Unbound leadership : how gender non-conforming, or non-binary lesbians navigate the workplace from a place of visibility
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Issue Date
2021-09-02
Editor
Authors
Hamilton-Page, Michelle
License
Subject
2SLGBTQ+
Critical workplace theory
Lesbian
Non-binary
Queer
Queer workplace theory
Critical workplace theory
Lesbian
Non-binary
Queer
Queer workplace theory
Abstract
The GNC-NB Research Project Portfolio
This research explores the hidden workplace structures of homophobic binary expectations and enforcement, and how such constructs affect the working lives of gender non-conforming and non-binary lesbians. From the bathroom to the boardroom and most work spaces in between, non-binary and gender non-conforming lesbians face discrimination and harassment stemming from assumptions and prejudices arising from their gender presentation. Participants report harassment and discrimination ranging from being sexually harassed, and sexually assaulted, to a lack of mentoring, purposeful misgendering, bullying, misogyny, precarity, and a homophobic comments and gendered discrimination, and being fired. Constructivist grounded theory was used in this research with 25 gender non-conforming and non-binary lesbians, through data analysis, a theoretical model was developed that illustrates the ways in which participants navigate and mitigate hidden structures of binary enforcement and homophobic policing, giving rise to an emergent leadership model of ‘Unbound Leadership’.
The four pieces of this portfolio are designed to engage listeners, visual learners, readers and thinkers in ways that make the research accessible to practitioners working in these critical human resource fields, to research participants, to allies, and colleagues. An important goal of this research is to contribute to the change process necessary to increase access and equity in the workplace. The portfolio consists of a TEDx-style talk, a 3D imaging, or hologram of the emergent Unbound Leadership theory, a series of podcasts, an article to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and a document summarizing the GNC-NB Research Project portfolio.