The Walk-In Closet: Gay Work Culture in a Neoliberal Organization

• In Event: 333 - Regular Session. Sociology of Work II: Culture and Control

Abstract

For the last two decades, the corporate closet has been the primary metaphor for framing and conceptualizing the decision sexual minorities face on-the-job: to fake a straight identity, taking on the psychological and emotional burden of passing in exchange for a reduced threat to one’s career, or “come out” and risk overt or subtle sanctions. The concept, however, assumes a traditional (i.e., pre-neoliberal) organization. Neoliberal changes in organizations potentially change the structure of the closet at work. Drawing on a case study of theme park entertainment workers, I describe a new iteration of the workplace closet: the walk-in closet. More expansive than the traditional corporate closet, the walk-in closet allows sexual minorities a space to disclose their identities with little cost. Yet the fundamental dynamics of the closet – the broader subordination of homosexuality to heterosexuality – persist through a set of formal and informal boundaries that contain gayness in organizationally-desired spaced.

Author

• David Orzechowicz, University of California-Davis