Coming Out at Work: LGBTQ+ Visibility in Insurance

“You’ll Know When You’re Ready”

Why coming out at work is a continuous, often unconscious, risk assessment

Vanessa Horne and Geoff Lealan co-chair the same Pride Alliance group within Miller Insurance Services. Yet their coming out stories are very different. For Geoff, his career began in hospitality, where being out was never a question (he and his co-workers were “too busy singing happy birthday and carrying 20 plates to be concerned about who was attracted to who”). But Vanessa went “back into the closet” when she first joined Miller and only came out bit by bit as her confidence grew

The power of LGBTQ+ visibility

Geoff’s coming out story is notable for the lack of actual coming out involved: “Coming from a non-corporate background, being gay was never something I thought about concealing. Working in hospitality there was always such a mix of backgrounds, sexualities and so on that it was never an issue.”

He adds, “I’ve always been me, and realising that not everybody has to like you is something that I’ve learnt over the years. There is certainly no point in changing yourself to fit in… I was ‘out’ from day one in the industry and 20 years on, co-chairing the Pride Alliance with Vanessa enables us to be visible to others in the company and the market.”

Vanessa herself was a beneficiary of this kind of visibility. “I certainly went back into the closet when I first joined Miller. However, as there was an already ‘out’ member of the team, I knew I was in a safe environment and came out to my immediate team after a few red wines at the Christmas party!”

Both believe wholeheartedly in the need for visibility to help LGBTQ+ colleagues feel they can be themselves without fear. Vanessa speaks of becoming more open about her sexuality over time – and especially after joining Miller’s DE&I committee in 2016. “Now I make a bit of a point of being visibly out to help others that might be looking for a safe person to open up to.”

“Hopefully seeing us thrive in the insurance market helps others feel comfortable in their own skin and maybe they feel they can come out where they may have felt unsure before,” Geoff says, adding this intriguing detail about the power of visibility and safe spaces:

“After leaving school and moving to London I started bumping into old school friends in gay venues and we all said the same thing: ‘I wish I’d had the courage to come out, and we could have all supported each other!’”

“It’s hard”

In many modern workplaces, open anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is, thankfully, much less common than it used to be. But you never know how people will react or what they’re really feeling. Hence why so many LGBTQ+ people can find it difficult to have the confidence to be completely open.

While Vanessa and Geoff’s experiences differ, they both talk about how tricky this can be to navigate.

“It’s hard as I appreciate everyone has their different beliefs and levels of comfort with [LGBTQ+] topics,” Vanessa says. “There were, however, a few actions that did shock me when we first celebrated Pride at Miller back in 2018. We decided to raise awareness around what Pride was all about via posters on each floor and an all-company email. I had one individual directly reply to the email asking to unsubscribe from such comms and then also had the posters on one of the floors turned to face the wall.”

This is why she believes “the majority of people within the LGBTQ+ community will test a place before fully feeling comfortable to be entirely themselves. It’s a safety thing that’s inbuilt within us, and sometimes even unconscious.”

Geoff echoes this sentiment: “Even for the most confident of us, sometimes it can take just one off-the-cuff comment from someone to dim our light a little or at the very least make us feel uncomfortable.

“I’ve been in work situations where I’ve heard people say ridiculous things more from a lack of thought than any malicious intent, but it does make you wonder what’s going on in their head. I’ll always remember the time someone turned down a slice of rainbow cake because eating it ‘would make them gay’ – likewise someone else missed out on a glass of pink champagne for the same reason. Who turns down free cake?!”

Geoff says hearing these kinds of statements would make him “double down”, though he is keen to acknowledge that “for someone less confident it could make them think twice before talking about a nice weekend spent with their partner.”

“Make your own rules”

For both Vanessa and Geoff, there’s the sense that true inclusion means being seen as unremarkable – though again, their experiences are very different.

For Geoff, growing up in the 80s meant that his most difficult moments being himself were at school.

“When I was at school LGBTQ+ representation in the media was pretty terrible,” he says. “Gay characters were usually caricatures or grotesques and that just doubles down on the feelings of being isolated. Colin and Barry on Eastenders were the closest to normal you could find, but their 1987 on-screen kiss caused such backlash that you just went back to feeling like you’re wrong, like your life and feelings are wrong.”

Now, he talks of sharing a strange but mundane passion for pigeon memes with a straight colleague: “now we spend a fair amount of time sending each other various pigeon memes and gifts!”

From televised gay kiss outrage to online pigeon fancying. The world has come a long way since 1987!

Yet, in the workplace, visibility, support – from colleagues and senior leadership – and safe spaces remain necessary.

“Genuine safe spaces, like an LGBTQ+ employee network, makes such a positive difference,” Vanessa says. “I know setting up Miller’s Pride Alliance back in 2019 felt like a huge step forward in creating that. Also, whenever we’ve shared our experiences, whether at events or in everyday conversations, you can see those lightbulb moments in people who suddenly see things from a different angle.”

“It’s been our goal to create safe spaces, physical and virtual, where people can be their authentic selves,” Geoff adds. “Visibility is key and we try to host fun, engaging and educational events as often as possible to bring people together. We’re all about community and Miller is incredibly supportive in bringing our vision to life. Having that sense of ‘belonging’ throughout the business makes for a very inclusive workplace.”

The last piece of the puzzle is to take your time with coming out.

“Take the pressure off yourself – there’s no right or wrong here,” Geoff says. “As members of the LGBTQ+ community we ‘come out’ multiple times in our lives, sometimes multiple times a day. Whether that’s with family, friends, in the workplace or even with the taxi driver. It can be exhausting, even overwhelming, but just know that you make your own rules and find the people that bring you joy!”

Vanessa agrees: “Don’t worry. You’ll know when you’re ready and that might come from your own confidence growing, or from finding your people and safe spaces. There’s no rush or fixed timeline for these things and everyone’s journey is different so don’t feel pressured either.”