It was during a dinner with a group of Texans, when she was working for a large oil group, that Agathe Weil had the click: after having “Wandered” all evening so as not to use pronouns or feminine names indicating that she was living with a woman, for fear of shocking her dinner companions, “I collapsed at my hotel”, remembers the current deputy communications director of the Foncia group.
The next day, the young woman made the choice to” to assume “ : in order not to undergo the weight of pretenses again, there is no longer any question of feeling obliged to hide your homosexuality. A few years later, the director decided to apply to the L’Autre Cercle association to be officially designated as an LGBT “model role”. The objective of this approach: that her colleagues, in turn, no longer feel obliged to lie about who they are when they see her openly display her homosexuality.
Rarely a deliberate choice
This initiative was launched by L’Autre Cercle, which works to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the workplace. The third edition of the LGBT + and Allied Model Roles, organized by the association on October 12, brought 94 personalities to the fore, such as Agathe Weil. Through this celebration, which was held in the presence of the Minister Delegate in charge of equality between women and men, diversity and equal opportunities, Elisabeth Moreno, the association wants to trivialize homosexuality and questions around gender identity in business.
If the visibility of gay, bi or trans people in the professional context remains a non-topic for many employees, the strong testimonies which followed one another on video during this ceremony, show that this is not the case.
A man explains that he hid his homosexuality from his colleagues for eighteen years. A manager in the advertising industry does not want to take the risk of making “Lose budgets” to his business, if his homosexuality came to light. Another manager explains having made her “Coming out” in front of his colleagues gathered at the table, after hearing his N + 2 make homophobic remarks: “I said to myself: if I keep quiet now, I will never be able to talk about it again (…) and I validate, in a certain way, his words “.
“Showing” one’s gender preferences in business is rarely a deliberate choice. But at some point in their careers, all participants found themselves confronted with this dilemma: to speak openly about their homosexuality or to lie the rest of their professional life. During the ceremony, Minister Elisabeth Moreno recalled the “Weight too heavy to carry” identity concealment, “Which can have psychological and medical consequences”.
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