| Author, Title, Publication Year | Sample Sector/ Population Description | Method | Hypothesis (if applicable) | Findings | Limitations |
| Author: Carey et al. Title: Military service experiences and reasons for service separation among lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals in a large military cohort Year: 2022 | Sample Sector: Public (Millennium cohort study of military careers) Population Description: 96,930 eligible participants - 96.4% identified as straight - 1.9% identified as gay/lesbian - 1.7% identified as bisexual - Most service members who identified as lesbian/gay (64.0%) and bisexual (59.6%) were female - Most service members who identified as heterosexual (72.0%) were male. Population Size: The 2016 Cohort consists of 99,599 participants, 3.4% identified as LGB | Quantitative | H1: Service members and veterans who identify as LGB have significantly higher levels of adverse military and post-separation experiences compared with those who identify as heterosexual. | - There is a need for equitable support for LGB service members and veterans as heterosexual service members. - LGB individuals may be more vulnerable to attrition before service term fulfillment than heterosexual individuals, given that LGB veterans were more likely to report unplanned administrative or medical separations and perceived incompatibility with the military as reasons for separation. - LGB individuals have an elevated risk for the adverse outcomes examined in this study, highlighting the need for inclusion and cultural competence in the military environment with additional support and resources for all LGB individuals. | - While multiple response options for the sexual orientation question were available, additional identities were not included. Some participants may have endorsed an option inconsistent with their orientation or declined to respond due to options. - While the researchers were able to assess a variety of military and service separation experiences, they were not assessed in relation to the service member’s sexual orientation, thus researchers cannot determine if the reported experiences were directly related to a participant’s sexual orientation. - Inherent response bias despite the use of confidential, secure, and self-administered surveys. |
| Author: Cech, E. A., & Rothwell, W. R. Title: LGBT workplace inequality in the federal workforce: Intersectional processes, organizational contexts, and turnover considerations Year: 2020 | Sample Sector: Public (Federal “best case” agencies with LGBT-inclusive policies) Population Description: 330,414 respondents - 11,094 identified as LGBT; excludes those with missing data or a response of “prefer not to say” on the LGBT status question. - 2.97% (SD = 0.229) identified as LGBT - 42.37% (SD = 0.575) identified as female - 37.85% (SD = 0.575) identified as a racial/ethnic minority - 18.23% (SD = 0.517) had supervisory status - 33.83% (SD = 0.689) were considering leaving their agency in the next year Population Size: 392,752 federal employees | Quantitative | H1: LGBT-identifying employees will report worse treatment than non-LGBT employees. H2: LGBT-identifying employees of color will report worse workplace experiences. H3: LGBT-identifying women will report worse experiences than LGBT-identifying men. H4: LGBT respondents employed in military-related agencies will report fewer positive experiences than others. H5: LGBT respondents employed in agencies with greater representation of LGBT individuals will report more positive experiences. H6: LGBT employees in agencies with greater representation of white men will report fewer positive. H7: LGBT respondents will be more likely to consider leaving their organizations. H8: Differences in workplace experiences by LGBT status will mediate the differences in turnover intentions by LGBT status. | - Emphasizes the need to continue to deeply theorize the role of visibility of disadvantaged statuses within workplace inequality. - Devalued statuses need not be consistently visible to anchor informal workplace inequalities; his outcome hints that workplace experience disadvantages may accompany other devalued statuses that are frequently invisible, such as mental illness. - Individuals’ management of their devalued status can create non-trivial levels of stress and anxiety and other personal and career consequences, signaling the need for more research on the interconnections between status management and interactional-level workplace inequalities. | - Data cannot be disaggregated by LGBT category, nor by occupation, geographic region, or specific racial/ethnic category due to redactions placed by OPM to protect confidentiality. - Limited understanding of additional sources of variation as well as additional ways in which organizational and occupational contexts may ultimately shape the workplace experiences of LGBT employees. |
| Author: Compton, C. A. Title: Managing mixed messages: Sexual identity management in a changing U.S. workplace Year: 2016 | Sample Sector: Sector not specified (U.S. workplaces) Population Description: 8 men and 12 women - Ranging from 24 to 63 years of age - Participants lived in and had work experiences in a variety of states: FL, LA, OK, WI, CA, GA, MO, AK, KI, IL, OR, and OH Population Size: 20 employees from across the United States | Qualitative | N/A | - For participants, deciding how or if to enact their sexual identity at work was influenced by their perceptions of organizational policy and interactions with coworkers. In most cases, participants relied on both for identity management. - When participants perceived mixed messages, they worked to conceal their sexual identities from the larger organization, remaining closeted or enacting their sexual identities with a select group of coworkers perceived as safe. | - A primary limitation is the exclusive focus on communication and discourse; the approach ignores the body as an important source of knowledge in communication scholarship. - Interviewing participants employed in different organizations is another; each organization has a unique culture that affects what identities are perceived as acceptable within their boundaries. |
| Author: Compton, C. A. Title: Co-sexuality and organizing: The master narrative of “normal” sexuality in the midwestern workplace Year: 2020 | Sample Sector: Sector not specified (Midwestern United States workplaces) Population Description: - 11 identified as male - 1 identified as a cisgender male - 12 identified as female - 4 identified as a woman - 1 identified as a transwoman - 1 identified as a cisgender tomboy. Population Size: 30 participants | Qualitative | N/A | - Participants felt simultaneously pushed and pulled around a fluctuating conception of “normal” sexuality as expressed by Judeo-Christianity. - Participants also noted that the master narrative of discomfort with difference in the Midwest was prevalent in their workplaces, and thus they felt pushed toward connecting with or accepting this norm to function at work. | - The fact that all participants reflexively considered their own positions in comparison to their perceptions of a wider Midwestern culture indicates that all participants were versed in sex and sexuality in ways that could be atypical of the region. - The disclosure of the researcher’s sexual identity after beginning the study may have shifted the power dynamic affected how participants perceived her, the project, and ultimately validity. |
| Author: Corrington et al. Title: Letting him b: A study on the intersection of gender and sexual orientation in the workplace Year: 2019 | Sample Sector: Sector not specified. Population Description: 219 GLB participants were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). - 19% (n = 42) self-identified as gay men - 21% (n = 46) as lesbian women - 26% (n = 56) as bisexual men - 34% (n = 75) as bisexual women. - Six participants identified as neither male nor female and were removed from analyses. Population Size: 219 GLB participants | Quantitative | H1: GLB individuals will be more likely to hold negative attitudes toward bisexual men than bisexual women. H2: Bisexual men will be less likely than bisexual women to disclose their sexual orientation during hiring and at work. Bi men will be more likely than women to pass/cover at work. H3: Bi men will be more likely than women to perceive discrimination in the workplace. H4: Bi men will be more likely than women to experience minority stress at work. H5: Bi men will be more likely than women to experience psychological distress and use drugs and alcohol. H6: Sexual orientation will moderate the mediating role of outness from gender to perceived workplace discrimination, the indirect effect will exist for bisexual individuals, but not for gay male and lesbian individuals. | - GLB individuals reported more bias toward bisexual men than bisexual women, and gay men and lesbians reported holding greater bias against bisexual individuals than bisexual individuals, indicating that this bias is worse for bisexual men than for bi women. - Bisexual men (versus women) are less likely to disclose their sexual orientation at work, and that specifically, they are more likely to engage in passing and covering (identity management strategies). - Bisexual men report more workplace discrimination than bisexual women and more related negative outcomes – increased minority stress, worse psychological distress, and more substance use. - Sexual orientation moderates the relation between gender and perceived workplace discrimination. - Workplace discrimination mediates the relation of this moderation and two of the three outcome variables (minority stress & psychological distress, but not substance use). | - Inherent in this method is the utilization of cross-sectional data, limiting the causal claims that can attribute to the patterns found in the results. - Measurement invariance was not established, so there is a possibility that constructs were conceptualized or responded to differently by different groups (e.g., bisexual men and women). - Data was self-reported, a method that has a few important potential consequences. - There is the possibility of common-method variance among the different constructs that were presumed to be evaluated independently from one another. Researchers compared the experiences of employees based on whether they identified as “bisexual,” “gay,” and “lesbian.” This is restrictive and potentially excludes individuals who are not “out,” focusing on individuals who feel strongly enough about their sexual orientation to declare a label for it. |
| Author: Gates, T. G. Title: Assessing the relationship between outness at work and stigma consciousness among LGB workers in the midwest and the resulting implications for counselors Year: 2014 | Sample Sector: Sector not specified (Midwestern, metropolitan area in Illinois, United States) Population Description: - 120 (55.8%) of the participants identified as gay males - 2 (1%) identified as transgender Population Size: 215 LGB people in a large Midwest city | Quantitative | N/A | - A marginal relationship between outness and stigma consciousness exists; the results indicate the need for a change in social policy and the importance of the counseling practice in combating stigma consciousness. - LGB workers recognize their historically devalued social position and stigmatization. All individuals hold a possess consciousness of the possibility of stigmatization. - Lack of legal employment protections does not automatically reduce stigma consciousness among LGB workers, although the presence of employment protections likely influences the extent to which these LGB workers feel comfortable being out in their workplaces. - Working in a place of employment that recognizes the LGB workers’ equality under the law may not always translate into LGB workers feeling less conscious of the possibility of stigmatization. | - LGB workers who participated in this study may be more “out” at work and have less stigma consciousness because they have chosen to work in supportive workplaces. - Convenience sampling might contain suggest internal bias. - Many factors may influence workers’ stigma consciousness, this study only considered outness as a predictor of stigma consciousness. - Threats to external validity and generalizability present in the study: Restricting the sample to LGB workers in a large metropolitan city; participant diversity was minimal; the use of an exclusively online survey instrument. |
| Author: Hur, H. Title: The role of inclusive work environment practices in promoting LGBT employee job satisfaction and commitment Year: 2020 | Sample Sector: Public Sector (Federal Employees) Population Description: Data used was drawn from the 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS). - The OPM distributed the 2015 FEVS to a sample of 903,060 employees. - The survey received 421,748 responses for a response rate of 49.7%. - The final sample in the analysis was 6444 self-identified LGBT employees. Population Size: 6444 self-identified LGBT federal employees | Quantitative | H1: An inclusive work environment will have a positive effect on LGBT job satisfaction. H2: An inclusive work environment will have a positive effect on LGBT employee affective commitment. | - Inclusive work environments have a positive effect on LGBT employee job satisfaction and affective commitment. - Individual inclusive practices vary in their effects on LGBT employee job satisfaction and affective commitment. - For employees who identify as LGBT, the co-operation-oriented, support-oriented, and empowerment-oriented work environment practices had positive and substantively sizable effects on job satisfaction. - The fairness-oriented inclusive practice did little to improve LGBT employee job satisfaction. - The openness-oriented inclusive practice did not substantively shift LGBT employee’s job satisfaction. | - The causality of the variables is difficult to determine due to the study’s cross-sectional design. - The lack of data on differences between the groups (L, G, B, and T) may impact the findings as the 2015 FEVS did not have data on differentiating the groups. - While transgender and other gender minority employees could participate in the FEVS, some people might be invisible due to the absence of appropriate sex and gender-related terms that would allow them to be identified. |
| Author: Thoroughgood et al. Title: Because you’re worth the risks: Acts of oppositional courage as symbolic messages of relational value to transgender employees Year: 2021 | Sample Sector: Multiple (United States) Population Description: Trans employees from multiple locations - 158 transgender individuals were recruited at a trans wellness conference in the northeastern United States. - 102 transgender individuals were recruited via personal contacts and snowball sampling. - 206 transgender individuals recruited via social media websites and electronic listservs dedicated to trans issues (Final n = 164). - 177 trans-gender individuals at the same trans wellness conference in a subsequent year following the Study 1. Population Size: 428 transgender employees across four sub-studies | Mixed | H1: Perceptions of oppositional courage at work are positively related to organization-based self-esteem. H2: Organization-based self-esteem is 1) positively related to job satisfaction and 2) negatively related to emotional exhaustion. H3: Organization-based self-esteem mediates the relations between perceptions of oppositional courage at work and 1) job satisfaction and 2) emotional exhaustion. H4: The indirect effect of perceptions of oppositional courage on 1) job satisfaction and 2) emotional exhaustion via organization-based self-esteem is moderated by identity centrality, such that the effect is stronger when identity centrality is high versus low. | - Because achieving greater trans-inclusiveness hinges in part on cisgender employees taking risks to oppose non-inclusive policies, norms, and behavior toward trans colleagues, courage is often central to creating a more trans-inclusive workplace. - Acts of courage that oppose inequity toward trans employees may not only offer various instrumental benefits to such individuals at work, but they may also send an unequivocal message to trans employees that they are valued members of the organization. - Acts of oppositional courage are important to fostering greater inclusion given a marker of inclusive workplaces is the degree to which all employees feel valued and respected for who they are. | - Because of the extremely marginalized status of trans individuals, members of larger stigmatized groups (that have witnessed courage on a broad, societal level), may be less likely to view such acts as courageous and may be less affected by them. - The study design cannot rule out alternative causal orderings between the mediator and outcome variables. Thus, positive emotional states may not only occur in response to messages of value from others. - Because participants in Studies 1 and 4 were recruited from a trans wellness conference, they may be less representative of the overall trans community overall, suggesting selection bias. - Although it was necessary for the research to use the broad identity label of transgender for practical reasons, the results may be relevant to individuals with gender identities that fit the study’s inclusion criteria. |