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[Reading] Diarios de Motocicleta: Notas de un Viaje por América Latina by Ernesto Che Guevara [Listening] Someday My Prince Will Come by Miles Davis [Watching] Marvel Zombies Summary: North Dakota LGBTQ+ Summit Professional Development Workshop What I've researched and written below was originally part of my workshop, Queering the Labyrinth: Navigating Human Resources, at the North Dakota LGBTQ+ Summit, but I wound up coming down with whooping cough. In 2025. Uff da. I had great plans for individual reflections and connecting circles and collaborative problem solving. The best laid plans and all that. I do hope to facilitate a version of this workshop in the future. Anyway, what I've written below are some tips on how queer and trans professionals can attempt to protect themselves in increasingly hostile work environments. But protect ourselves from whom??? From the colleague casually using slurs in office conversations??? No. From the supervisor telling you to ignore harassment from your team members??? No. From the department seemingly designed to handle reports of discrimination and harassment??? Yes. LGBTQ+ professionals need to learn to protect ourselves from Human Resources. Indeed, Human Resources was not designed to address the unique needs of queer and trans people. (HR barely addresses the needs of women — and women account for nearly half of the workforce!) HR as a system was designed by and for cisgender heterosexual (cishet) white men, which means HR's only interest is protecting capital and those (mostly white male) leaders at the top of the organizational chart. In order to protect the organization, HR professionals will side with white cishet responding parties over queer and trans (or BIPOC) reporting parties — because it's easier to terminate one LGBTQ+ person than to change the system (and workplace culture). In HR, individual positions function as agents of power within the system. Each agent is infinitely replaceable with each new agent maintaining the upward flow of power, all while having no power themselves — except by proximity, which is inherently corrupting. This also means that self-professed allies (ahem, cishet white women) and LGBTQ+ folks working in HR should not be trusted. Their proximity to white cishet power vis-á-vis HR policies and procedures positions them as your adversary not your ally, not your advocate as you navigate the labyrinthine reporting and investigatory process. A false sense of support and safety can emerge with alleged allies and LGBTQ+ community members in HR and can cause real harm. Always be cautious and critical of all HR professionals. You'll notice my tone is more adversarial than usual. As a queer professional, I've experienced harassment, discrimination, and workplace mobbing on corporate and college campuses. Believing I needed to follow the process, I nearly always reported my experiences under the false impression that reporting would help make the workplace better for me and my LGBTQ+ colleagues. Instead, I often became the proverbial squeaky wheel. For example, as I was reporting a significant breach of university policy, a campus HR leader told me there was a line of people around the block waiting to take my job, so I should reconsider my complaint. These people, man. You should also note that I'm neither a lawyer nor a certified HR professional. Instead, I'm writing from my own experiences and what I learned navigating HR systems blindly and without allies or advocates. I'm writing from the vantage point of previously working in a campus Title IX office and seeing cases of clear-cut harassment and discrimination deliberately fall through the cracks in the system. I'm writing from an urge to protect fellow queer and trans professionals from the harms posed by Human Resources. A Brief Note on SHRM SHRM, or the Society for Human Resources Management, is an international professional organization for HR professionals — the world's largest, in fact. SHRM provides training and workshops for HR managers and lobbies local, state, and federal governments on behalf of corporate leaders. SHRM and its army of credential HR professionals set the tone for what is acceptable and unacceptable in professional workplaces. The outsized power SHRM possesses should not be discounted and should be critiqued. You'll recognize SHRM from its overplayed TV ads featuring its CEO suggesting civility is the key to productive workplaces. But what does civility mean for SHRM??? Honestly, I'm not sure. SHRM has a slippery relationship with words and definitions. But for what it's worth, conversations about civility often target marginalized people by limiting reasonable reactions or responses to workplace harassment and discrimination while tolerating anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Black attitudes. Civility as an emergent HR concept works to silence underrepresented folks while emboldening bigots. While civility in the abstract is a good thing, civility as deployed by SHRM demonstrates HR's steadfast dedication to its founding roots — cishet white men. SHRM has a troubling record, too, when it comes to equity and inclusion. At its annual conference in September 2025, SHRM featured Robby Starbuck as a keynote speaker. Starbuck is well-known for his fight to end organizational DEI policies and practices, specifically targeting initiatives for LGBTQ+ folks and Black people. In 2021, notable anti-LGBTQ+ Fox News personality Gretchen Carlson spoke at SHRM's Inclusion Conference. And in 2019, Drew Brees, who supports and advocates for infamous anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Focus on the Family, also spoke at SHRM's Inclusion Conference. What does inclusion even mean anymore??? Moreover, SHRM removed equity from its DEI strategy in 2024, claiming the organization was rolling equity into inclusion and belonging. This move, however, ignores systemic and intersectional barriers addressed through an equity lens. With its global reach, SHRM is setting the standard, and by extension, the policies and procedures of many organizations. If inclusion for SHRM means featuring anti-queer and transphobic thought leaders, how can LGBTQ+ professionals trust any SHRM-certified HR professional to handle matters of discrimination and harassment objectively??? Honestly, when I see SHRM in an email signature block, I immediately become cautious and critical. And you should, too. Challenges of Reporting Harassment + Discrimination Making a report of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination to a supervisor or HR staff member comes with potential consequences, including but not limited to termination (in North Dakota). Below are some considerations before submitting a discrimination or harassment complaint:
State + Federal Protections
Documentation Strategies The time to start documenting (as simple as daily journaling or saving all communications) is during the interview process. Continue this practice for the duration of your employment. The accretion of evidence is key to proving patterns of harassment and discrimination or a hostile work environment.
Single-Party Consent Both North Dakota and Minnesota are single-party consent states. In single-party consent states, you can record conversations as long as you have consent of one party. You, you are the consenting party and do not need to disclose to the other parties present. (Again, double-check signed contracts and nondisclosure agreements.)
Your iPhone will save the date, time, and location for every recording and you can add notes. Resources
Final Advice Unfortunately, my ultimate advice is if you experience anti-queer or anti-trans discrimination and harassment in the workplace, begin searching for a new job immediately. (I know it's challenging in our current Trumpy economy.) Do not report your experiences to HR. Reporting will only put a target on your back. (Again, for HR it's easier to eliminate one queer or trans employee than properly investigate hostile working conditions.) Once you've secured a new position and have submitted your notice, do not participate in exit interviews or surveys. Your responses will be held against you (if you need a reference or decide to reapply at a later date). And your responses will change nothing, will not prevent others from experiencing what you experienced in the workplace. The house always wins — and HR sets the house rules. I hope to have a more upbeat tone in my next post on interrogating my internal cop. (LOL) Fingers crossed! Thank you very much for your time. If you have recommendations or curiosities, please fill out this nifty contact form. Sending y’all supportive, well-caffeinated vibes, Creighton Today’s Pen(cil): Modern Fuel Click Pencil [Mechanical Pencil]
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