Workplace Experiences of Asian American LGBTQ Employees

Executive Summary

This report examines experiences of employment discrimination and harassment against Asian American LGBTQ adults using a survey of 1,902 LGBTQ adults in the workforce, including 75 Asian American1 LGBTQ adults, conducted in the summer of 2023. We compare the experiences of Asian American LGBTQ employees with those of White, Black, and Latinx LGBTQ employees.

The majority of Asian American LGBTQ adults in the workforce are under age 35 (64%), bisexual (70%), and have a bachelor’s degree or post-bachelor’s education (70%). Over one in five are either self-employed or employed by their family (21%), almost four in ten live in the Pacific region (38%), and 44% make less than $50,000 a year.

Our analysis indicates that employment discrimination against Asian American LGBTQ employees is persistent and widespread. More than four in ten Asian American LGBTQ employees (44%) reported experiencing discrimination or harassment at work (including being fired, not hired, not promoted, or verbally, physically, or sexually harassed) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives.

Many Asian American LGBTQ employees reported recent experiences of discrimination and harassment. Within the past year, 14% of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported that they had been fired, not hired, or not promoted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and 8% reported experiencing harassment at work. One in four (24%) Asian American LGBTQ employees reported one or more adverse workplace experiences because of their LGBTQ status at their current job.

Many Asian American LGBTQ employees also reported engaging in behaviors to avoid discrimination and harassment, including hiding their LGBTQ identity and changing their appearance or behaviors. Over half (55%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees were not out to their current supervisor, and 17% were not out to any of their coworkers. Almost half (48%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported downplaying their LGBTQ status at work by doing one or more of the following: changing their speech, mannerisms, appearance, or how they dress at work; avoiding work social events; or not talking about their outside activities at work.

One-third of Asian American LGBTQ employees have looked for another job because of how they were treated based on their sexual orientation or gender identity at work (33%) and or left a job because of such treatment (34%).

Along most measures of adverse workplace experiences, Asian American LGBTQ employees report statistically similar rates of adverse experiences to Black, Latinx, and White LGBTQ employees. This finding could be partly due to the small sample size of Asian American LGBTQ employees for this survey. However, the data also suggest that Asian American LGBTQ employees are less likely to be out in the workplace compared to Black, Latinx, and White LGBTQ employees. The fact that more Asian American LGBTQ employees are not out, are self- or family-employed, and live on the Pacific Coast may explain why, unlike other racial and ethnic groups, they do not report higher rates of discrimination and harassment than White employees.

While the key findings of the report are summarized below, the full report includes quotes from respondents to provide more detail about their experiences of discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Key Findings

Demographics

• Almost two-thirds (64%) of Asian American LGBTQ adults in the workforce are between the ages of 18 and 34.
• An estimated 70% of Asian American LGBTQ adults in the workforce identified as bisexual, and 10% identified as transgender or nonbinary.
• Asian American LGBTQ employees were more likely to have a bachelor’s degree or post-bachelor’s education (70%) than LGBTQ employees of other racial and ethnic groups (White, 47%; Black, 31%; Latinx, 41%).
• Forty-four percent of Asian American LGBTQ adults were making less than $50,000 a year.
• Over one in five Asian American LGBTQ adults were self-employed or employed by their families (21%).
• Almost four in 10 Asian American LGBTQ adults live in the Pacific region (38%), consistent with the Asian American population overall but much higher than the percentage of White (14%), Black (7%), and Latinx (19%) LGBTQ employees who live in the Pacific region.
• Only 8% of Asian American LGBTQ employees live in the Southeast United States.

Lifetime Experiences of Discrimination and Harassment

• More than four in ten Asian American LGBTQ employees (44%) reported experiencing discrimination or harassment at work, including being fired, not hired, not promoted, or verbally, sexually, or physically harassed because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • Discrimination: Almost one-third (32%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing at least one form of employment discrimination (being fired, not hired, not promoted, or being denied other workplace opportunities) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives.
    • One in five Asian American LGBTQ employees reported being fired (20%) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
    • About one in four Asian American LGBTQ employees reported not being hired (28%) or not being promoted/being denied other workplace opportunities (24%) because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
  • Harassment: About one-third of Asian American LGBTQ employees (34%) reported experiencing at least one form of harassment (verbal, physical, or sexual) at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity at some point in their lives.
    • Thirty-two percent of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing verbal harassment from supervisors or coworkers because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
    • About one in five Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing sexual harassment (22%) or physical harassment (18%) at work because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• Negative Comments: Beyond how they have been personally treated, over half (56%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported hearing negative comments about LGBTQ people in the workplace. Asian American LGBTQ employees were less likely to report hearing negative comments in the workplace than Latinx (75%) and White (73%) LGBTQ employees.

Intersectional Discrimination and Harassment

• When asked to describe their worst experiences of discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity, some Asian American LGBTQ employees described intersectional discrimination based on their multiple marginalized identities. More specifically, they described discrimination based on their LGBTQ status and their race and ethnicity, stereotypes about Asian American women, and their religious beliefs.

Recent Experiences of Discrimination and Harassment

• 18% of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing some form of discrimination or harassment in the past year, and 30% reported discrimination or harassment in the past five years.
  • Discrimination: About one in seven (14%) Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing at least one form of employment discrimination (including being fired, not hired, or being denied a promotion or other workplace opportunities) based on their sexual orientation or gender identity within the past year and about one in four (24%) reported these experiences in the past five years.
  • Harassment: Eight percent of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported experiencing at least one form of harassment (including verbal, physical, or sexual harassment) in the workplace based on their sexual orientation or gender identity within the past year, and about one-fifth (22%) reported these experiences in the past five years.
• Negative Comments: About one-third (32%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported hearing negative comments about LGBTQ people in the workplace in the past year, and 44% reported hearing negative comments in the past five years.

Experiences at Current Job

• Respondents were also asked specifically about their experiences at their current jobs. About two-thirds of Asian American LGBTQ employees (67%) felt that their current workplace environment was somewhat or very supportive of LGBTQ employees, while 4% felt their workplace environment was somewhat or very unsupportive. Similarly, most Asian American LGBTQ employees (79%) were very or somewhat satisfied with their current job, while about one in ten (9%) were very or somewhat dissatisfied with their current job.
• Approximately one in four Asian American LGBTQ employees (24%) reported one or more adverse workplace experiences related to their sexual orientation or gender identity at their current job, including 13% who reported unfair treatment, 12% who reported verbal harassment, 11% who felt they had not been promoted or were denied other opportunities in the workplace, 5% who reported sexual harassment, and 2% who reported physical harassment.

Out at Work

• More than half (55%) of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported that they are not out to their current supervisor about their LGBTQ status, and approximately one in six (17%) reported that they are not out to any of their coworkers.
• Only 38% of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported that they were out to most or all of their coworkers.

Covering

• Almost half of Asian American LGBTQ employees (48%) reported engaging in covering behaviors at their current jobs to avoid harassment or discrimination related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• One-fourth to one-third of Asian American LGBTQ employees have engaged in the following covering behaviors at work to avoid discrimination or harassment: avoided talking about outside social activities (37%)
  • avoided work-related social events (29%)
  • avoided talking about their families at work (26%)
  • not brought family to work events (26%)
  • not displayed photos of their partner or family at work (24%)
  • changing their voice or mannerisms at work (23%)
• About one-fifth of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported avoiding work-related events or travel (21%) or changing their physical appearance (19%) to cover their LGBTQ status.
• Some Asian American LGBTQ employees also reported changing how they dressed (15%) and where, when, or how frequently they used the bathroom (12%) in order to avoid discrimination and harassment.

Retention

• Over the course of their careers, one-third of Asian American LGBTQ employees reported that they had left a job (34%) or looked for other jobs (33%) because of how their employer treated them based on their LGBTQ status. A similar percentage of Asian American LGBTQ employees said that they had looked for another job because the workplace environment was not supportive of LGBTQ people in general (37%).
• Due to the workplace environment for LGBTQ people at their current job, more than one in ten Asian American LGBTQ employees (12%) have considered leaving. Of those, almost two-thirds (64%) have taken steps towards finding another job.

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