Executive Summary
Over 8 million employees in the U.S. identify as LGBT. Based on a survey of 935 LGBT adults conducted in May 2021, this report focuses on the workplace experiences of cisgender bisexual adults compared to cisgender lesbians and gay men in the workplace.
Overall, we find that cisgender bisexual employees are significantly less likely to report experiencing discrimination and harassment in the workplace than cisgender gay and lesbian employees. However, our analysis suggests that higher rates of concealing LGB identity among bisexual employees may mask the extent to which bisexual employees experience unfair treatment at work. When we focus only on employees who are out to at least some people in the workplace, we find that cisgender bisexual employees face similar or higher rates of discrimination and harassment as cisgender gay and lesbian employees. Once we control for who is out in the workplace, our analysis also shows that in many instances workplace experiences also differ by gender, with cisgender bisexual and gay men often reporting higher rates of unfair treatment compared to lesbian and bisexual women.
These findings suggest that LGB employees should not be treated as a monolithic group when researching, understanding, and addressing their workplace experiences. They vary in the degrees to which they are out in the workplace and engage in strategies to downplay their sexual orientation. These findings suggest that they also face different types and patterns of workplace discrimination and harassment. More specifically, these findings suggest that gay and bisexual men may face unique and intersecting forms of stigma associated with their gender and sexual orientation and additional pressure to conceal their LGB identity at work.
Key Findings
- Out at work: Many cisgender LGB people avoid discrimination and harassment in the workplace by not being out to their supervisors and co-workers. While over three-quarters (74.6%) of gay men and lesbians reported being out to their supervisors, only about one-third (36.0%) of bisexual employees were out to their supervisors. One in five (19.0%) bisexual employees reported being out to all of their coworkers, compared to half (50.0%) of lesbians and gay men.
- Covering: Many cisgender LGB employees also reported engaging in “covering” behaviors in order to avoid harassment or discrimination at work. About 60% of gay men and lesbian employees and bisexual employees reported that they avoided social events or avoided talking about their lives at work in order to avoid discrimination and harassment. Additionally, bisexual men and women were more likely than gay and lesbian employees to report that they changed their appearance at work to cover their sexual orientation (26.4% v. 17.9%). Gay and bisexual men were more likely than bisexual women, in particular, to engage in several specific covering behaviors. For example, gay and bisexual men were more likely than bisexual women to say they avoided social events, hid family photos, and did not bring family to work events in order to avoid discrimination.
- Discrimination: Overall, cisgender bisexual employees were significantly less likely to report experiencing discrimination in the workplace than cisgender gay and lesbian employees. One-third (33.8%) of gay and lesbian employees reported that they had experienced at least one form of employment discrimination (being fired or not hired) because of their LGB status at some point in their lives, compared to one-quarter (24.4%) of bisexual employees.However, this difference shrinks when looking only at LGB employees who are out (have disclosed their LGB identity) to at least some people in the workplace. Among cisgender LGB people who were out at work, bisexual employees reported similar levels of discrimination as lesbian and gay employees. About one-third of out bisexual employees (33.1%) and out lesbian and gay employees (36.7%) reported experiencing at least one form of discrimination (being fired or not hired) because of their LGB status at some point in their lives. This difference is not statistically significant.
- Lifetime experiences: Among those who were out in the workplace, gay and bisexual men were more likely to experience employment discrimination than lesbians and bisexual women: 46.4% of bisexual men and 42.7% of gay men reported having been fired or not being hired at some point in their careers because of their LGB status. In contrast, only one-fourth of lesbians (25.0%) and bisexual women (27.2%) reported such experiences.
- Experiences within the past year: LGBT people continue to experience workplace discrimination even after the U.S. Supreme Court extended sexual orientation and gender identity employment non-discrimination protections nationwide in Bostock v. Clayton County. Overall, 11.2% of cisgender gay and lesbian employees and 6.6% of cisgender bisexual employees reported that they were fired or not hired because of their sexual orientation or gender identity in the past year. Among those who were out in the workplace, these experiences differed by gender and sexual orientation. One in five out gay men (19.5%) and 12.7% of out bisexual men reported these experiences in the past year, as compared to 3.7% of out bisexual women and 10.9% of out lesbians. Gay men who were out in the workplace were significantly more likely to experience recent discrimination than out bisexual women and lesbian employees.
- Harassment: Overall, cisgender bisexual employees were less likely to report experiencing harassment in the workplace than cisgender gay and lesbian employees. About 40% (41.8%) of gay and lesbian employees reported experiencing at least one type of harassment (verbal, physical, or sexual) in the workplace at some point in their lives, compared to about one-third (34.1%) of bisexual employees.However, among only cisgender LGB employees who are out in the workplace, we find that bisexual men experience particularly high rates of workplace harassment and bisexual women experience similar levels of harassment as lesbians. Among cisgender LGB people who were out in the workplace, bisexual men (60.3%) were significantly more likely to experience at least one form of harassment (verbal, physical, or sexual) than out bisexual women (38.3%) and out lesbians (32.9%). Though out bisexual men reported a slightly higher rate of harassment compared to out gay men (48.4%), the difference was not statistically significant.
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Verbal harassment: Over half of out bisexual men (57.7%) reported experiencing verbal harassment at work at some point in their lives compared to 26.8% of out bisexual women and 29.5% of out lesbians. Out bisexual men were slightly more likely to report verbal harassment than gay men (41.6%), but the difference was not statistically significant.
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Physical harassment: Out bisexual men were twice as likely to report experiencing physical harassment at work at some point in their lives compared to out lesbian employees (33.3% compared to 16.7%). Out bisexual men were slightly more likely to report physical harassment than gay men (23.7%), but the difference was not statistically significant.
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Sexual harassment: Out lesbian employees (17.4%) were the least likely to report experiencing sexual harassment at work at some point in their lives. By comparison, 29.2% of out bisexual women, 33.6% of out gay men, and 34.8% of out bisexual men reported experiencing sexual harassment at work.
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- Religious motivation for unfair treatment: Among LGB employees who were out in the workplace and had been treated unfairly, over 60% of bisexual men (64.5%) and gay men (60.9%) reported that the unfair treatment was motivated by the religious beliefs of their supervisor or coworkers. Slightly lower percentages of lesbians (46.5%) and bisexual women (53.3%) reported religious motivation for unfair treatment, though the differences are not statistically significant. For many, such experiences included being quoted to from the Bible, told to pray that they weren’t LGBT, and told that they would “go to hell” or were “an abomination.”
- Retention: Among those who were out in the workplace, gay and bisexual men were more likely to say that they had left a job because of how they were treated by their employer based on their sexual orientation. Nearly 60% of out bisexual men (57.5%) and 50.0% of out gay men said they had left a job because of unfair treatment compared to 34.8% of out lesbians and 29.0% of out bisexual women.
Our analysis examines ways in which both coping mechanisms and workplace experiences differ for cisgender LGB employees by gender and sexual orientation, and the role of disclosure of LGB identity in these experiences. When combined with our previous report finding higher levels of discrimination and harassment among LGBT people of color and transgender employees, our findings make clear that policymakers, businesses, and researchers need to take a nuanced approach to understanding and addressing sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination in the workplace.