Work is where most adults spend five out of seven days of the week, and eight of the 24 hours in a day. It’s safe to say that after graduation, we spend more time with coworkers than with our own families. With that said, maintaining an inclusive work environment is a crucial part to ensuring a safe and diverse space, and is an obvious indicator of the success of a business. We’re taking a look at work inclusiveness from an LGBT angle in both gay and straight industries; how’s the interaction behind closed doors?
Outside the closet
“I didn’t want to live a lie,” says Mike Chalut, host of The Mike Chalut show onToronto’s ProudFM. “If you live a lie with yourself, then how are you going to succeed at work?” Chalut has now found his niche working for a radio station that caters to gay audiences; however, the job market had slim-pickings when he was searching for a career in media over a decade ago. “I went to the University of Windsor for theatre and communications (the drama and theatre program), and I moved to Toronto to basically pursue an acting career,” he says. “The biggest problem with becoming an actor at that time was that I was gay. I told my agent time and time again, ‘I’m not going to get any work in media if I’m openly gay.’”
Mark MacKenzie, a geology student at Memorial University, has spent his summers since 2005 working in the mining industry. Now, as an openly gay man, MacKenzie attributes his father, who was a geologist and spent time moving his family from place to place for his work, as the reason he secured a job in mining. “I needed a summer job so he hooked me up with one,” he says. “It was a great experience so I just kept going back every summer. Eventually, I just became interested in geology and decided to study that.”
For Chalut and MacKenzie, the coming-out-of-the-closet process was a different experience for both individuals. Prior to admitting he was gay, Chalut encountered rejection on many accounts while working to pursue a career in acting. MacKenzie, on the other hand, felt the need to come out after spending the summer weeks with fellow colleagues and having minimal privacy.
“We didn’t have any home to go back to so we basically lived with our coworkers,” MacKenzie explains, as travel was a component in his job description—working in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and BC. “When you’re in that setting, it’s kind of hard to have a personal life; like, there’re no secrets.” Thinking about the reaction to admitting he was gay, MacKenzie feared the result would affect his work performance. “I tried to keep it as secret as possible, and with that, I became stressed,” he says. “It was really important that I was able to express myself, and I eventually did come out three years later and that helped [me] a lot to feel happier in the workplace.”
Upon graduating from a drama and theatre program in university, Chalut had dreams of landing gigs in the acting business. Because of his sexual orientation and his unwillingness to play the gay card in his roles, he found it challenging to secure positions in acting. “My agent said ‘listen, I’m going to send you out for gay roles’ and I was like, ‘no, you can’t send me out for gay roles because it’s going to ruin my career,’” he says. “‘I don’t want to be gay, and I don’t want everyone to think Mike Chalut is gay.’”
After years of auditioning, jobs in restaurants, and zero acting opportunities, Chalut finally opted to tackle the gay role at 27 years old and landed a spot on Canadian show Wedding SOS. “I was the dumb, gay assistant,” he recalls. “The unfortunate part was I had to be dumb and gay. It was a move in media that they could have gay people in TV, but the fact of the matter was it was still sad because I had to play dumb and gay.” After coming out and accepting a career in TV as a gay individual, Chalut landed one more role in television before securing his spot as an afternoon host on ProudFM.
“For such a long time I fought it, but why am I going to fight who I am? And guess what, gay is cool,” says Chalut about his zero-to-hero success in the media sector. “But the reality is, for someone who is just coming out of the closet and trying to get in the workforce and they’re gay, it’s hard.” Although Chalut lists being uncomfortable with expressing his sexual preferences and pursuing a career in show business as his biggest challenge, he says he received the most support from his father. “When I was coming out of the closet and I said, ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I’m gay.’ My dad said to me, ‘I don’t have a gay son; I have a son that I love,’ and that was the bottom line.”
For MacKenzie and his predominantly heterosexual job in mining, he received surprisingly positive support from his colleagues. “I didn’t do it publicly or through a mass email or whatever, but I started telling my friends that I was close with up there,” he says. “They took it well because being more educated and more cultured, it wasn’t a big deal for them.
MacKenzie, however, explains one instance of harassment while working in the mining industry. “It involved vandalism of my property, like writing of slander on my stuff. It was really upsetting when it happened, and to this day they don’t know who did it, but they reported it to the human resources department. It kind of affected my desire to keep working there, so I kind of sought other employment after that, but you have to have thick skin after this.” Looking back, he says it made him a stronger person having gone through it.
Surprisingly, that one stint of harassment, according to MacKenzie, wasn’t the biggest challenge he faced after opening up to his colleagues. “Sometimes I had to talk about what being gay was because people would ask me, and I’d kind of just answer that it’s totally normal,” he says. Answering to the curiosity of his colleagues puzzled MacKenzie the most. “They had more of a conservative attitude; they wanted to know more about me.”
For those who remain closeted and are uncomfortable with uncovering their sexual preferences with their coworkers and colleagues, Chalut offers some advice. “Until you’re comfortable in your own skin, you’re never going to go to the next level,” he says. ”You have to take care of number one, and you have to realize that no matter what anyone thinks, you are the prize.” Cheesy, Chalut admits, but “the only way is you have to believe in yourself and who you are. It’s simple.”
Turning the tables
How many straight friends can you name who have pursued a career for a gay company or for one that caters to the LGBT community? (Not many, right?) Now, count how many straight male friends you have who are passionate about a career in a predominantly female industry. (Again, not many, right?) As inclusive as workplaces in Canada are today, there are still minor sexuality and gender barriers that exist.
A colleague of ProudFM’s afternoon host Mike Chalut is a part of the straight minority at the Toronto gay radio station. Bob Willette, program director, says he is one of only a few employees who classify themselves as straight. “Everybody who is on-air identifies themselves as part of the [LGBT] community…the general sales manager is a member of the community, [and] our music director is a part of the community,” he says. “I would say more people are part of the community than not.” And after Pride Toronto added ‘A’ for ‘allies’ to LGBT, Willette says all of those employed with ProudFM consider themselves an ally to the Canadian LGBT community.
But as a straight man, what attracted Willette to the position as program director for a radio station that caters to a gay audience? He says he’s always been a supporter of the gay community, and with 15 years of experience in the radio industry, this opportunity was no different. “It was a job posting that I applied for when I first started over six years ago. It was supposed to be for the morning show as a producer, and within a year I became the program director,” he says. “The posting said you don’t have to be a member of the [LGBT] community, but you have to be sensitive to the community’s needs and a friend of the community. I considered myself that, so I applied.”
After taking the position with ProudFM, Willette says he received some questioning looks from friends and outsiders. “At the very beginning I would get kind of a raised eyebrow from people within the community who found out that I was not gay and essentially running a gay radio station,” he explains. “There were times when people were like, ‘How can you do that?’”
Rather than letting the criticism affect his work performance, Willette approached his new position with a positive outlook. “The point was radio is radio, and whether you’re doing radio for a gay or straight audience (or a combination of both), there are certain things that are universal and I could bring those things to light given my experience.”
Although Willette is a strong supporter of the LGBT community, he says that since he started with the company in 2007, working as program director with ProudFM (where he is ultimately in charge of anything that comes out of the speakers) has been a learning experience. “The community taught me a whole heck of a lot of things too,” he says. “The nuances, the intricacies, the politics of the community which exist, and the sensitivities—some of which I was aware of before—but it’s still a learning process every day.”
ProudFM is one of many Canadian companies today that thrive on building an inclusive work environment. “We are for everybody,” says Willette. “Yes, we are providing a voice for and by the LGBT community, but we’re not going to exclude anybody.” ProudFM encourages listeners of all genders and sexual orientations, and more importantly, is open to having a staff of both gay and straight individuals. “One of the ways we describe ourselves right out of the gates is that we’re an all-inclusive radio station and work environment.”
Breaking gender roles
For MAC Cosmetics artist and freelance makeup artist Azrael Rodriguez, his background touches upon gender barriers in the workplace. He always dreamed of pursuing a career in a more artistic industry, but as a straight male, Rodriguez often faced criticism for his interest in makeup artistry, which to most is considered a career path for women.
“First comes the assumption that because I'm a male makeup artist, I must be gay (not that there's anything wrong with that),”he says. “Second, which may be the biggest barrier to overcome, was the discomfort that many women possess upon finding out that I am straight and doing their make up, which can become a very intimate encounter.” Female clients often forget that Rodriguez is simply a professional on the job, and not interested in much more than applying makeup and body art. “The workplace should not be biased toward any sexual orientation,” he says.
With a little under a year of experience in the industry and a lifelong of passion, Rodriguez encourages those who remain unsure of pursuing a career in an often taboo industry to follow their dreams. “When your doubts consume your aspirations you will be left with nothing more than missed opportunities and life-long regret,” he says. “After all, at the end of the day, I'm a straight guy surrounded by beautiful women doing something I love.”
A step in the right directi
- 93 per cent said their employers’ attitudes towards LGBT people in the workplace were tolerant.
- 72 per cent of respondents say attitudes towards LGBT people have improved in the last five years (but there is still work to be done).
Photo: Vizerskaya/iStock