Being Your Full Queer Self at Work

Nearly 10 years ago, I was an articled clerk, an “Almost-Lawyer”. I wrote a blog post, criticizing “professional” standards of appearance for lawyers that are based on whiteness, class privilege, heteronormativity, and cissexism. I wrote that I’d been so worried I wouldn’t get a job in the profession for which I’d trained so hard (and spent so much money to get a degree) that I felt the need to change how I looked. In job interviews, I wore a skirt, nylons, and a long-sleeved, high-collared shirt that covered all my tattoos. I removed my facial piercings. I rearranged my hair to cover my half-shaved head. All to appear more “professional” (read: less queer).

I did get a job, and I’m still here. Nearly 10 years later, I’m reflecting on the bigger question beneath my concern that I couldn’t be a lawyer and “look queer”, which was whether I could be a lawyer and be myself.

Before law school, I worked at a queer- and trans-owned and run feminist sex shop and bookstore. I was politically active in grassroots organizing against systemic and state-based oppression. I was in a queer and trans punk band. I wrote (and later published) a book that included many queer sex scenes.

I went to law school to better understand the ways systems of power work, including the legal system, and in the hope of using my Type A personality and propensity to argue for good. But I was afraid that the ways in which I am queer (intersectionally feminist, sex-positive, kind of loud) would not be welcome in a law firm, in a hearing, in a client meeting.

I was lucky to find a firm where I don’t feel the need to cover my tattoos or piercings. And where, more importantly, I don’t feel the need to pretend I’m someone I’m not. I’m still politically active against systemic and state-based oppression. I’m in another queer and trans band. And I’ve published another book that includes a good deal of queer sex.  

It shouldn’t feel rare or precious to find a workplace where you can safely be your full queer self, but it does.

While Canada doesn’t have the same oppressive legislation and executive orders targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) policies as the United States, one study has shown cross-border effects, especially among multinational employers, resulting in, for example, corporations pulling back from DEI initiatives, and pulling sponsorship from Pride events.[1] A growing anti-trans, anti-queer global movement continues to spread hate and fear, including in my city of Halifax, where anti-trans groups have gathered to protest gender-inclusive education in schools,[2] and queer- and trans-owned and run businesses, including my beloved former workplace, have been targeted and defaced with anti-trans slurs.[3]

2SLGBTQIA+ people, and particularly trans people, continue to face discrimination and harassment in Canadian workplaces. Trans women face higher rates of unemployment than cisgender people, and gender diverse people are more likely to experience poverty than cisgender men, regardless of their education level. Being a racialized immigrant further increases the poverty gap between nonbinary people and cisgender men. And among Indigenous people, poverty faced by nonbinary people is twice the rate of that faced by cisgender men.[4]

For many of us, how we look is an integral part of who we are, and often determines how we’re treated, including in the workplace. Beyond shifting the standards of “professional” appearance, we must keep pushing for the ability of 2SLGBTQIA+ people and people from all equity-deserving groups to safely be our full selves in our workplaces, schools, and communities, through DEI initiatives, grassroots activism, legal advocacy, and daily conversation.