Heteronormativity and Silenced Sexualities at Work

The paper focuses on workplace as a space in which the normative versions of heterosexuality are produced. Facing the everyday reality of the closet, the majority of homosexual employees constructs and negotiates their silenced sexualities at work. The study is based on 30 in-depth interviews with Lithuanian gays and lesbians carried out within the framework of the EQUAL project “Open and Safe at Work.” The paper discusses how homosexuals confront heteronormativity at work and how it shapes their sexual identity. How is heteronormativity reflected in their choices to stay in the closet or to come out? What are their coping strategies at work? The fear of open discrimination and violence leads to the invisibility of minority sexual orientation at work and the denial of sexuality as irrelevant to the social life. The internal division between sexual (private) and social (public) is evident in a number of ways. The suppression of the sexual is the most prevalent coping strategy in the heteronormative order.