Heteroprofessionalism at Work

Abstract

Workplaces are often described as environments in which employees are expected to "act professional.” Yet the standards underlying professionalism are not neutral. They are shaped by cultural expectations about gender and sexuality that can privilege heterosexual and gender-conforming identities while positioning other forms of identity expression as less professional. This dissertation examines heteroprofessionalism—the process through which professional norms are shaped by cis-heteronormative assumptions—and investigates how it contributes to inequalities in the workplace for LGB+ employees. Across four empirical chapters, the dissertation examines heteroprofessionalism at the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels, with particular attention to identity disclosure, gender and gender expression, cooperation, and inclusive climate. At the individual level, Chapter 2 examines how heteroprofessionalism manifests in LGB+ employees’ cognitive, emotional, and behavioral experiences. Using survey data from 198 UK employees, the study shows that LGB+ employees experience greater work–sexual-orientation identity conflict, are more likely to avoid discussing their sexual orientation, and experience more negative emotions related to sexual-orientation discussions than non-LGB+ employees. These differences are reduced when employees perceive their team climate as inclusive, suggesting that inclusive climates can buffer identity-related burdens. At the interpersonal level, Chapters 3 and 4 investigate how sexual and gender identities shape colleagues’ evaluations of professionalism and willingness to cooperate. Chapter 3 uses vignette experiments conducted in the Netherlands and the UK to examine the consequences of gay identity disclosure. The findings show that disclosure is not uniformly beneficial or harmful: observers with stronger heteronormative beliefs evaluate gay disclosers as less professional and report lower willingness to cooperate on work-related tasks, whereas observers with weaker heteronormative beliefs respond more positively in some domains. Chapter 4 extends this analysis through a factorial vignette experiment with 376 UK participants, systematically varying gender, sexual orientation, gender expression, and disclosure strategy. The findings demonstrate that professionalism judgments reflect intersecting identity expectations. Feminine-presenting men and lesbian women receive lower professionalism evaluations in specific conditions, while full sexual-orientation disclosure can incur a professionalism penalty for LGB+ candidates but not heterosexual candidates. At the organizational level, Chapter 5 examines whether identity-conscious and identity-blind diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approaches are associated with employees’ perceptions of inclusive climate. Using data from 20,205 employees nested within 51 Dutch organizations, the findings show that formal identity-conscious policies are positively associated with perceived inclusive climate, whereas identity-blind policies are not. Employees’ own perceptions of their organization’s DEI approach are even more strongly associated with perceived inclusion, highlighting the importance of how policies are interpreted and experienced in everyday organizational life. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that heteroprofessionalism operates across multiple levels of working life: shaping how LGB+ employees manage their identities, how colleagues evaluate and cooperate with them, and how employees experience organizational approaches to diversity. The dissertation contributes to research on workplace inclusion by showing how seemingly neutral standards of professionalism can reproduce sexual and gender inequalities, and by identifying inclusive climates and identity-conscious DEI practices as potential mechanisms for disrupting these exclusionary processes.