Sexual Orientation
mistytee
14 Posts
We have an openly bisexual male on our employee roster. A couple of his co-workers are offended by his lifestyle. Tolerance is not an option with those 2. Does anyone have any advice as to how the manager of these 2 employees should address/counsel their attitude towards this bisexual male? They have gone to the manager expressing their disdain for that employee.
Comments
They need to be told in no uncertain terms that the company will not tolerate their behavior.
Good Luck!
Tell these employees that they are 'creating a hostile work environment', and 'that it is the company's position to intervene and discipline when necessary'. I'd end with something like, 'further behavior of this nature will not be tolerated and will lead to further disciplinary action, up to and including termination.'
You may also want to invest in literature or videos on this subject to educate employees. Have them sign a 'certificate of completion' form once they've viewed.
Good Luck!
I'm not reading through the lines, but, in your characterization of the man as 'openly bi-sexual' are you intimating that he is recruiting or perhaps making them uncomfortable by his conversation? If so, you may have another sort of harassment going on here.
>I'm not reading through the lines, but, in your characterization of
>the man as 'openly bi-sexual' are you intimating that he is recruiting
>or perhaps making them uncomfortable by his conversation? If so, you
>may have another sort of harassment going on here.
I don't know any openly gay people who "recruit" - it isn't a cult. But I have know a few who seem to find it funny to be "characteristically" gay - which can make anyone uncomfortable. (including other gay people) I'd be telling that employee to knock it off because it could easily escalate into harrassment. But make sure you are taking all employees to task for overtly sexual comments or behavior.
I think the way to go if it's just the fact that he "is" - is to tell your "offended" employees that they just need to deal with it or find other work with people they don't find offensive - because you can't make your bisexual employee not be bisexual - and he's not breaking in laws by being so. They can however, break one by constantly trying to complain about it.
Tammy Colson
Our company's harassment and discrimination policy was distributed to the entire group of folks where the bisexual male works. Afterwards, I'm told that this gentleman is mocking the policies. How? On no fewer than 5 occassions this past Friday, when something was said or done he shouts out "that's sexual harassment", "that's discrimination", etc. I also discovered by talking with a some of his peers that he has an "in your face" attitude. He participates in drag pageants and has brought pictures, outfits, makeup, etc. into the work place for all to see. His peers feels that he is flauntly and imposing his lifestyle on them. He has around his cubicle posters of men in drag, he has the gay rights symbol as his screen saver (obviously downloaded from an outside source which is violation of our e-mail standards policy), and he openly talks about his friends who are drug dealers and known felons. He has anti-discrimination documents on the walls of his cubible as well. I was told that very recently he was given a verbal reprimand for using excessive vulgar language in the workplace. He took the telephone handset of the person who complained and put it down his pants and rubbed it against his genitals. No one did anything about it. He uses the f_g work constantly to talk about and refer to himself and others.
Here I am viewing this person as a victim and he's the one recking havoc. The clincher in this whole thing is that no one is saying anything about it. It's so ironic because he's the one who is making the contact with me (this is the 2nd time this year)not the others who are uncomfortable in the workplace. So now what do you do with all of this? Now all anyone can tell me is that because he's gay, they fear a lawsuit.
The other behavior, the vulgar language and the obscene gestures ...he should be disciplined for this. This goes above what should be reasonably tolerated in the workplace.
People can sue you for anything they want to.... I have two sitting on my desk right now...one from a person whose job was eliminated is suing under ADA because we let her go because she was disabled and no one has any knowledge whatsoever of her being disabled. A business decision was made to have a private company do billing instead of having an individual do it. She was offered any other available position that we had and she choose instead of file for welfare and unemployment.
The other is from a guy who wanted us to guarantee he could leave everyday by 4:30 in the afternoon because his daycare would not keep his child after 5PM. He says we discriminated against him because he is male and he is black.
Go figure!!!
Now this is were you get into a sticky situation. Was he sharing the vulgar information because those he was talking to were also sharing vulgar information and have other employees downloaded screen savers from the internet that you have allowed? These are all issues you need to look at when investgating the situation. If other employees were allowed to violate these same policies and nothing was done, he may have a case for discrimination. So think about it before taking action.
He can be whatever he wants to be, without harassing and discriminating behavior. Follow your policy and do it quickly.
Also Mistytee this is just my little say but it sounds to me like this openly bisexual person is doing nothing more than what men and women who have children do on a daily basis. He is sharing his life. Now if the people he is sharing is life with don't want to see those pictures, then they should tell him that. I don't think HR needs to get involved with that. Doesn't sound like he is flaunting anything except for life. So what if it is pictures of people in drag, I've seen some baby pictures where the children look like little gremlin, are you suggesting that I go to HR and tell them that those pictures offend me. Wait a minute I am HR and so I guess I'll be looking at little gremlins for the rest of my life. Also it sounds like this guy or excuse me bi-sexual male as he is refer to originally is being insurbordinate then yes he deserves to be disciplined. But I can bet you he is now acting up because he has been harrassed and now he is being the harrasser. And you stated he has around his cubicle pictures of men in drag, again this is his life, no different from the family pictures of the gremlin children that I see all the time. It's life, people have to deal with it or don't come by to see them. And yes I bet although you don't think he is the victim, he is!
Now as for the other stuff, the handset, vulgar language he should have been written up for that. The handset in the pants should have given him a little more than at written reprimand, I think some days home without pay or something like that. That was a bit much.
I agree with the others that said deal with the behavior not characteristics!
Just my little say!
Don D you did not offend me - I just wanted to mention the phrasing you used - I thought it to be a poor choice of words. But then my choice of words wasn't exactly dead on in my post either. x:-8
Tammy