LGBTQ+ workers in hospitality vulnerable to harassment and discrimination

In the hospitality industry, front-of-house workers are expected not just to serve drinks or make coffee, but to create and sustain a vibe in their venues.

The vibe makes for a good customer experience and a positive working environment. This mood creation is paramount to a venue offering not just food, drink and service, but ‘an experience’ for customers.

For lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse, and queer (LGBTQ+) workers, creating and sustaining the vibe can be complicated, and is often dependent on factors like location, management and venue branding.

But on top of this, LGBTQ+ workers are often exposed to discrimination and harassment as a result of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia from the public and employers.

Inclusive consumption

In Melbourne, a city with a reputation for inclusivity, the stakes are high for venue owners looking to establish themselves as ‘queer-friendly’ places.

Our recent research suggests that LGBTQ+ hospitality workers (noting that I use the LGBTQ+ acronym because intersex and asexual people were not represented in my study) are often relied on by venue owners and managers to make spaces look and feel inclusive – without any material recognition of the additional labour this entails.

In an already precarious and poorly paid sector, these unpaid additional demands mean some LGBTQ+ people simply don’t think the job is worth it.

Lil, a café worker in Melbourne’s inner-west explains, “Most venue owners have no idea what inclusion looks or feels like because they have rarely experienced marginalisation. They think having a ‘diverse’ workforce will be enough. They don’t realise how much work goes into actually making people feel like they belong”.

Lil, like other participants in this research explained that venues expected LGBTQ+ workers to go beyond traditional service skills and instead draw on their own lived experiences to facilitate inclusive spaces.

For many, it was their unique insights into managing conflict and their interpersonal skills that employers expected them to bring to work.

Connor, a restaurant worker in Melbourne’s CBD indicated that his lived experience as a gay man gave him a ‘more refined scope’ for creating a fun atmosphere and negotiating tension in his workplace.

“If you get straight folks that are coming in to spend on cocktails or wine, they love having that interaction of having the gay best friend that they can gossip with, and that can be like, “Yes Queen”. I find it works extremely well because that’s what people want, they want that little bit of entertainment. It’s just tiring and sometimes can go too far if you’re not careful.”

The threat of discrimination, harassment and violence

Despite recent public efforts to increase and promote gender equality, diversity and inclusion, the workplace broadly is a hostile place for LGBTQ+ people.

In 2023, the United Workers Union (UWU) reported that “hospitality has a systemic sexual harassment and gender-based violence problem”.

This claim is supported by recent research that reflects the prevalence of harassment faced by women, gender diverse and non-binary bar, café and restaurant workers in Melbourne and Newcastle. In Adelaide, the story is the same.

In a 2023 report about gender-based violence in hospitality work, researchers found that non-male workers were more likely to be expected to diffuse violence between patrons due to their perceived ‘natural ability’ to resolve conflict.

At the same time, these workers were more likely to be the target of violence in their workplaces from both customers and employers.

For LGBTQ+ people working in front-of-house roles in hospitality venues, the threat of discrimination, harassment and violence is ever-present.

Striking a balance between drawing on lived experience to create the vibe and maintaining positive interactions at work can be difficult. Some workers describe being in constant negotiation of how they express or repress their gender and sexuality at work for fear of, as Connor states, things going “too far”.

Sasha, who works in a CBD café, explains her reluctance to wear any rainbow or pride-related symbols.

“I’ve had too many people use it as a way to harass me or make me feel uncomfortable, which sucks because I do want other queer people to feel safe here, but I know it would be a lie to advertise that they would be.”

Some workers described having customers refuse their service based on their gender or sexuality expression, being spat at, threatened, followed home, and having homophobic or transphobic slurs directed at them.

This is on top of experiencing precarity, underpayment, and poor working conditions which are rife throughout the hospitality sector.

Eliminating discrimination

The public nature of hospitality work can leave LGBTQ+ people feeling particularly vulnerable to aggression, abuse and violence from customers, as well as discrimination and harassment from employers.

Even though May 17 marked 34 years of homosexuality being removed from the World Health Organization’s Classification of Diseases, the International Day Against LGBTIQA+ Discrimination or IDAHOBIT acknowledges that discrimination in the form of homophobia, biphobia, intersex discrimination and transphobia persists.

LGBTQ+ hospitality workers suggest reducing discrimination in the workplace requires a coordinated approach from venues and broader policy.

The UWU advocates for better reporting structures, educational training and the implementation of an external investigating body to combat the high rates of sexual violence faced by all hospitality workers.

Moreover, “preventing workplace harassment and discrimination must be considered part of the context of occupational health of any likely risk to be raised within any given workplace, including hospitality” according to researchers.

This means implementing structural supporting procedures including policy, training and campaigning to prevent gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence across hospitality in accordance with the new Respect @ Work Legislation (2022).

So next time you notice a rainbow flag in a venue’s window while ordering a coffee or a cocktail, perhaps keep in mind LGBTQ+ workers because inclusive spaces are everybody’s business.

Dr Megan Sharp is a lecturer of sociology at the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne.

This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.

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