Employment and Work

Eleven of 25 (44 percent) participants from Central Canada and a slightly lower proportion (6 of 17 or 35 percent) of Eastern Canada participants said that they had experienced challenges with work. Across both regions, the incidents clustered around harassment and discrimination, false accusations of wrongdoing, failure to hire, and dismissals that were seen as illegitimate. One case of discrimination has been ongoing for many years:

It started in [the 19902] when management started harassing me because they found out that I was a homosexual. And they were management, not with federal officers. The management was walking the way that – I do not walk in that manner – but they were walking behind me and mimicking a female walk. They were calling me the [name] it was a terminology from the 60s from Montreal where they would refer to the gay population as the [name] (CC#9).

This participant recalled that they transferred workplaces and took at least three medical leaves as a result of harassment from colleagues and management. They experienced a variety of abusive behaviour:

I would receive graphic, vulgar emails. Oh, this is all recorded. So, yes, I was receiving emails. Graphic pictures and walking down the corridor in the jail, people would [look at] me mimicking anal sex, grabbing each other’s butts, turning around and looking at me, giving me the eye. Anyways, going around and calling me the [slur] word. If you know what that means. And also calling for anal sex (CC#9).

In spite of the incessant harassment, and the participant’s documentation of it, the case is still unresolved, as discussed more fully below. Their experience was not unusual: several other participants also shared instances of workplace harassment and discrimination. One participant from Eastern Canada describes the homophobic comments frequently directed their way:

Issues with harassment and unprofessionalism with coworkers and management […] So it was a lot of homophobic remarks flying around from coworkers and even from some management, which was surprising because the person right above me in terms of management was also a queer man (EC#17).

Others characterized their experience as discrimination rather than harassment, although they often had difficulty identifying anything concrete. It appears that, for some, the climate in which they worked was fraught with unequal treatment based on their sexual orientation. One describes their experience with payroll errors:

Like at first I thought it was just like an error. And then as it went by, I was finding the error to be specifically with me, compared to other people that I work with… So I was looking through old emails and I found one where this particular manager took issue with it, like because of my sexual orientation and that I’m not white, that they specifically chose to change the end date and then also not communicate that to me. Which is probably why every time I asked for a calculation, they’re using an earlier date to tell me that I’m not owed as much (CC#10)

Another shares a similar sense of being discriminated against because of homophobia in their workplace:

I worked for a private firm and my supervisor has always been known to be outspokenly against the LGBTQ community. And it was just something that we all sort of knew but no one really talked about it. And she found out that I was part of the LGBTQ community and it felt like there was some sort of discrimination at work. So for example, I was passed on for a lot of incentives at work and also promotions. And it just felt that a lot of the practices that she instilled were unfair (EC#11).

That participant points to questionable promotion practices; other participants suggested that questionable dismissals also occurred. One individual highlighted the risk of identifying as openly Two-Spirit in the workplace:

I believe I was terminated due to me being very open about my sexual orientation, about being a Two-Spirit person… I was pushing for safe space training. I had been the first person to put up the positive space training stuff, safe space training stuff, rainbows everywhere to let the youth know that it is a safe place. Well, other staff and management didn’t like it and within a week I was fired (CC#12).

A participant who worked in the construction industry in Eastern Canada suggests that there is widespread homophobia in that sector, making it challenging for 2SLGBTQI+ people to keep their jobs, saying:

[I]n my line of work nowadays in carpentry and in construction in general, it’s very hostile towards anybody in the rainbow community, referencing the 2SLGBTQIA+ and allies community for your reference. There’s a lot of hostility towards anybody within the rainbow community, even if you’re an ally. You’re going to get painted by the same brush and I’m gender queer and openly pansexual in my community (EC#8).

Their dismissal came after they spoke out about transphobic actions they had seen on the worksite:

I spoke up and that was my job right there. I don’t appreciate what you’re saying and as somebody who identifies as non-binary gender queer, you know what I mean, blah blah blah. That was the end of it. Not terminated, just never called back. So effectively terminated, you know what I mean? I think they knew that they can’t say that we’re going to fire you for being whatever, without some sort of litigation (EC#8).

Indeed, as another Central Canada participant said, challenging the harassment and discrimination noted above seems to be a frequent precursor to being fired:

(A friend) brought it to my attention that someone was using derogatory language against me as a person at the employment. So, I brought it up to the management instead of calling the HR department because I figured it was an internal thing only because I had no primary evidence. Well, I had brought it up to management. They said they would tell the general manager that it was happening and within three days, I believe it was, I got brought into the office and I was told that she had now received complaints about me as a person and I was like, I don’t really understand what they are. And she also said that she had no time to deal with this childish garbage that is the complaints I’m receiving. Yeah. And then within the next two to three days, I showed up for a shift and I worked the full shift, I worked with the general manager, and then the next day I came in for my shift, she wasn’t there, and I got fired by the assistant manager (CC#11).

This particular incident highlights another strategy noted by six other participants – the use of what participants believe to be unfounded accusations as a pretext for firing “unwanted” employees. In two cases, after short periods of time on the job, and after they had identified themselves as gay, these participants were accused of theft as a way to justify their dismissal. One observed:

I was out and very much looked gay and I hadn’t started transitioning or anything like that, but you could still tell… And in the end, they found the missing money. I had just done bad math and apologized but said that I couldn’t come back because they just didn’t enjoy my character (CC#11).

Similarly, another stated, “I came out as bi when I was 17 and I was working at [workplace name], as soon as I came out about it, they presumed and said, without any evidence, they wouldn’t show me it, that I was stealing from the cash register…. They gave me a choice. I could either pay it back or leave” (EC#2).

Unfortunately, few of the reported incidents were resolved in ways that benefited or satisfied the participants. Many simply let it pass, or tried to “laugh it off” (EC#13). Two participants said that they didn’t pursue legal avenues because of “lack of faith in actual justice in the rainbow community, most often just kind of get ignored” (EC#8) and because “quite frankly, I don’t have much trust in the legal system, especially when it comes to stuff like that” (i.e., anti-gay harassment [EC#8]).

Others confronted the problem head-on, testing several avenues of redress. One participant (CC#24), who had been dismissed from a federal contract, was denied access to their former office so that they could retrieve their much-needed medication. Because they were not part of a union, that avenue of support was closed to them. They immediately called their Member of Parliament for assistance, but found them to be “taking it so lightly and in disregard.” When the company again refused to allow the participant access to their medication, they filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission, which also told them that they could not intervene.

The unwillingness or inability of multiple such institutions to intervene in the incidents recounted by the participants was a repeated theme. The correctional services worker noted earlier ran the gamut of possible resources, from management to unions to the grievance board. Yet, 30 years from the onset of the pattern of harassment, “if I get hit by a bus, this will go unresolved and disappear” (CC#9). The participant was stalled at every turn:

Management never interfered, never did nothing, and this has been the grievance settlement board since [the 1990s]. And now they’re very incompetent and they didn’t understand why this has been going on. Obviously I’m unionized and my main harasser [for several years] was our local president. So the union was involved. I tried to get different representation, but they never addressed the issue directly (CC#9).

In many of the cases noted, participants began their search for resolution with their human resource offices. None of the participants found this to be a fruitful line of action. An Eastern Canada participant noted three times that their human resources office was not at all helpful. They had hoped to address their issue “informally, sort of through HR but as you can imagine that didn’t go well (EC#17). Sadly, like this person, most participants felt that they had few other options. When human resources failed them, the participant did not seek out other legal solutions because, they suggested, they did not have much trust in the legal system. Even among those who tested the legal waters, none were satisfied:

I tried to get some kind of legal advice and legal help as well. It never really fully became a lawsuit or anything in the court and then I just kind of said, okay let’s just forget it and dropped it and so I quit… they said that to be realistic in terms of the timeline, it could take months or even years if it goes to court. It’s just very cumbersome itself (EC#11).

I ended up just talking to legal aid because I only have limited access, like I don’t have a lawyer and then I spoke with a friend who was a lawyer personally and tried to ask some professional questions or whatever, but I never got an official lawyer. And I ended up just going to the courts. Like they did mediation, so basically we went first because it was basically such a small number and they knew that they didn’t want to waste time in court on it, to be honest. So they had us go in for mediation… And eventually we did agree like a second time to just both walk away from it. But I think the whole thing took like a year (EC#15).

As these two examples suggest, both time and the cumbersome nature of the legal process are detrimental to resolving a case and can in fact deter participants from using this approach. If participants don’t know that the services they need exist or if it’s not clear which services they can use, they will be unable to navigate the system. One commented:

It felt very ad hoc and I’m sure there’s legal aid and kind of an organization or structure in place, but I just didn’t know about them. So it just felt very kind of one off, ad hoc things… If there was some sort of service that I knew of that could help me and walk me through the steps and make things simpler, I think it would have helped (EC#11).

The cumulative effects of both the experiences of workplace challenges and the difficulties of resolving them are significant. And legal disputes are expensive. This was often the case, for obvious reasons, when participants were dismissed from a job:

It had some financial impacts. So I had to take a couple of months of no income while doing that transition and then, so the new position it was somewhat of a pay cut. But it’s worth it for the better environment (EC#11).

So money was pretty tight as it was. And then with me losing that extra $80, it may not sound like a lot, but that’s a lot of food. And so we basically sat there and struggled for about a good six months (EC#2).

The financial stress exacerbated the anxiety of the underlying workplace issues. Everyone who said they had experienced a serious legal issue with employment also suggested that the incident itself, often coupled with the subsequent attempts to resolve it, had short- or long-term effects on their mental and emotional health. The following series of observations illustrate this:

The other thing that I found was really stressful, like it had a really big impact on my mental health. But I think before that I used to be very optimistic and not frustrated when things would go poorly in any way (CC#10).

It’s even left me with severe emotional trauma in the fact that I don’t know why I was fired, but they’ve made allegations that I stole from them, that I was a horrible employee, that I basically loitered all the time [at work], that I tried to steal items, time. That I wouldn’t do work that I was assigned (CC#11).

It was pretty upsetting and I was pretty angry at first and then it just became just really upsetting that this was happening, especially in Canada. And that there are still people with that mindset, so it was just really disappointing… I think in the beginning it was just a bit of lost sleep and just kind of stress in general (EC#11).

And because I have PTSD anyway, like I have a stress disorder so it caused me to lose a lot of sleep and doing all the paperwork impact honestly, physically my relationship, that kind of thing. It really was kind of all-encompassing for a while there. It was pretty negative. Like it really sucked to be honest. It was pretty crappy. And it was like frightening at first (EC#15).

This last participant also alludes to the effects of the challenges on their relationships. This took many forms, including creating stress for others: “And my partner at that time was just peripherally stressed because we were living together so that’s just stressful to be around, that kind of – I mean obviously that’s a whole other thing” (CC#20). Others say their friends and family members began to distance themselves from the participants because of what they saw as an obsession with the ongoing challenge:

My entire life has been impacted. I had plans – in the past 3–4 years I have come to realize that people are fed up of the socializing with [name] because that’s all I spoke about. I was so deeply trapped, wounded, that all I spoke about. And people were fed up. And I lost family and neighbours, out of my life because they couldn’t take no more. And my social interests is minimal to none. I stay home all the time (CC#9).

Finally, one participant feared that their experience of having been wrongfully accused of misconduct on the job would negatively affect their relationships with anyone who knew what they had gone through. It “made me think everyone must have been thinking the worst of me if that’s where they go immediately. Like how am I ever going to get an employer to trust me?” (CC#21).