Why queer-friendly policies in Indian workplaces are mired in fundamental challenges

A recent study by Deloitte indicates the need for organisations in India to rise above pinkwashing and begin taking concrete steps beyond merely signalling allyship

Between 2016 and 2018, I switched jobs four times. One of them I left within two days of joining. The reason for quitting was not lack of job satisfaction or work-life imbalance but the queerphobic environment that prevented me from being unapologetically myself in these workplaces.

I came out on Facebook in 2017. One message among the barrage I had received in response to my post stood out, as it was a piece of advice for me: “Don’t tell your office about all this.” And this friend’s concern was valid. As I had started socialising on the Internet with other ‘out’ employees from different organisations, I was privy to the knowledge that from restricted career growth to lesser pay and authority than our cishet counterparts, discrimination against LGBTQIA+ individuals could materialise in any form.

But visibility is a crucial factor here. Many organisations in India hesitate to bring about queer-affirmative changes—both behavioural and infrastructural—for they believe that the requisite audience is absent in the workplace, not realising how paradoxical and perilous this situation is for an LGBTQIA+ person. As a result, LGBTQIA+ people—and thoughtful allies—have had to risk their jobs, careers, and mental health by coming out, creating and joining employee resource groups (ERGs), and doing necessary labour to make workplaces more welcoming for other LGBTQIA+ candidates.

However, simply recruiting queer people never helps. The office environment has to be conducive for them to feel respected like anyone else. An LGBTQIA+ person experiences acts of discrimination every day. If one were to assume them to be isolated incidents, then Deloitte’s 2023 LGBT+ Inclusion @ Work report confirms these findings: 

One-third of the 5,474 respondents from 13 countries working across business sectors that the consultancy firm surveyed for this reportare “looking to move to a more LGBT+ inclusive employer.” More than 40 per cent of the participants feel “certain” that the discrimination or “non-inclusive behaviour” they experience is based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Unsurprisingly, most respondents also note that having “leaders who are out at work” indicates inclusivity in the workplace. 

These statistics indicate the need for organisations to rise above pinkwashing and begin taking concrete steps beyond merely signalling allyship. Irrespective of where they are in their journey of inclusivity and to make their workplaces more queer-affirmative, they can learn the lessons that several queer people and organisational leaders share with The Established.  

Intersectionality Matters

A queer person (name withheld upon request) who works in a tech firm notes that uncomfortable conversations in their workplace was one of the major factors they chose not to come out in their office. 

“My team wasn’t diverse. It largely comprised men of a certain age who cracked ‘wife jokes’—how they hate their wives, how they make them angry all the time, and why they don’t like to go home. So all this made it unsafe for me to come out. I didn’t feel I would be accepted because I already feel othered,” they note.

When they raised concerns regarding this situation to their manager, who happened to be a woman, they were told to “ignore” all of it. “That’s generally the advice: Ignore people who are toxic. But that doesn’t solve anything. In fact, it made me leave the company,” they add. 

They further share that they tried to start an LGBT+ ERG in the next firm they joined. However, it was before the 2018 judgement that decriminalised homosexuality, so the HR team told them that it’s “illegal” to have such a resource group. “Many companies at the time did have such ERGs. I believe the lack of LGBT+ resource groups where a queer person can at least listen to other people talk about their experience and feel camaraderie is also one of the biggest reasons why people prefer to stay closeted. But this is a basic thing. And so are benefits like the ability to add your partner’s name in your health insurance or having the medical transition covered under the organisation’s insurance policy. All of this made me think that coming out to them or telling them that I’ve a neurodiverse condition wouldn’t help, as they won’t listen or understand. Also, I felt like they’d judge my capabilities based on my condition, so I didn’t risk it,” they note.

Your differences must be celebrated in the organisation where you work, and shouldn’t come across as barriers that prevent you from being who you are. “Intersectionality matters,” they assert. They continue, “Queer is not the only identity we have. I believe a listening tour from the senior management to understand and see where they can support diverse sets of employees can help. For example, having assistive software for my neurological condition can really boost my productivity. Conversations like these need to happen at workplaces.”

Introduce Queer-Affirmative Policies

Parmesh Shahani, author of Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Indian Workplace (Westland, 2020) and former head of the Godrej India Culture Lab, shares four areas where Indian workplaces can focus to become more LGBTQIA+ inclusive.

Shahani says, “First, organisations must create paid livelihood opportunities for LGBTQIA+ individuals—jobs, internships, etc. Second, they should support NGOs working across the country for the work they’re doing for queer people by supporting via CSR initiatives. Then, they must make products for queer individuals, and lastly, showcase queer individuals in their advertising and communication. And needless to say that inclusion should happen year-around, and not just during Pride month [in June].”

Aashna Suneja, department manager at an H&M outlet in Ludhiana, shares that she “feared judgement” while coming out in her organisations. However, she was “met with surprise, smiles, and encouragement to celebrate and be [herself]” in the workplace. H&M provides “tremendous support towards the LGBTQIA+ community,” she notes, adding that other organisations can follow the brand’s footsteps by having “gender-neutral policies that support the LGBTQIA+ people along with regular sensitisation workshops, including training colleagues to learn, grow, create opportunities, and affect positive change in the community and the organisation as well.”

Head of diversity and inclusion at Pernod Ricard, India, Zainab Patel notes that her organisation “not only has a dedicated but also an affirmative-action policy when it comes to [recruiting and retaining] LGBTQIA+ people.” 

Patel, a transwoman, who was earlier the DE&I head at KPMG and KPMG Global Services, feels strongly about building a network for increasing employment opportunities at all levels. Two examples of this commitment are her entrepreneurial projects in Mumbai—The Trans Café and The TransFormation Salon. Both outlets are run and operated solely by trans people. But to drive awareness in a largely cishet organisation is quite a different task and opportunity. 

What can then be done to ensure that organisations socialise, check in on, and prevent any bias and discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people? Patel notes that having “a dedicated programme dealing with unconscious bias” helps. The programme at Pernod Ricard, “through drama-based interventions, allyship-building, and [engagement activities organised by the] employment resource group (ERG), aims at strengthening the LGBTQIA+ people and allies’ network.” However, to signal allyship to external stakeholders, Pernod Ricard also invests in inclusive branding of their products and services. Patel shares the #AbsolutAlly project as a case in point.

While the organisation already had gender-neutral washrooms, it opened the doors for offering insurance to queer people and their partners two years ago. “We’ve also pledged for gender-reassignment surgery for LGBTQIA+ people. Additionally, we ensure that our policies and benefits are not only inclusive but also neutral in their approach, irrespective of the marital status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or ability of the person,” asserts Patel.

“To bring in more trans and gender-nonconforming people into the mainstream, we run several programmes, including a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative, in which people are upskilled, provided with entrepreneurial and internship opportunities in various organisations,” she further adds. 

Patel also shares that in her organisation, the “anti-discrimination and sexual-harassment policies are gender-agnostic.” However, despite having checks and balances in place, acts of discrimination can either go unaddressed or mishandled chiefly due to a lack of awareness and ignorance. To avoid the same, Patel notes that there’s a dedicated “ethics panel that looks at emerging cases of harassment and discrimination, and accordingly provides non-discriminatory, unbiased, and gender-agnostic services through consultations, interventions, and investigations.” Additionally, the firm has a dedicated HR helpline—a resource that queer people can avail. 

Demonstrate an Inclusive Mindset

Strikingly opposite is the case with a mid-size private bank at which Praseed Viswambharan is an HR executive. “It’s rare to see a dedicated policy to recruit queer people in the finance sector,” notes Viswambharan, who is pursuing research at Symbiosis International University and is deeply interested in psychological well-being and diversity in workplaces. 

Further, they share that “even though the relatively inclusive organisations I worked for before used to participate in hiring drives for queer candidates, they operated without [such] a policy in place. This hampered the outcome, as [this direction] was not hardwired into the organisational practices. Therefore, it becomes more of a progressive talking point than something the management and leadership really intended to act on, as no one was accountable to hire queer talent.” 

Like Patel’s organisation, Viswambharan’s workplace also “runs webinars sporadically to discuss the relevance of understanding ‘queer’ as a concept and the need for being inclusive.” However, “this is a space where we see very limited action in the financial services. This industry has an inherent patriarchal (and thus exclusionary) view [as it doesn’t want to]  understand beyond the gender binary. As the finance industry still does not even talk about gender-pay gaps, how do we expect them to jump this learning curve?” they wonder.

Because of their organisation’s lack of commitment towards inclusivity, it doesn’t have any “infrastructural adjustments to include people of diverse identities.” They add that their and other “workplaces have not changed for the last two or three decades and [have failed to absorb] any intelligent changes to [make] accommodations [for queer people].” 

While their organisation does extend medical insurance coverage to same-sex partners, it doesn’t have a policy for gender-reassignment surgery. “[Finance] sector, along with many other traditional sectors of the economy, finds ‘queer’ as too radical to talk about,” they observe. They further note one of their senior colleagues telling them that “queer is for activists; not for businesses to do something about. Let’s focus on bringing more women to work.” 

Such bias and a skewed attitude towards LGBTQIA+ people is widespread and prevents them from working in any such organisation. Deloitte’s report highlights that how organisations treat their people plays a role in helping queer people come out. “From a gender identity perspective, concerns about discrimination or harassment are the second-most cited reason,” the report finds. 

This is perhaps why people don’t find it safe to come out in many organisations, including Viswambharan’s. It’s also why such organisations cover “any act of discrimination or harassment only under their prevention of sexual harassment (PoSH) policy,” without any dedicated channel for queer people to register their concerns. Viswambharan further highlights such organisations’ reasoning: “We don’t need a policy because we don’t have any queer people at work.” But “the truth is,” they conclude, “we don’t have any queer people because we never bothered to draft policies and act on them.”

Gaysi Family, unlike the previous two organisations, is completely queer-run and queer-owned. Its founder Sakshi Juneja says she “never imagined such a workplace could exist.” She “thought there’d not be any possibility of a place like ours, but it happened gradually over the years. It’s great to just have the comfort of having more queer people around you. That way there’s no need to explain a certain way of being.” Furthermore, she says, “It’s a space that many of us take for granted. The whole idea is to have a more humane and inclusive space so that one can bring more of themselves every day at work.” 

“As we’ve recently started a full-time creative agency, we’re in the process of putting policies in place because even in queer spaces there’s a need to be very mindful and a need to not take anyone’s queerness for granted because the needs and requirements of those who come to a workplace vary. And our idea is to give our very best in providing that to them,” says Juneja.

“In the past, we’ve had folx reaching out to us with their set of queries regarding somebody who worked with us earlier. And, at the time, we tried our best to listen to both sides. But sometimes you also have to allow room for people to make errors, even if it borders on the line of discrimination. I personally feel that even if you come from informed places, you’ll make mistakes. The idea is to learn from such mistakes and grow from there, whether as an individual or organisation. I believe it’s also very relative and differs from case to case but largely we try to drive a more humane approach than to simply take out the person who has made an error,” asserts Juneja.

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