KJK & bringing your whole self to work

It's not about whether you "care" if people are gay or straight or married. It's about if they mention it in passing they won't suffer negative outcomes at work. That is what bring your whole self to work is for. Oversharing is a different issue but none of our work literature encouraged that as far as I saw.

Yep so over this already. So selective.

So someone shouldn't reveal at work that they are gay before they find out how comfortable you would be with that information?

I was pregnant when my manager had a miscarriage. I was really worried that working with me would be upsetting for her. Turned out she was worried that hearing about her miscarriage would be upsetting for me. We were both struggling with infertility and both worked on a pregnancy-related topic - so we had an unwritten agreement that when one of us couldn’t cope with the emotions of it we’d hand off to the other, and then swap back later.

So much of this boils down to basic consideration of other people, and it feels like the more we regulate that, the less capable people are of actually doing it.

I lived in France for a long time, where anything to do with the state is laique/secular. When I first moved there I found it very jarring, coming as I do from a British culture where the bus driver wearing a turban or a civil servant wearing a head covering or a teacher wearing a cross is seen as a sign of a successful multi-cultural society.
So anybody working for the state (teacher, council worker, any civil servant you can think of) is not allowed to wear a conspicous sign of their religion, and school pupils up to 18 aren't allowed to either.
I have gone from finding it uncomfortable and slightly intolerant, to thinking it's an excellent idea, for exactly the reasons that KJK gives.
I wish we had that explicit value for state employees here - too late now I think. I said to DP the other day that if France tried to introduce laicite/secularism now, it would be shouted down with cries of intolerance.

As a side note, you might think that French state employees, with their secular values and Carthesian mindset, would immediately recognise that gender identity is an ideology, exactly as religions are. Unflotunately they don't seem to have realised this yet...

Glad you benefitted from the positive mental health side, and a solid team to be able to be open about miscarriage. 💐

I worked in an environment where adoption leave and new babies were celebrated and cards and collections for all, a manager had a "quiet word" with me because I had asked to swap a shift to not work with a pregnant colleague three weeks after a miscarriage.

Definitely whole self only applies when it's currently acceptable.

It’s in comparison to the culture you are in. I mentioned that a small stud nose ring doesn’t set someone apart as being particularly different or belonging to any particular belief or tribe, it’s in my opinion, not a very strong statement in British culture. But yes, a septum piercing or eyebrow piercing is a pretty strong statement of difference. It is a deliberate setting oneself apart from the norm, denoting tribe/belief/subgroup - it is a communication of separateness, difference, to the wider society.

It comes down to a problem of boundaries, I think.

In a lot of workplaces casual chat about going to the beach with your partner is fine. Most people have no issue if it happens to come up in conversation that a workmate is in a same sex relationship, or for that matter is Catholic, or whatever.

I also think that in general small neutral indications aren't really seen as problematic either. If the Sikh guy wears a turban, for example.

Something like Pride/rainbow earrings should fit into that, IMO, but it doesn't so much because it's been inappropriately pushed in the workplace. So people regard it as aggressive, or that the person is likely to try and cause a problem for others.

It's also the case that this is not always going to be the same in every workplace. I have a number of gay friends who work as music teachers with kids. They are all very discrete about their sexuality in that context, which is to say, they don't ever bring it up in student related contexts at all. One of them runs a music school, and was very clear with the staff that it wasn't their place to be bringing political/social issues into the group classes with pronouns and such. Another is actually very discrete even in terms of his larger career, because he works with a very religiously diverse community. He has a very strong boundary between social life and work, though some people are both friends and colleagues. He wouldn't say this makes him oppressed, it's about respecting the people you work with. I imagine most of the people he works with know he's gay, but they also respect that boundary.

But it seems like there are a lot of people who can't negotiate these kinds of boundaries on their own. They need clear social signals, and "take your whole self to work" doesn't seem to cut it.

But this is a bit like people who say that they don't have an accent... What you read as neutral in terms of dress, jewellery, hair, etc. is in fact itself a series of statements and decisions, they're just ones you agree with and find so inoffensive as to be unnoticeable. Blonde highlights being fine but blue hair being a symbol, or earrings being fine but a nose ring being a statement - those are value judgements, not objective fact.

Yes, when TERFs bring their whole selves to work they get fired.

Mentioning a Partner of whatever sex is fine, making your entire personality about who/what you prefer to shag not so much

I think that, much like #BeKind, bring your whole self to work was good at first but has been co-opted and messed with too much.

When my workplace first started using it as a tag line it was largely about gay colleagues feeling safe in mentioning their same sex partner when the meeting started with “do anything fun this weekend?”, or someone struggling with their mental health feeling safe in mentioning that to their manager, or when I was open with my team that my sick leave was due to a nasty miscarriage. Not having to cover up who you are and what you’re going through, when those things affect your delivery at work. Now it’s about bringing your own preferences and campaigns, which is sometimes ok and often inappropriate. And the difference between being open with your colleagues and being open with customers/service users seems to have transformed too, not always for the better.

True. We're only allowed to bring our fake selves to work. The fake selves that believe humans can change sex, obviously.

I think small personal interactions are important.
Hi, how are you doing? How did your house move go?
I think the issue with some of the symbols and signals indicating tribal alliances is that it prevents some others from interacting as they feel their interaction would not be welcome. Its a closed door. The speech therapist in the comment above was signalling strongly to her male transitioner clients that she was there to help them. The thing she didn't understand is that she was signalling to everyone else that they were less important. See, THIS is the group I will prioritise. Almost certainly not the intention, but it's the result.

I think she is speaking about providers of services don’t need to communicate their “whole selves” to the users of the service, rather than about colleagues making friendly conversation with each other.

Sorry to add I think the reason some of my younger colleagues are comfortably with talking about their same sex partner is because of initiatives like bring your whole self to work. I AM pessimistic about other people -it's why I fully support quotas in my workplace to increase female representation at senior management level.

I suppose a stylist is allowed to display their style. It’s appropriate. Just like a shop assistant in a Christian bookshop wouldn’t be making a statement by wearing a cross around their neck.

When I started in the City 25 years ago there weren't any openly gay people in my workplace. Now there are a lot. In my work place bring your whole self to work meant that gay people shouldnt have to play the pronoun game to hide the fact they were in same sex relationships. I don't really understand what she's says saying I know how many kids my co-workers have and what football teams support because we talk to each other about stuff outside work. Do people really object to this?

I partly agree. I don't want my gynaecologist to have pink hair and lip piercings. Why? Im honestly not 100% sure. Does it imply a less than serious nature? I think that might be it. I don't need them wearing tweeds and horn rimmed glasses, but I do want them dressed smartly and clean as a whistle.
I don't give a monkeys bum if my hairdresser does though. It's pretty much the uniform in some fields.
Beyond clothing and style though, I'm in full agreement. I want them to pull their bloody weight with the job then they can sod off and be their full selves in their OWN time. They're paid to do the job, not be "Ursula the rainbow unicorn".

Edited to add another thought.

This is one of the reasons I love being SE.
I don't need to see anyones authentic self at work, I just need them to do their job in a professional manner. Who they love/what they wear/worship etc I really do not care or want to know