458 - Non-Monogamy In the Workplace Part 1
Why would you want to be out at work?
Some may have a hard time understanding why one might want to be out as non-monogamous at work. Why could being out as non-monogamous be important to someone?
Logistical reasons
Often people discuss family dynamics or significant others at work and taken into consideration when planning events, travel schedules, time off, understanding benefits options, bringing guests to company parties, etc.
Non-monogamous people often end up needing to choose between either picking one partner who becomes the presumed-monogamous “serious” partner, or they must treat all of their relationships as “friendships” or “dating” relationships, which means that none are taken seriously or considered (and often they will face personal questions about them).
Personal reasons
The mental and emotional freedom that comes from not needing to keep track of which white lies they’ve told, or which partners each person knows about. Being able to mention partners in conversation without worrying and without hiding a significant part of oneself can feel incredibly liberating.
Societal reasons
It is a step towards making our entire culture more accepting and open.
Risk assessment for coming out at work
Some of the risks of coming out as non-monogamous at work include:
Non-monogamy is not a protected class when it comes to housing or employment discrimination.
Wrongful termination is incredibly difficult to prove, even if one is a protected class.
If you’re thinking about coming out, examine these key elements to see if it’s the right choice for you:
Safety/security:
“Could I survive without this job? How badly do I need this job?”
“Do I know anyone else who is out at work in my company or in my city? How has their experience been?”
“What is my company culture like? How realistic do I think it is that people discriminate against me?”
“Do I think there is a legitimate physical danger if I came out? Am I ok with that risk?”
“Will this affect anyone else’s safety? Children, partners, coworkers, etc.?”
Check your employment contract for a “morality clause” and if it exists, check with a lawyer about the specifics of that.
Reasons (which may help you gain clarity about why you want to come out):
“Why do I want to come out? Is there a particular reason or a particular person?”
“Is it about the mental effort of keeping secrets and keeping things hidden?”
“Is it to help create more awareness for others?”
“Is it just because I’m excited about discovering non-monogamy?”
Coming out is very personal and no one but you can decide if it’s the right choice for you. Stay tuned for part 2 of this series!
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about being out as non-monogamous in the workplace and making your workplace a more inclusive place for people in different types of relationships. We're going to go over some of the pros and cons of being out at work as well as some ways that workplaces can be a more welcoming place to a diverse range of relationships, and we'll also discuss how you can decide if this is the right decision for you to make.
Then in part two of this, we're going to get into some practical tips for how you can come out in a way that is as safe as possible if you decide to do that and some practical ways that you can help to make your workplace more inclusive. Lots of exciting stuff here. There's been a lot going on in the movement for creating better workplace protections as well as encouraging workplaces to be more open and accepting of different types of relationship structures with their employees. This is a really exciting time. We're seeing a lot of movement with this, and so we're really going to dive into all the nitty-gritties in this two-part series on this.
Emily: I almost feel like these episodes are a continuation of our talk with Diana Adams and Heath Schechinger, just because they really are two people at the forefront of this movement and we had so many interesting things to say about the workplace in that episode. That was episode 425, which was pretty recent. Again, these are sort of continuations on those themes and getting even more into the nitty-gritty of talking about workplaces and coming out.
Jase: Okay, maybe that one's like the prequel. That's the Hobbit.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: Now we're doing the Lord of the Rings.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: Which I guess we should do three parts instead of two, I don't know.
Emily: Gosh, there we go.
Dedeker: Big shoes to fill.
Emily: I know.
Jase: Hey, speaking of great books, if you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, where we cover some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships, including professional ones. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold. Also, check out the first nine episodes of this podcast, which cover some of our most widely used and shared communication tools.
Dedeker: We're going to start out with a disclaimer that we are not employment lawyers. We're not lawyers of any type. Even if we were, we would probably tell you that this podcast doesn't constitute any type of legal advice. You're responsible for your own actions and decisions on this front. As we're talking about this today, we're basing more of our legal understanding off of laws specifically in the US. Bear that in mind, but also, even within the US, laws are different and inconsistent between different states, so pay attention to that.
Again, the general principles that we talk about today should still apply, but it's always best to research the laws in your location, in your country, in your state, and also do some research into the experiences of other people facing these similar situations. Ideally, people who also live in the same country or state that you live in.
Jase: Right. As we're getting started, for this episode, there's a lot to cover here. This is a pretty huge topic, and it's also a topic that's changing quite a bit. We talked on that episode 425 about a couple of areas that have actually put legally some protections in place for people in non-monogamous relationships.
It's very possible that if you're listening to this a year from now, there will be more places with those protections, and this might change, but I think the overall topic of it, though, the overall concepts here are not going to change that rapidly because society and the way people behave to each other doesn't change that quickly, really. I guess it all depends on your timescale you're looking at, but these considerations are something that matters.
Also, to point out that this episode is not just about should you personally come out, but also if you are someone who is not non-monogamous, maybe you're monogamous, or maybe you are just single by choice, or maybe you are questioning coming out about some other kind of identity, like being gay or something like that, that's like, "Well, I'm on the fence about is it worth it to come out?" a lot of these principles apply, because for us, talking about non-monogamy, a lot of the examples that we have and a lot of the data that we have mostly comes from people deciding to come out about being LGBTQ. A lot of these principles apply there.
We're going to talk a little bit about some of the ones that apply specifically to non-monogamy as well as a lot that's just about coming out as anything non-normative in general. Then, of course, if you're none of those things, understanding this and understanding why people might keep that from you, it might not be about you personally or that they don't want to be your friend or to open up to you, but they might evaluate that the risks of doing that are too great. This, I think, is a really important episode for people that are monogamous to listen to as well to get a better understanding of what some of these concerns might be that probably wouldn't even occur to someone.
I remember, I think I talked about this on an episode before, but I ended up coming out to one of my co-workers, actually a supervisor of mine, just recently, just earlier this year because I was talking to him about the podcast and it's like, "Well, how do I talk about that without coming out about this other thing?" I prefaced it by saying, "Yes, this is something that I don't really talk about much at work. I don't want people to feel uncomfortable, but just so you know going in, if you listen to the podcast, this is what it's about. These are some of the topics, things like that." His response then a few days later, he was like, "Oh, I listened to your podcast." I was like, "Oh God, here it comes."
This guy's also older than me too, so like double area for concern. His reaction was like, "I don't know why you would feel like you needed to hide this or keep this. This is all seems totally fine to me. Gosh, you should hear what some of the other employees talk about in terms of their sex lives or their whatever." It was that interesting thing of like, "Yes, I hear you and I appreciate that, and also, you don't get it." I do think this episode will hopefully be helpful for people in that position as well, where it's like, "Yes, I want to be supportive, but maybe I don't understand why this would be scary."
Dedeker: I do want to give props to that guy and he is a great guy.
Jase: Yes, he is.
Dedeker: Just for being encouraging and supportive in that way, and even after you gave him the sales pitch on the podcast, going and listening to it.
Emily: Yes, that was nice of him.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: I will say it's something that occurred to me over and over again when we were discussing this before getting on air, was the thing that Diana Adams said in that episode that we keep talking about, which is that, if you do live in an area or are with an employer, for instance, that really doesn't hold these types of values as something that's important to them or who's super conservative or live in a specific part of the country, that sometimes the easiest thing to do is just leave or not be in that area anymore or leave that job.
I know that that's not always available to everybody, but that is something that in terms of where we are at this particular point in time, even though there are a lot of great things to celebrate about where we are as well, and that's where we wanted to begin, with some background into how far we've come in terms of people feeling safe to come out as queer in the workplace. However, it is still really far from being ubiquitous.
A 2018 survey by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation found that 46% of LGBTQ workers are closeted at work. That's amazing. Almost half still in 2018. That was five years ago now, but that's not that long ago. The top reasons LGBTQ people gave for not being out at work were fear of being stereotyped, that was 38%, making people feel uncomfortable, 36%, losing connections with co-workers, which was 31%, and fear of being seen as attracted to co-workers, 27%.
I feel like that's one that definitely is something on my radar that even talking about being bi, for example, that some people might be worried about that as, "Oh, you're going to hit on me or do something that is going to make me feel uncomfortable," for instance.
Dedeker: We'll get into this more later, but I do think we're in the phase, this phase has been going on for a long time, where the mainstream has this tendency to hypersexualize "non-normative relationships." We've seen that happen with many different "non-normative relationships" going all the way back to interracial relationships were very much hypersexualized, or people would be accused that, "Oh, this is just a sex thing," or "This is just a fetish thing."
Same thing with queer identities and queer relationships, again, "Oh, this is a sex thing," or with someone who is transgender, "Oh, this is just a sex thing." It's like this double whammy where we're so sex-negative. Sex in and of itself is dark and dirty and we shouldn't be talking about it. We certainly shouldn't be talking about it in the workplace combined with, "Now I'm going to layer that onto this particular identity and make it extra doubly scary." I think we've seen that with many different types of relationships and we're seeing the same with non-monogamy as it becomes more mainstream and more people are talking about it and becoming aware of it.
Jase: A couple of interesting things to point out about this is you'll notice that none of these top reasons that this particular study found were about being fired or about being overtly discriminated against. They're all about being stereotyped, making other people uncomfortable, which is interesting, or losing connections with co-workers. I would say probably what fits into that are all those little awkward, weird things, or people just being strange to you or stuff like that.
Those are still serious things and worth considering, which goes back to the point I was making earlier about how important it is for us to understand that these are concerns and also to do what we can to make our workplace more inviting. Even something like this, especially if you live in a somewhat liberal part of the country, you'd go, "Oh, there's legal protections, and this is totally fine." People can be out about this and we know it's not about sex. They can get married, everything's fine, but still 46% are not out. We're not there yet and we still have work to do.
A lot of these things apply equally well to non-monogamy, the same thing, I'm worried about being seen as attracted to someone else, losing connection with my co-workers, making people uncomfortable. I can relate to all of these things so clearly.
Emily: In 2023, OPEN, which is the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy, which is what Diana Adams and Dr. Heath Schechinger are a part of, and our connection to the OPEN organization is that in episode 381, we actually did an interview with one of the board members from the organization, and we've been involved in various things, the day of visibility, for example, with them as well.
Jase: I've had some conversations about some of their resources for coming out at work and things like that. We're very involved with them. They're an awesome organization, and we'll probably plug some more of their resources throughout these two episodes.
Emily: Absolutely. Check them out. They did this community survey in 2023, so this year. They found that of people who had been non-monogamous for at least a year, 43% of people were not open at all at their workplace about being non-monogamous. Then only 18% said that they were totally out, with the remaining 38% being somewhat open. I wonder what that means, like only a little bit out in regards to, "Oh, I have an open relationship with my partner," or something, but maybe not getting into specifics. I do wonder what that differentiation is.
Jase: My guess as to what that means is that it's something they've talked about with a select few people at work, but it's not something that they would feel comfortable mentioning in a larger group setting or everybody talking about. That's my guess, is what they mean by not totally open or just being somewhat open. I honestly don't know which of those categories I would fit into. This is something that actually I was reading a blog in preparation for this episode by Diana Adams that was talking about coming out online and some of the pros and cons and risks and things of doing that.
One of the things that she mentioned is that she doesn't often come out explicitly in workplace-type settings because as soon as you google her name, it's all associated with non-monogamy. It's like that thing of, "Well, I'm out to anyone who looks." I'm in that same category. Anyone who looks even a tiny bit will know this about me. It's not like I am closeted specifically, but it's also not something that I talk about at work, at least not generally, not until I have more of a rapport or comfort with someone.
Dedeker: I think what falls into that for me is, in most areas of my life, I've always been more comfortable with the slow drip of information. It feels like there's many layers to peel back when coming out with someone. I think back in the day, shortly after my first book came out, if someone asked me what my book was about, I'd very generically say like, "Oh, it's about feminism and sexuality." If they couldn't handle that, then I wouldn't go any further.
Emily: It's like, "Oh God, another one of those."
Dedeker: Which is so odd because, again, I don't want to contribute to hypersexualizing non-monogamous relationships, but it's that little bit of like, can you acknowledge the existence of sex? Are you okay with acknowledging the existence of sexuality, and even diverging sexualities? Then maybe if I see that you get past that gateway, we can go, I can just drip in more and more and more and more information.
Especially with my job now, since, clearly, I'm out at my job because I work with non-monogamous clients and I'm also my own boss. It's not that big of an issue, but there's been a safety and sometimes telling people, "Oh yes, I work with non-monogamous clients, and that can also be a little bit of a good filtration system." I'm much more into that somewhat open slow drip of information, I think
Emily: In terms of dealing with the public, which is something that I do a lot, and if anybody asks like, "Oh, you have such a great voice, you must be doing something with that. What is it that you're doing?" I say, "I am a professional podcast host." That's generally what I talk about. If they ask what it's about, it is that question of, okay, which side of the podcast am I going to go more into, the fact that it's about relationships and communication or that it's specializing in non-monogamous relationship and communication, for example, because I don't know these people's stories. I don't know if they're super right-wing or going to be really upset about me getting into it.
There are all of these considerations that one has to question on a real-time basis very quickly. I do think that that's something that we're getting into today, is, is it worth it to you to come out in all of these various ways or not? Another really big topic that people have to consider is whether or not they're going to come out as transgender. A Boston Consulting Group survey from 2021 found that only 29% of respondents in the US were out to their co-workers about being transgender.
Again, just to show there are so many different ways people can come out, and when making those decisions, it seems like the majority of them are saying maybe it's better to stay closeted in a workplace as opposed to coming out, just because there are so many factors in play here.
Dedeker: However, the research suggests that more people wish that they could be out in their workplace. That same Boston Consulting Group study found that 43% of LGBTQ people in the US who are out at work see it as an advantage, and only 9% of those think that it's a disadvantage to them. Several of these surveys also have indicated that employees are more likely to stay at a job if their employer is a welcoming place for their particular identity. They're also more likely to take a job at an affirming company, and they're more likely to spend time looking for other jobs if their identity is not supported at work.
Maybe this is obvious to you if you're someone who's had to deal with this in your life, but clearly, this is a huge factor that people are taking in consideration when it comes to their place of employment.
Jase: There also are quite a few companies who include more protections against discrimination in their employee manuals than are required by their state or by the country that they're based in. It's also something worth checking. Check your HR manual and see if your company does. There are also some organizations out there that will try to rank companies based on how affirming their policies are. Not the culture specifically, but in terms of their documented HR policies and things like that, how affirming are they and how much do they do to protect people who are LGBTQ?
Of the top performing companies in the US, so like the Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 20, the biggest companies, the vast majority of those rank very highly on these scales. If you're someone in a business who's not doing that, maybe take a page out of the book of some more successful companies and put some more things like that in there.
Dedeker: All right. We're going to switch into looking at all the things that you may consider, all the factors that you need to take into consideration if you're thinking about coming out. We're going to be talking about what might be the reasons for and what might be some of the risks that you may be taking I mean some of the factors that may suggest that it's not a good idea to come out at your workplace.
We have to start with the fundamental question that some people may be questioning why someone would want to talk about this at work at all. For some people, non-monogamy may feel personal. I know there's always the floating question of like, polyamory or non-monogamy, is it identity or is it just a lifestyle choice or whatever? The reality is that it's both, depending on who you're talking to.
There are some people where their practice of non-monogamy is just a choice and there's some people where their practice of non-monogamy is a fundamental part of their identity. To be constantly in situations where they're having to mask that identity or omit parts of that identity can produce a certain form of minority stress in the way that it may not for someone where maybe this is just like a private lifestyle choice for myself. Bear that in mind.
With that said, there are a few reasons why someone would or maybe even should want to come out about their type of relationship at work. The biggest one may be being logistical.
When people are questioning, "Why is this important to talk about ? Why should people be out at work," they often forget how pretty much everyone else in the mainstream gets to be "out" at work about their relationships and their family dynamics, if they fit into the model of a monogamous marriage with kids especially, right?
Jase: Especially for heterosexual.
Dedeker: Especially for heterosexual.
Jase: It's easy and it's often assumed even.
Dedeker: Indeed, and that someone who's in that type of family or relationship style most of the time gets to discuss those things quite freely. They get to talk about their kids. "Oh, I got to leave and pick up my kid," or maybe even if they're co-parenting with a divorced partner, they can still be open about that type of family style in a way that people who have a different type of family or relationship maybe can't.
Also, in the workplace, assuming that someone is monogamously partnered, that is often taken into consideration when planning work events or planning travel schedules, or making decisions about who gets time off, when understanding your benefits options of being able to bring a plus one to company parties or events, et cetera. As a non-monogamous person, you often end up needing to choose between, "Okay, either I need to pick one partner who's going to be like the facade partner, the presumed monogamous "serious" partner, or I need to do this thing where I treat all of my relationships as just like really close friend, so close that, yes, I want to bring them to your wedding that you just invited me to, or treating it as though, "Oh, yes, I'm dating." That's the culturally accepted version of non-monogamy, where I can maybe bring different partners at different times to different events.
Often, all of those choices are not great because it means that none of your relationships are maybe taken as seriously as you might want them to. They're may be not considered in the way that you want them to, or you may find yourself running up against facing intense personal questions about a relationship that maybe you didn't think that you'd be fielding. That may be one big area where being out at your workplace could help alleviate some of that logistical strain.
Emily: There are so many different stressors that we have to deal with in life, and when you're non-monogamous, it's really a question of, how many of these stressors am I going to continue putting on myself in order to keep myself safe, or closeted, or whatever it might be. That goes into a lot of the things that Dedeker talked about on the logistical side, but you end up having to tally and keep track of all of these potential white lies, or omissions, or whatever it may be with various people in your workplace or in your life in general. It may be with family members, for example, things like that.
For example, if you are telling everybody at work, "Okay, this is the person that I live with, and so this is the person that's my partner," and therefore leaving everyone else out, or if there are a select group of people at your workplace that you have told, "yes, I actually am dating multiple people," but then other people don't know that, then you have to keep a mental tally of, "I've told this group of people and not this group of people."
That just becomes really fatiguing over time. That becomes really challenging. There's no mental and emotional freedom there because you have to keep track of so many different things. Just being able to be free in a workplace situation or in general in life about like, "Yes, I went and saw this partner this weekend and we had a really great time and it was awesome," that's so amazing and wonderful to get to have the opportunity to do that.
I think just from a personal standpoint, it can feel really liberating to have the opportunity to say to anyone who's in your life, regardless of whether it's a boss, a co-worker, a subordinate, whatever, "Yes, this is somebody who I'm dating, and I'm really excited about it, and how was your weekend?" and not have it be freaking weird or whatever. I think those personal reasons are huge, and that may be a reason why you want to come out.
Jase: There's also a feeling like you're held back from being able to just connect socially. Like you were talking about, Emily, of that like, "Oh, how was your weekend?" The number of times where I've been in a work situation that's with a large enough group, where I'm like, "I just don't want to get into it right now. I'd rather not have the conversation be all about this," where people are talking about, "Oh, yes, my wife and I did such and such."
The other person being like, "Oh, yes, gosh, married life, whatever, something about my kids," and the other person says, "Oh, yes, I'm thinking about proposing to my girlfriend sometime soon." I'm just like ha–never mind, I'm just not going to say anything." It's like that thing of, it's just easier for me to not say anything, or to just be like, "Oh, yes, totally," and then just not offer anything up because it's just easier. That being able to be more fully out, especially if you have a department, it's like all the people in your department at least, maybe to come out to everyone at Microsoft, if you worked for Microsoft or something, would be a big ask.
Emily: Everyone.
Jase: At least people in your department, that would be nice. Again, it's something where I'm like, "Maybe they all know, maybe they don't. I don't know," because I'm out online, but it's not something I've talked to more than a few of them about. I just let it come up organically as needed. Again, it's always that question of, do I want to get into this conversation or risk having to answer a bunch of questions right now or do I just not want to deal with that?
To Emily's point about this whole personal reasons, it's just like, yes, being able to even connect and have more genuine relationships and conversations with your co-workers is a really important part of the workplace, at least for some people. That could be a reason for you.
Then the third reason here is societal, and that is that in addition to the benefits to yourself that we've been talking about as well as the benefits to your partners of feeling seen and they're not being hidden or they don't have to participate in this pretend that they're some kind of partner or that they're not some kind of partner, whatever it is, it's also taking steps to make our entire culture more accepting and open.
We've talked before on this show about the importance of people knowing someone personally who has a particular identity, for them to be more accepting and understanding of that. Often, when it comes to things like being queer or being trans or being non-monogamous, we do know those people, but we don't think that we do because they're not out about it. If you're able to come out, you become that person that someone knows, even if you're not close, that then next time something comes up about that identity, they're less likely to just think, "Oh, that's some weird other thing that I don't know anyone who does this," because they know you.
This is a quote actually from Diana Adams that she wrote on a blog post. She says, "In order to make our world more accepting of both poly and kink, we need more wonderful people to come out. As you can see from the lessons of the LGBTQ movement, positive media representations help change culture as did the social science data on the emotional health of same-sex relationships and the success of those couples as parents, but the ultimate driver of this change of consciousness often comes from knowing someone personally. If you have the freedom and safety to be out, whether to some people in your life or on the internet, this helps drive the social change we hope to see."
I think that's a great thing to keep in mind when you're evaluating this for yourself, of, yes, maybe you're a little neutral on the others, but if you feel you can, you could be doing good for all of us, helping all of us move things along. I think that's a great note to think about. We're going to take a quick break to talk about how you can support this show before we get into evaluating some of those risks.
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Dedeker: We're back, and now we're going to be talking about the risks. Just things to bear in mind as you're thinking about all this, thinking about your possible reasons why you might want to come out, these are the things, I guess, to be real about when you're weighing all this up. The big one at the top of the list being that non-monogamy, and in particular relationship status or relationship format, is still not a protected class when it comes to housing, discrimination, or employment discrimination.
So far the things that are protected in the US are things like race, skin color, religion, sex, gender, and under that banner includes things like whether or not you're pregnant, your national origin, your age, your disability, your genetic information, or your family medical history. Those are all the things that are protected. Relationship status and format and practice still is not.
Jase: Now, some states in the US may include more, and also your country if you're not in the US may include more or less than that. For example, some states such as Washington State, where we are, does add certain things like marital status can't be a factor for discrimination, military status. When it comes to religion, some states add also creed, so they say religion or creed, which from this research that I did, basically, nobody knows what that actually means from a legal standpoint.
Emily: Oh God, I was like what is creed? I know it's a movie.
Jase: Yes, it's from the definitions that I found and looking on some of the law like stack exchanges and stuff like that. Basically, it seems like it's not distinct from religion at all in the same way that they list race and color, and it's kind of, well, are those different from each other and they're never used differently. There's not any case law where it was one and not the other. There's not any case law currently that distinguishes between creed and religion except for the fact that they're listed as two separate things on these non-discrimination lists.
Dedeker: Yes, but with with race and color it makes sense to me because colorism is a thing, that you can still be discriminating based on someone's skin color, even if the two of you're the same race for instance.
Jase: Sure. Then also other things that can be on this list are things like having a service animal, your HIV or hepatitis C status, whether you've been a whistleblower or you're involved in some kind of discrimination lawsuit against someone, that these are protected things in some states as well.
It is worth investigating that, seeing what might apply to you. In researching this episode, one thing that makes it a little difficult is that companies, generally speaking, do not release their employee handbooks publicly, so that's not a thing that's easy to get a lot of information about. I do have one here, and I won't say what the company is, but I'll just say this is a international company around 200-ish employees, but based in the US, but has people around the world. Compared to a startup, huge, compared to Apple, or Google, or Walmart, or Target, or something, absolutely minuscule.
Dedeker: You're saying it's not any of those?
Jase: It's not any of those.
Dedeker: Okay, we can start doing process of eliminations.
Jase: Yes, you've narrowed it down to a million companies. What's interesting is that this employee handbook is-- Let me just double check this. Is in total 338 pages long. Incredibly long, right? Here's the funny part, the actual employee handbook is only the first 72 pages.
Emily: What's the rest?
Jase: Is all the addenda for all the different states.
Emily: Wow.
Dedeker: Oh yes, that makes sense.
Jase: There's so much extra stuff for Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia. Everyone has their own special addenda about all sorts of different things. Some of which are discrimination as well as many other things like paid leave, medical leave, rules that are different, unemployment laws that are different, lots of stuff. Just to give you a sense of how at least two-thirds of this document are just state specific, to really give you a sense of how much this can vary from place to place, even within the same country. Just keep that in mind and take a look at your employee manual, even if it might be 300 pages long.
Some things to think about in terms of what you are protected about. We talked about these certain protected classes that include things like religion and sexual orientation, gender identity, stuff like that. There are also a few others that apply to any at-will employees, which is most states work that way, is at-will where basically either the employee or the employer can terminate that contract at any time.
There are, though, some things that you cannot be terminated for. One of those is retaliation. Employers can't fire employees for exercising their legal rights such as filing a discrimination complaint, or reporting harassment, or participating in an investigation into that workplace. Another one is for violation of public policy, or rather for not violating public policy I guess would be a better way to put that.
That basically means that an employer cannot fire an employee for reasons that violate public policy such as the employee refusing to break the law because the employer asked them to, or if an employee reports illegal activity, whistle-blowing that's going on, or exercising specific rights like voting or taking medical and family leave, that you can't be fired for doing those things, which are public policy.
Then the fourth one is breach of contract. If an employee has a written oral or implied employment contract, that guarantees some amount of job security or specifies specific reasons for termination, terminating someone for reasons that don't fit that and before that term is also illegal. Just some things to be aware of, and actually take a look at your employee contract to get to understand those things, a little bit deeper, as much as you can. It can really vary, again, from state to state but there are at least certain things that you can count on of being there in the law.
When looking over your employment contract, one important thing to look for is what's referred to as a morality clause. Essentially, a morality clause is something that companies can put in there that allows them to discharge an employee for off-duty conduct. Something they do outside of the workplace that breaches the employer's ethical expectations that's in their employment agreement.
This is often left intentionally vague. It's basically if you are found to have done something that they see to be terrible, that would make their image look bad, that they can fire you for that. That's something that's put in the contract. I think it's understandable why you might have something like that, where it's like, "Oh, it comes out that this person is, I don't know what, child molester or something." It's like, "Yes, we want to be able to terminate this person. No questions asked immediately," and say, "Yes, we took action as soon as we could, and we don't want them to then say well that wasn't a reason in the contract that you could fire me so I'm going to sue you for it. I get it. However, when it comes to morality that's a-
Emily: Gray area.
Jase: -slushy slushy, wibbly-wobbly gray area, right? It is something that may be worth clarifying. This was actually when we were researching this episode and I came across that because it was mentioned in one of the resources that OPEN, Organizing for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy group put out. They talked about these morality clauses. I was like, "Yes, I should check that in my employee handbook."
I looked it up and just, luckily, was able to get a PDF of it and was able to search in that, made it easier to find it. Specifically, it actually had mentions in a few places in the non-discrimination language, saying, "This is not meant to police the morality of our employees, but just to make this a safe place for people who work here." They actually went out of their way to say, "No, we're not trying to police morality in this document," which I was like, "Okay, that's good to see that." Nothing jumped out to me as like, "Ooh yikes, they could get me for that." It is worth checking yours and seeing if you might have something like that in there.
Dedeker went through this with her book and we went through this with our book, of if you see that in a contract saying, "Hey, actually, can we change the wording on this?" To make it clear that what we're doing, you would not decide is amoral to be in non-monogamous relationships.
Dedeker: Yes, and that sounds maybe ridiculous because in both those examples, we're talking about a publishing contract, where someone is agreeing to publish a book that-
Emily: Is about non-monogamy.
Dedeker: -talks about non-monogamy. It's still always good to dot your Is and cross your Ts and just make doubly sure, because you never know. You just never know.
Emily: Dedeker, you're nothing if not thorough.
Dedeker: I am thorough. It's true.
Emily: Yes. With all of these different examples that we just talked about, we do want to throw out there as an armchair observation and as an observation that I have literally seen in my own workplace, wrongful termination is really, really difficult to prove, even if you are in a protected class. There's a lot of stories out there and some that I have personally seen firsthand and heard my employers tell supervisors, "Just don't put this person on the schedule anymore," for example, or in essence, make their life miserable at work so that they end up leaving without terminating them because they don't like them, for example.
A lot of those things can happen and do happen. Unless there are very specific writing down of absolutely everything that happened or text messages or emails or whatever, it can be really difficult to prove. That is just something to put out there in terms of assessing your risk in regards to all of these things. Again, non-monogamy or relationship status isn't a protected class. That may be something to think about here.
Also something that we found in that human rights campaign survey from earlier, the people who were out in their workplace said that 25% of LGBTQ workers have felt distracted at work after they came out. Also, 28% have lied about their personal life, and 31% have felt unhappy or depressed because of an unwelcoming work environment, even though being a gay person or being LGBTQ is a protected class. That's just a little something to think about as well, is that even if you do come out, there is still a possibility that you may not feel great even when you do.
I think something that we've found and something that I've experienced for sure in my workplace is this idea that all of a sudden because you talk about the fact that you're non-monogamous, that it makes it a lot easier for people to see you as more of a sexual object and want to come on to you at work. I still have this happen, even though I'm currently in a monogamous relationship. I have a lot of people, back of house, a lot of my customers who just think it's okay to be super sexual with me, even though I'm not putting it out there at all.
I think that that is something to think about in relation to this, that some people just may have ideas about the person that you are, the advances you may allow or not because you're non-monogamous. Maybe do things to protect yourself in terms of that and maybe get better at saying no or saying, "How dare you?" better than I.
Dedeker: Saying how dare you.
Emily: I was going to say something worse than that-
Jase: How dare you, yes.
Emily: -but how dare you?
Jase: I think the point of all of this is not to scare you off and say, "It's going to be terrible, don't come out," because we did just give some great reasons why it is wonderful to be more out at work, even if that's not completely out, but to be more out is great, but more to be realistic about assessing your risks and realizing that just because there might be some legal protections in place doesn't mean that you want to get to the point where you have to use those. It doesn't mean that that's not an issue at all. There's a lot of factors to think about, and so really, taking time to evaluate, "Should I come out?" is really important. That's all we want to talk about now for the rest of this episode.
Then in part two is where we're going to get into some more concrete steps for how to do that coming out process in a way to try to keep it safe, keep it gradual, protect yourself as much as possible, both in a legal way as well as just a social way. We're going to get into more of those things next week. For now, let's focus on, okay, how do we process all this information? How do we make a choice here?
Dedeker: If you've been listening to this whole episode and you're thinking that you might be ready to come out, we're going to give you a bunch of questions here that's going to be your homework. These are good questions, even just to chew on and think about, or if you want to write them down in journal about them, just to get your ducks in a row and get a sense of what situation are you actually facing here. This first batch of questions has to do with safety or security at your workplace or within your whole job situation, how it fits into your life. First question being, could I survive without this job? How badly do I need this particular job?
Again, not to scare you, but of course, just wanting to be thorough in really examining the full broad spectrum of the possible risks that could be on the table here. Next question, do I know anyone else at my workplace in my company or in my city who is also out at work? How has their experience been? This is when if there's no one who comes top of mind for you, this is a great place to start looking into online resources. If you're part of online communities, you can ask for people's experiences, especially if you work for a company that is national, maybe they have many different branches, and so you can find people online who might be out finding people in your city, things like that.
Next question, what is my company culture like? How realistic do I think it is that people will discriminate against me? Yes, this is something where I think it's important to pay attention to about, okay, really though, what are the chances that I think that someone's going to discriminate against me? What are the ways that it seems realistic that they might? I think it's important to get clear about, okay, knowing my boss, I've known my boss for a long time, it's probably unrealistic that my boss would try to fire me or make my life miserable. Maybe it is realistic that this Karen in the corner might have some smart comment to say. I think it's okay to take inventory of that just to prepare yourself.
Emily: Something that's little bit more intense perhaps, but may or may not be something that you need to worry about, is if there's legitimate physical danger, if you came out in your area with certain other co-workers, for example, just bear that in mind. That's a possible risk assessment to do when thinking about, "Should I come out or not? Am I okay with that risk? Am I not okay? Is that really something I need to worry about or not? Also, will this affect anyone else's safety? We're talking about your children, for example, or other partners or maybe co-workers who are allies, things like that.
There is a possibility that people will be discriminated against because they are related to you or they are close to you or they care about you. That's something to consider. Then also, like we talked about before, check your employment contract for that morality clause. Then if it does exist, check with a lawyer about the specifics of that because you don't want to get in a situation where, "Okay, I'm out at work now and then I get fired because somebody thinks that's amoral to be non-monogamous.
Jase: Something that we will get into more in the second part is the importance of finding allies. This could be someone who is also non-monogamous, if you find them at your workplace, or just someone who's supportive, someone that you feel comfortable enough with to evaluate that. They can also be a really good resource for helping you evaluate some of these other things.
Now, keep in mind, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode with my co-worker, he's like, "I don't know why you would feel the need to hide this at all." They might not get it, but they can at least be someone to talk about and get a sense of it. If your work has a diversity, equity and inclusion department reaching out to someone in there, they might help you connect with other people. Whatever it is, finding some allies to help you suss these things out can be really helpful.
Then also, some more questions for your homework is to evaluate your reasons. Why do you want to come out? There aren't any wrong answers here, but they can help you get some clarity about your reasons and might help you in making a plan for how you want to come out. The first of these is just why. Why do you want to come out? Is there a particular reason? Or maybe there's a particular person or a few people that you wish you could speak more freely about your relationships with? If so, get a sense of that. That might give you a sense of the scope of, "How big do I want to come out? How many people do I want to talk to about this?"
Another question is, is it about the mental effort of keeping things secret and keeping things hidden? That might involve a different type of coming out, or is this about making more awareness for others? Maybe your coming out would be a little bit different, or you might be a little bit more outspoken about it if you feel really secure in your employment and that you could handle microaggressions that came along and you're not too concerned.
Maybe you do want to be louder about it, I guess we could say, again, we'll talk about that more next week, but just evaluating where you fall on that spectrum can help you make a plan and help you make these decisions. Then also to ask yourself, honestly, is this just because you're excited about recently discovering non-monogamy? I describe it like NRE, new relationship energy, all that excitement for polyamory or for non-monogamy, for the relationship style, because you finally found it and, "Oh my gosh, it's amazing. This is what I wanted my whole life. I'm so excited. I want to tell everybody about it." Is that your reason why you want to come out?
I think there's a little bit of two sides to it. Again, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just something to be aware of, to think about. One of the negatives of that is that when questioned, you don't have as much historical evidence to point out and say, "Oh yes, we've been doing this for 10 years," or "I've been doing this for 20 years," or even five years." Whatever it is, gives you a little bit more of a sense of, "Oh, okay, this is a real decision and not just a phase," which we've talked about many times is a common thing that's thrown at people who are non-monogamous.
That excitement might be something that helps you push through that initial challenge of coming out, and maybe if you don't, you'll just end up going several more years without doing it, because after a while, it's like, "Well, I've hidden it so long, now it feels weird to come out about it." There's pros and cons to both, but either way, it's worth being really honest with yourself about how much of a factor that is.
Emily: If you're going back and forth with all of this trying to figure out, "Should I come out, should I not,?" and you need some support, joining a community is a really great way to assess and get outside help in this decision. We do have some resources for community support. One of them is to join our Discord community. We have one public channel on our Discord community that anyone can join. If you become a supporter at multiamory.com/join, then you can also see a ton of channels, including one specifically about work. Also, you can join the Open Discord server. Open is the nonprofit that we've been talking about this whole episode.
They're working to advance the non-monogamy movement in general. Their Discord has a specific channel in it for people working on changing workplace policies and culture. Jase is a part of this channel. You can go to their site open-love.org, and then click the Discord link at the top. Or if you're having a difficult time joining the Discord, maybe like me, who had to get Jase to help me join our own Discord, then send them a message.