Have I gone as far as telling my current boss outright? No. I have a lovely string of rainbow crystals hanging from the mirror in my car and my "Pride Charlotte" sticker is in my rear window. The last time she rode in my car she closely examined those crystals and made no comment. We don't talk about our personal lives which, after my last boss Ms. TMI, is just fine with me. If she asks I will answer her truthfully. But I doubt that will ever happen. My boss is a lady who would never dream of poking around in my personal business. Not that it would matter to her anyway. There is a very out and proud attorney in town who happens to be gay and lives across the street from my boss. They are very close friends. She also used to work with an attorney who happened to be a lesbian.
I was out at my last job and it caused no problems. In fact she may have been a bad boss but she is a staunch supporter of the LGBT community and allowed me to work on things for Pride (and the half dozen other LGBT groups I was associated with) during my hours and use company resources like the copier.
The job prior to that - no way. In fact it was at that job where I knew I would be fired. But it was while I was working at this job when I became involved with Pride and several other LGBT groups. I knew that I ran a risk because the high visibility of some of the projects meant I would be in the mainstream media from time to time and really didn't care. If it cost me my job then so be it. (It has nothing to do with my job performance.) And it was while I was working here and taking this risk that my Mom told me that she and my Dad were proud of me - the first time I heard this from them in 47 years. I wouldn't trade that for anything.
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