d got into medical school and worked first as a doctor and then in health policy in multiple countries. I’d published journal papers, I’d set up a think tank, I was a Salzburg Global Fellow. I was very happy with my career, thanks for asking.
But then, a chance encounter with an acquaintance changed everything. This person mentioned that he had sat on an interview panel at which someone had recommended not selecting me because I’m gay. Hearing this stopped me in my tracks. Of course I knew that homophobia can affect people’s jobs and opportunities. It happens routinely in some countries. Until fairly recently, it had happened often in mine. But I had never thought it would happen to me. I had overestimated my own privilege.
In the weeks after our conversation, I couldn’t help looking back on past job interviews in which I had not been successful and questioning whether being LGBTQ+ had played a role. There was no way of knowing and it was disorientating. I became interested in the extent to which this type of discrimination happens in the workplace today. And I discovered a minefield.
My research revealed that only four of the Fortune 500 CEOs were publicly out LGBTQ+ people – and since then, one of them has retired. We cannot definitively know what proportion of the population is LGBTQ+, but a series of surveys conducted around the world place it at somewhere between 4% and 20%... but only 0.6% of Fortune 500 CEOs. The pattern repeats in other contexts. So, why are queer people so underrepresented at the upper echelons of their professions?
I wrote "Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work" to find out. It became clear that LGBTQ+ people are less likely than our peers to be appointed to the most senior jobs, and more likely to lose them if we get there. If we have other marginalized characteristics, like being a woman, being of a minority race or ethnicity, or having a disability, the gap often widens. This holds true across most sectors and countries.
This inequality is not linked to our abilities. Had I not been gay, I’d have seen people like me in jobs to which I could aspire. Had I not been gay, my confidence at work would have been unaffected by homophobia. Had I not been gay, my bosses might have been more likely to consider me for promotions and recruiters might have shortlisted me for more roles. And had I not been gay, perhaps I would have felt more empowered to go for these roles in the first place. The more I listened to the LGBTQ+ trailblazers I interviewed for the book, the more I recognized my own experiences for the first time. For every stark story they shared of losing a job due to discrimination, or being bullied, harassed or overlooked at work, I saw things that had shaped my own work life, like whether I was welcomed into networking settings, or felt able to participate in business trips to locations where LGBTQ+ people were unsafe.
The foreword for my book is written by Lord Michael Cashman, who begins: “I think this book is really timely – actually, I think it is urgent.” I agree. Right now, a dual reality is playing out. LGBTQ+ people are increasingly being cast as scapegoats in political rhetoric, and over the past few years, the United Kingdom has dropped from first place to seventeenth in the European ranking of our rights and safety.
But when I mention to people that I have written a book about the "rainbow ceiling" that holds LGBTQ+ people back at work, I have been surprised how many people question the premise: “Is that really true? Maybe in the old days, but surely not now.” The research shows there is a rainbow ceiling, even though it may go oddly unrecognized. I hope my book helps us all to see, understand and break the rainbow ceiling – and be inspired by those who have achieved it.
"Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling: How LGBTQ+ people can thrive and succeed at work" by Layla McCay was published by Bloomsbury Business on May 23, 2024.
