By Tracy
“There’s an LGBT workplace conference in Texas? Wow!”
That was how my coworker reacted, when I told him that my company was sending me, along with 11 coworkers, to the Out and Equal Workplace Summit in Dallas, Texas.
They say you never forget your first time. I am, of course, referring to my first visit to the Out and Equal Workplace Summit. For those of you who don’t know, Out and Equal is a conference whose goal is to promote LGBT equality in the workplace. As the leader of the local chapter of the LGBT group at my company, my goal was to find ideas for getting my fledgling group going.
“Which workshops should I attend?” I thought as I perused through the colorful handbook handed to me at registration. (Unfortunately, my ancient phone was not compatible with the fancy conference app, so, I had to make do the old-fashioned way). Let’s see: “Bisexual Roundtable Discussion.” “Making your Workplace a Safe Space.” “The Intersection of Religion, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity at Work.” Oh! I wanted to attend them all! In typical bisexual fashion, I hated having to choose. But unless I could find a way to clone myself, I could only attend six workshops out of the 80+ that were offered over the three days of the conference.
I was delighted to discover that the “Bisexual Roundtable” workshop was being co-run by our very own BBWN editor, Robyn Ochs, and by Heidi Bruins Green. I knew right then that I had to sign up. As expected, they did a marvelous job. With their help, several attendees told moving stories of feeling invisible because they are in mixed-sex relationships and therefore assumed to be straight. Others said that they feel invisible even in same-sex relationships, because they are assumed to be gay when they are really bisexual. Robyn and Heidi asked, “How many of you are in bi-specific space for the first time?” Several hands went up. Then they asked how many of us have been mistaken for straight allies. Once again, several hands went up. (Too bad they did not ask me this question one week later. I could have raised my hand as well! When I described this conference to a coworker, she asked me if I was motivated to attend because I know someone who is LGBT. I said, “Yes. Me.” She said, “But you had a boyfriend for a year!” She assumed that I am straight for this reason, at which point I gently explained that I am actually bisexual). I successfully applied the lesson I learned from this roundtable: “If you don’t speak up, then people won’t listen to you!”
After this workshop, I strutted smugly into the transgender ally workshop thinking, “I’m an evolved cisgender ally. I know this stuff already!” I was quickly humbled by the powerful stories from transgender people. These did NOT come from the presenters, as I expected, but from the comments of actual transgender people in the audience. They bravely took it upon themselves to correct some of the misconceptions given by the leaders themselves! For example, one of the presenters stated that a transgender employee should give a manager a timetable for exactly when transitions will occur. Several audience members pointed out that, due to medical realities, this is not always practical or possible. Sometimes you learn more from the audience than from the leaders.
In addition to the workshops, the conference featured a whirlwind of speeches from both famous people and ordinary people. You could hear a pin drop while Annise Parker described her experience as the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city, in Houston, Texas. The audience gave her speech a standing ovation. A similar response occurred after the given speech by Jason Collins, the first openly gay male NBA player. He told us that he was inspired to come out by Sally Ride’s biography, in which the famous astronaut was posthumously identified as LGBT. He wished that he could have had such role models when he was struggling to come to terms with who he is. I can relate, having craved such role models in my own childhood.
As inspirational and moving as these speeches were, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of openly bisexual speakers in this long series. It would have been affirming to see my experiences represented among these courageous speakers. I believe that other bisexual attendees felt the same way, especially the ones who were struggling with coming out as bisexual.
After a brief detour to visit family members who live in Dallas, I headed home, exhausted but happy. I am proud to work for a company that supports its LGBT employees to this degree. I have learned the hard way that, even in blue-state Massachusetts, this is not something that I take for granted.
Tracy works as an engineer in Massachusetts. Her hobbies include reading, playing the marimba, and hiking.