miniver_cheevy: i have run into some real (though very subtle) homophobia in the work place. i decided i would never play the "gay card" and never did. actually i can remember several not so sutble example of homophobia in my workplace.
for years in washington, dc i tried to make my living as a freelance camera operator in the news business. i am pretty much not easily identifiable as a gay man, but would never lie and parade around as if i were straight. you couldn't really be outwardly gay, because they would never hire you.
i also got a lot of discrimination on film sets in the grip/electric departments. sure you could be out in the art department, or producing, or even editing -- but for some reason the macho departments (which i was always drawn to for some reason -- i like to make things difficult for myself, i guess
-- were almost repugnantly straight.
basically, most of my fellow cameramen were some of the biggest straight a-holes i ever met.
for example, my longest gig was at c-span. i worked at c-span for four years. i tried to make it in the field department, but hit the pink ceiling and got kept in the studio. after 4 years they hired a straight guy who had been there less than a year over me to a higher up position. (so i quit
believe it not, as cool a company as c-span did not have "sexual orientation" included in their non-discrimination clause. (and i wouldn't be surpised if they still did not, though i brought it up several times with their human resources manager over the years.)
having said all this, i have some personality problems* which might be to blame, but still i fervantly feel that some areas of the american workplace are extremely homophobic. some areas of the country are worse too.
the film sets where i worked in richmond, va, for example, were INCREDIBLY homophobic. i never heard the word "fag" so many times in my life, and felt very threatened. i certainly couldn't have come out there.
washington, dc, on the other hand was much more cool, and baltimore was even better. black dudes had a harder time in baltimore i noticed, for some reason, and it was easier for them in dc. (not black gay dudes, just black dudes, i mean.) that was weird, because there's about the same percentage of black folks in baltimore as in washington (50%).
*for example, i never felt comfortable about coming out to co-workers, thus they never really got to know me in the true sense, and felt apart from me, as if i wasn't a whole person -- and then i would never get work or re-hired, because i was like this quiet mystery guy. it was kind of a whole catch 22 situtation, i guess, for me anyway.
there were some, few out gay guys on the crews, but i think they were a lot tougher than me, also they were generation x'ers whereas i was baby-boomer, maybe that had something to do with it.
one that's glad to be out of the "biz"
