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Workplace unfriendly to gays: poll

60% worried about impact on career

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Workplace unfriendly to gays: poll

(CNA photo)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – At least 60 percent of gays will not come out of the closet at work because they fear it will harm their chances for promotion, according to the results of a poll released Saturday.

Taiwan is known as one of the most gay-friendly nations in Asia, even though proposals to legalize gay marriage have so far failed to make it through the Legislative Yuan.

A survey by the Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBT) Hotline Association found that 11 percent of gay workers were unwilling to acknowledge they were gay to colleagues or superiors at work, while more than 50 percent of those who had, believed there were still colleagues who had not come out of the closet.

A total of 25 percent of gay employees were afraid they might lose their job if it became known at work they were gay, while 40 percent said it would affect their chances for promotion or their career in general, or lead to harassment by superiors.

At least 60 percent of gay workers said that being known as gay would affect their interpersonal relations at work, showing workplaces in Taiwan were still not gay-friendly, the hotline association said.

The survey also showed widely varying attitudes across different sectors of the economy, with the media being one of the most liberal sectors and the traditional industries and education the most conservative.

As more than 50 percent of gay employees in the arts, medical professions and services were willing to come out as gay, only 33.7 percent of those in the electronics sector would do so, the survey found.

The hotline association also asked gay employees whether they had met any “unhappy” or unpleasant incidents at work, and 58 percent said they had. There was legislation in place against gender discrimination, but only few gay employees were willing to use that in the case of problems at work, the association said.

A total of 865 gay employees were questioned for the survey. The release of the poll comes precisely one week before a gay pride parade is to wind its way through the streets of Taipei.