Congressional Republicans obsessed with LGBT issues

By Antoine Craigwell

There is the saying in baseball, “three strikes and you’re out”. As an idiom, it has become part of the vernacular mirroring the game where an effort is considered exhausted after three tries. So it is with the Republicans in Congress who have held a total of three hearings, purportedly, to examine lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues as these impact the morality of the nation, and begs whether they have now exhausted their efforts to derail opposition to the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

According to the  Washington Blade article “Boehner suggests House marriage hearing is ‘legitimate’” by Chris Johnson, published on Apr 14, in a response to a question when asked about the use of tax-payer funds for the hearing, Boehner replied, “There are a lot of committees, a lot of hearings. As I made it clear from the beginning of this year, the committee process is important to this institution, and I think addressing any question – serious question – in American society is legitimate.”

Boehner didn’t address why the Republican controlled Congress felt that it needed to hold three separate hearings on LGBT issues: two hearings following the repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the Administration’s decision not to defend any challenges to DOMA.

According to an earlier article by the Blade, when in February Eric Holder, the Attorney General, informed Congress that the President would no longer be defending DOMA; the Speaker hired an attorney, Paul Clement, to represent the Administration. Clement’s fee was capped at $500,000, which was a blended cost of $520 per hour, and which could be increased by mutual agreement. Boehner announced on Apr 18 that he planned to cut the Department of Justice (DOJ) budget to pay for defense of DOMA.

On Apr 19, Kat Long reported in an article in the New York Examiner that Boehner asked the DOJ in a letter to defray the cost of representation in the case of Windsor versus United States, “The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born (sic) by DOJ, has fallen to the House. Obviously, DOJ’s decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA.  It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA.”

The Administration is not offering any defense of Section 3 of the Act, which is the same section before the courts in the Windsor case, and for which Boehner hired Clement. Long wrote  that Edie Windsor, 81, survives her partner, Thea Spyer, whom she married in Canada in 2007 and who died in 2009, and because their marriage was not recognized by the government, she had to pay an estimated $363,000 in estate taxes; costs, which Windsor said heterosexual married couples do not have to pay. Unconfirmed sources suggest that based on estimates from the 111^th Congress, which has an annual budget of $19 million, with 151 hearings, each cost an average $125,000.

The hearings, characterized as deliberately anti-gay, the Blade article quoted Michael Cole-Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, as saying in response to Boehner’s remarks that the upcoming hearing will “no doubt showcase the [Republican] majority’s obsession with ensuring continued discrimination against same-sex couples.”

”They’re welcome to think that’s a legitimate way to spend their time but the vast majority of Americans will be scratching their heads wondering why House Republicans have held a third hearing in as many weeks to demonize LGBT people,” Cole-Schwartz said.

To bolster their cause, the Republicans, in the two out of three anti-gay witnesses they have called to testify, declared their intent on the outcome of the hearing. The two avowed opponents of marriage equality, according to Johnson, are Maggie Gallagher, chair of the National Organization for Marriage, who previously testified before Congress against same-sex marriage and has a history of anti-gay activism; and Edward Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, who as a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and a high-ranking legal adviser in the Justice Department for former President George W. Bush, wrote several anti-gay tracts. The sole opponent of the anti-gay crusade, Johnson said, is Rutgers University professor Carlos Ball, a gay law professor at Rutgers Law School, who said that he plans to argue in his testimony that Obama rightfully determined that DOMA is unconstitutional and that the president shouldn’t defend the law in court. Ball said it is unusual for an administration to decide not to defend the constitutionality of the statute, but it is by no means unprecedented.

“In my view, any administration has a constitutional obligation to make an independent judgment on the constitutionality of certain statutes, especially when there is no clear law on whether the statutes are constitutional or not. DOMA is a “constitutionally indefensible statute” because the states have traditionally enjoyed the prerogative of regulating marriage. What the plaintiffs in these DOMA lawsuits are saying is not that they have a federal constitutional right to marry – that’s not the issue. These couples are already married under the laws of their states. What they are arguing is that the federal government should not discriminate against their marriages when it comes to federal governments. The administration has concluded that it’s unconstitutional to treat differently, and I think they’re absolutely correct,” Ball said to Johnson.

Commenting on Johnson’s article, Scott Rose said that the Republican position on this matter is known, “they want to perpetuate the anti-gay discrimination. Where the use of tax money to hold this kangaroo “hearing” is especially objectionable is that much of that tax money comes from gay people and others who support their rights. The enlightened are being forced to pay for the bigoted to hold a kangaroo hearing over civil rights for gay people.”

But the Rolling Stone magazine article “The Crying Shame of John Boehner” published on Jan 5 by Matt Taibbi, cast shadows of compromised integrity over the Speaker, indicating that he relishes spending tax-payer money, “John Boehner is the ultimate Beltway hack, a man whose unmatched and self-serving skill at political survival has made him, after two decades in Washington, the hairy blue mold on the American congressional sandwich. He’s a lazy, double-talking shill for corporate interests,” and which examined Boehner’s position as Speaker of the House, who is as much a Washington insider accustomed to manipulating, bending and twisting others as long as he benefits financially. The article said that Boehner is desperately fighting to hold on to his position for fear of challenges from some of the Tea Party Republicans who are already unhappy with how he has handled several different issues.

“Others in Washington see Boehner not so much as a bloodless partisan but as a clueless yutz, one who rose to power through a combination of accidents and bureaucratic inertia,” said Taibbi in his article. “John Boehner is business as usual, a man devoted almost exclusively to ensuring his own political survival by tending faithfully to the corrupt and clanking Beltway machinery. Boehner just represents a certain type of hollowly driven, two-faced personality unique to the Beltway; he’s the kind of guy who would step over his mother to score a political point.”

In the interest of wasting tax-payers money, Taibbi reported Congressional sources as saying that Boehner likes to knock off early, and that seems to square with his record, which reveals a real passion — for the links: “He once went on 180 junkets in six years, most of them golf trips, and reportedly copped to playing 100 rounds a year at a time when he was collecting a six-figure salary, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, to serve in Congress.”

Lawrence Graham-Brown at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ

By Antoine Craigwell

Toward the back of the oblong white painted room, a four-inch high platform, measuring approximately five feet square stood empty, stark, bare, and seemingly out of place among the pieces of art work on the walls and on pedestals in the center.  A few minutes after the appointed hour, a costumed man emerged from a side door. With exaggerated strides he circled the white platform, sprinkling liquid from a bottle, reenacting an ancient African ritual of blessing, libations and honoring the ancestors. As if on cue, preceded by another in military fatigues holding aloft the Stars and Stripes and the flag of Africanism, the red, black and green, a man emerged from the side room wrapped mummy like in a white sheet. Wearing a headdress of white feathers, reminiscent of Marcus Garvey, he climbed on to the platform. Unwrapped by one of his assistants, the openly gay Jamaican-born artist Lawrence Graham-Brown, was revealed, except for a flimsy covering over his genitalia, nude – a potent symbol of stripping away all pretense and camouflage for the opening performance of his exhibition “Disconnecting, Reconnecting…Disconnected.”

“For these recent series of performances, a person has to begin from a place of honesty and clothes just seem to get in the way. One has to get a fresh start to arrive at the meat of any matter, especially the legacy of degradation to those who are gay, Black and poor; those who face other complex issues while trying to remain standing tall and which begins the healing, brings closure and understanding for people who like those of the same sex,” Graham-Brown said.

Graham-Brown’s first solo exhibition began with the opening reception at the Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in downtown Newark, on Friday, Mar 4 and continues until April 23. While his live performance was part of the exhibition that was filmed, put on a loop and shown, a panel discussion “Belonging in My Own Skin: Understanding Depression in Black Gay Men” slated for Friday, Mar 25, continues his vision of examining the underlying causes of the oppression of Black gay men. It is free and open to the public.

As an artist, Graham-Brown has morphed from a static artist into a multi-media performance artist whose sculpture, mostly of found objects and paintings, among other media, attempt to capture the struggles, suffering and oppression of the peoples of the African Diaspora, wherever they are located.

“I started painting and tried to understand my place in the world as a Black gay man in the United States. I used found objects, rather than the usual art media, to demonstrate other uses for it,” he said.

The exhibition, said Victor Davson, founder and executive director of the gallery, can spark discussion about what it means to be Black, Pan African, and of the African Diaspora. Graham-Brown addresses a sensitive issue, seeing the health of Black gay men as edgy and is something for which a platform has to be created for the entire African Diaspora.

“This is not a show that could have been done in Jamaica or even Guyana. I’m very proud to be part of getting the dialog going. As someone from the Caribbean there is a lot of trauma and shame connected to people of color in this country. This is a very courageous body of work and it is something we need to have a conversation about,” Davson said.

The curator for this exhibition, Dean Daderko said that Graham-Brown uses his work to challenge the racist and homophobic attitudes held in a broad variety of cultures.

“His work’s ritual and cathartic power draws public attention to the existence of popularly-held prejudices, and acts as a palliative gesture to dispel the trauma and shame to which people of color and queer people are routinely subjected,” Daderko said.

Daderko said that Graham-Brown had composed a new body of work consisting of televisions and antennae, and it was his job to choose from Graham-Brown’s repertoire works that best demonstrate the violence, humiliation and degradation contained in slavery.

As a Jamaican, the artist draws on stark images from his country of birth to show the effects of colonialism and religious influenced homophobia. As a naturalized American, he continues to show how Black people are consistently oppressed and hindered by the lustful intentions of those Whites who exert power and domination. His work has been presented by the Queens Museum of Art, El Museo del Barrio and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance in New York; Real Artways in Hartford, CT; the 2008 Shanghai Biennial in China; in Duren, Germany; and at the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, where he has participated in numerous exhibitions. His most recent exhibition was held in Jan 2011 in Trampoline, Brazil.

Graham-Brown recalls that when he worked in New York City, on his commute to and from home he read books on civil rights and history. He discovered that race was a central theme in America, along with the legacy of slavery, servitude, gender and sexuality. He realized that his Caribbean heritage and the historical realities in America were a powerful combination, giving rise to “Ras-Pan-Afro-Homo-Sapien”, his ultimate protest title.

“As a queer person, I felt I had an intense connection to his work, seeing the representation of another queer person speaking about his experience. And while I’m not familiar with the Caribbean context, I feel I can understand it through his work as a queer Jamaican. I think what he’s doing is incredibly brave, which is not popular, especially his openness about his homosexuality as a Jamaican,” Daderko said.

The Aljira exhibition features a number of new works which deal with inequities from being Black and gay, and intends to give hope to Black gay men as an affected community. Newark is the most appropriate place, Graham-Brown said, and living in New Jersey allows him to start the discussion. This exhibition demonstrates his work in painting, use of enamel, latex, his own blood, and acrylic in non-abstract forms.

The inspiration for his work comes from his understanding of Ras and Pan and it is who he is now, “My work is not hidden. My style is immediate, it comes at the viewer. It’s new media art and it’s based on my idea of the construct of the RasPanAfroHomoSapien. It contains respect for the living, the dead and the unborn,” he said.

Graham-Brown’s preparation for this his first solo exhibition in the U.S. began twenty years earlier as a self taught 21-year-old young man in his native country, painting and sculpting, and honing his skills using brassieres, panty hoses, fabric, textiles and  found objects to tell a story, carry a message.

“When I started painting, it was experimental art with female undergarments, using lots of mannequins. Then my themes were mostly based on gender and sexuality, but when I came to the U.S. I incorporated race. In Jamaica, expressions of race in my art were mostly subtle addressing classicism in the society,” he said.

His first ever solo show, focusing on homosexuality, was held at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica, and although his work was on display for six weeks, its controversial nature elicited strong responses, including vandalism, attempts at destruction by students, and death threats, to the point that the police were called and items were confiscated.  Since no one liked his art and it wasn’t exactly commercial, he was nonetheless allowed to show at the Jamaican National Gallery and Tina Spiro, the owner of Chelsea Gallery in Kingston took a chance to show his work.

Prior to his forays into art, Graham-Brown had converted his home into a bed and breakfast, running one of the only same-sex accommodations in Jamaica. He advertised his B&B in Europe and in 1993, received an award from the Jamaican Tourist Board as the Best New B&B. Part of his success as an hotelier hinged on the relationships he had developed with several big chain hotels that sent to his establishment their gay guests who wanted an authentic Jamaican experience. Following the increase in homophobia, he gave up the B&B, migrated to Germany and then made his way to the U.S. Living in New Jersey, Graham-Brown trained as a chef at the Culinary Academy in Monmouth County and worked in hospitals, nursing homes and in school districts around the state.

“Lots of people are going to see the red, black and green and when they start focusing in on the material, they will see he’s addressing a sensitive issue,” said Davson.

As Harmonica Sunbeam,Dorian Bryant is an uncomplicated man

By Antoine Craigwell

Resplendent and radiant in a shimmering orange sequined floor length gown, she was like a shocking burst of sunlight. Even though it wasn’t the first time seeing Harmonica Sunbeam performing, in one of her many appearances far away from her stomping grounds, as the hostess at the 2010 Gay Caribbean Pageant in Brooklyn, and despite the seemingly rough environment, she maneuvered in impossibly high heels on the rickety stage, her enormously exaggerated hair, like a lion’s mane, occasionally eclipsing the banks of overhead lights. More than 300 people watched her announcing and commenting on the contestants with poise and aplomb.

Early on a chilly November evening, last year, at Manatus Restaurant on Bleeker Street, close to Christopher Street, where many Black gay men go as part of the ritualistic date; Dorian Bryant talked about his life and about his alter persona, Harmonica Sunbeam. At the bar in the very subdued lighting, bordering on gloom, Dorian sat on a bar stool, posture erect, legs crossed at the knees, and slowly stirring a cup of tea, pondering many things, his patience belied and hid the room filling energy and unstoppable force when he is transformed into Harmonica Sunbeam.

Dorian was born and grew up in the Vailsburg section of Newark, NJ. After attending Irvington High School, for one semester he went to St. John’s University. Last December, he obtained an associates degree in Liberal Arts from Hudson County Community College, and with the arrival of the new 2011 semester, is attending New Jersey City University for a bachelors in Community Health. His family, originally from New Jersey, now consists of a sister, with whom he is very close. His mother died when he was 16-years old from breast cancer, and eight years later his father died from kidney failure. After his mother’s death, he lived for a while with an aunt, but the desire for independence propelled him to move out.

As he spoke of his mother’s death, a tone of sadness crept into his voice, “It hurt when she died. I realized after, that she didn’t want to worry us. She felt that she would tell us when she thought it was appropriate.”

Recognizing his penchant for things health and medicine related, while in high school he wanted to become a pharmacist but was put off by chemistry, and later following his desire, focused on natural healing, becoming a massage therapist, for which he became licensed in New Jersey and practiced for five years.

Dorian said he didn’t tell his parents about his sexual orientation, “I wasn’t out and I guess they had their suspicions. While I didn’t hide myself, I didn’t go around telling everyone I’m gay; I was myself.” And, as with most gay kids, he was bullied in school, but when it came to it, he stood his ground, even to hitting out at some who threatened or practiced violence against him.

“I always said, people could say what they want as long as they didn’t touch me. I’ve never been bothered by people’s words,” he said.

When he started hanging out with other gay men and women he became more involved in the Ball scene and the Houses, including the time when he “walked” at Paris Dupree’s Ball at Tracks NYC, which was on West 19^th Street, in the “Butch Queen First Time Up In Drag” category and won; that he was drawn in by the adulation of his friends and the crowd at the Ball. That was the beginning of his indulging, creating, and developing Harmonica Sunbeam as his alter persona.

“This was sometime between 1988 and 1991. After the first Ball, I went back to being me. Then I went to a drag show and I thought, “I could do that.’ A few months later, I was a performer in a show. My friends came out to support me, and from then, time to time I’d do a show. The name and persona was born at that Ball,” said Dorian.

Dorian recalled that while in the 12^th grade, along with two of his friends they created drag names. His first his name was “Macadamia Serendipity” but soon changed it to “Tequila Sunrise” because he thought that the previous one would be too long for flyers promoting him.

At that time, he added, although his friends had names, they all really had no intention of using them, “I don’t remember exactly how it came to be,” he said, but when he walked more and more Balls, he knew that Harmonica Sunbeam would be her stage name, and with orange as her favorite color, it was only natural that she would appear as sunlight.

As the years went by, Dorian lived the gay life, working and doing drag occasionally; worked for 19 years at Radio City Music Hall in NYC in guest relations. He walked at the Paris Dupree Ball and when for the first time he was called Harmonica Sunbeam, it seemed to fit perfectly. And, as with any job or career, the more he embodied the alter persona, the more he improved it, “When I look back, I realize I’ve come a long way.”

People, Dorian said, have different perceptions of a man dressed as a woman.

“I wanted people to understand that when I dress in drag, that I didn’t want to be a woman or a transsexual. I just wanted to dress and perform,” he said.

On the other side of that perception, Dorian said that people often have a hard time separating him from his alter persona, “This is not something I do for fun. This is my job. While I enjoy what I do, I look at it as work and people have a hard time separating the two things; people often expect me to be and act like Harmonica all the time.”

Yet while there is a little bit of Dorian in Harmonica, when it’s time to spring into action, the character he has painstakingly developed takes over, and what Dorian wants to tell the world is not expressed through Harmonica. He admits that the things Harmonica would do and say, Dorian would not do. Through trial and error, being sensitive to the responses from various types of crowds, he knows what to perform and what he could get away with. From the beginning, making people laugh worked so well that he stuck with comedy as a part of Harmonica Sunbeam’s shtick.

With a wistful tinge in his voice, Dorian admitted that he was not seeing or involved with anyone, but cautions that he wants to find someone who appreciates him for who he is, “I’m just a gay man who has chosen drag as my profession, but it is not my whole life. I’d want a partner who appreciates and understands Harmonica, but loves Dorian.”

While Dorian is shy and reserved, Harmonica can be flirty, outgoing and social. As Dorian, it takes a while for him to open to strangers. Placing himself in the third person, Dorian, he said is more of a people watcher, “I sit and observe. I get my comedy routine from life,” providing the material for Harmonica. Dorian is humorous, which people don’t get to see unless they are close to him, but as Harmonica, the humor is an extension of Dorian, “I get it first as Dorian, then through to Harmonica.”

Bucking the entrepreneurial streak, Harmonica is Dorian’s occupation. The transformation from Dorian to Harmonica, as with any job in show business, has to be crafted carefully; taking between 45 minutes to an hour to apply make up, hair and gown. As a job, making appearances or performances, there is a minimum charge just for Harmonica to get ready, whether it’s to be on a stage for five minutes or 30 minutes. While Harmonica is lucrative for Dorian, though not enough to own an apartment on Fifth Avenue, but allowing him to take cruise; most of the money coming in from her performances go back into new gowns, wigs, make up, and shoes, “I can’t wear the same dress for three weeks or people would talk, so whatever money I make goes back into my craft.”

Harmonica recalled that her first performance in NYC was at the former Two Potato on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village and for 12 years was the host at Escualita’s, close to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Her list of accomplishments includes both film and television, including be a member of the Screen Actors Guild, “I pay my dues, so I get to vote for the awards,” and depending on who has invited him to attend the awards, he would go either as Dorian or as Harmonica.

For a brief moment Dorian shared his thoughts about the gay community: In the gay community, he said, people can be judgmental. Although Harmonica and Dorian get along with a lot of those who share similar talents, nonetheless, he said, it is filled with “a lot of shade” and insecurities. While some people see someone in drag not as sexual as they expect, there are others who like men who do drag, and want them to remain that way, “I’ve met people who want that and I get to find out about their intentions from their actions and their words.”

In New Jersey, Dorian said he would like to see more people unifying on important issues affecting the LGBT community, by becoming active on what’s important. On the issue of same-sex marriage, he said that while some people may not want it for themselves, it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t support it for those who do.

“As the gay community, it bothers me how we’re still separated; we don’t accept each other as we should. As a public figure, I try to speak about it, especially as someone with a diverse following, to encourage others to appreciate what everyone brings to the table. Sometimes as gay people we limit ourselves to new and different things. But I see a lot of work ahead for the Black gay community. We can learn to love and respect ourselves before we could expect others to do the same,” he said.

On Jan 17, Harmonica along with four other stand-up drag comedians was part of a one night comedy show called “Dragtastic” on the CBS show, “Logo”. As a performer, Harmonica wants to move away from the club scene and hopes to be cast in a play or a cabaret, or playing in front of an audience of peers. As with every occupation, Dorian insists that he doesn’t want to do drag forever; instead he wants to have something to fall back on, “If I’m going to do drag long term, then it’d have to be more main stream and not clubs. That’s why I want to finish school so I have a plan “B”.” Beginning last September, Harmonica hosts a show every Sunday night at Splash in NYC, and on Tuesdays, for three years, has been hosting a strip show contest at the Cage in Hoboken, NJ.

LGBT Summit on Wall Street, A First

By Antoine Craigwell

The recently concluded summit of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) financial industry representatives was like breaking through one more glass ceiling on the way to the top of the building that is society. The summit, billed by the organizers, Out On The Street, as the first LGBT Leadership summit on Wall Street, was attended by more than 160 men and women representing several different financial institutions on Wall Street on Wednesday, Mar 30 at Deutsche Bank’s offices on Wall Street.

As a first, the summit discussed the many ways in which being LGBT on Wall Street, seen as a hindrance to hiring, retention and career advancement, can be overcome with understanding and accepting managers, changes in a homophobic culture geared toward greater talent retention, the commercial viability of attracting clients and socially progressive companies, utilizing LGBT specific messages in recruitment, and recognizing global trends toward diversity and inclusion.

In his opening remarks Seth Waugh, CEO of Deutsche Bank Americas said that the diversity of the audience at the summit was like a rainbow. While promoting diversity in the workplace, acknowledging and giving equal rights to LGBT employees, he said that from a business perspective, it was commercially viable to do so.

Partnering with straight allies fosters the relationship between allowing for acceptance and diversity, and the commercial aspect of LGBT employees, Waugh said. It is not a high bar to define someone as an ally, someone who doesn’t discriminate against LGBT.

“This gives us the opportunity to show we care. We educate our LGBT employees about the issues they are likely to face. All types of diversity make better sense as we seek to recruit the best and the brightest; decisions, which are reflected in our client pool and creates a richer mosaic,” he said.

Out On The Street founder and principal of CODA, LLC, Todd Sears said that it is important to begin the dialog among senior producers in the financial industry. The banks and financial institutions, which make up Wall Street, he said, have an estimated 880,000 employees and collectively hold approximately $440 billion in capitalization.

“I was out in college and when I had my first job on Wall Street, my managing director called the guy next to me a faggot. I promptly went back into the closet and started looking for a new job. I found one and I let them know my sexual orientation and they were supportive. I was able to build with them and brought lots of LGBT clients to the company,” said Sears.

In her presentation, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Ph.D., placed the theme of the panel discussion “Wall Street as a workplace of choice: Culture” in perspective when she revealed the results of a 2010 study of LGBT out at work in comparison to their straight counterparts. Although the study’s results have been embargoed, Hewlett, as director of the Center for Work Life Policy, said that LGBT acceptance and comfort at being able to be themselves at work has a lot to do with the culture of the organization. Hewlett stated that increasing is the number of companies who see a commercial advantage to participating in the Center’s Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, which assists companies hold on to their LGBT talent, those who would otherwise leave because they are working in an uncomfortable environment.

Considering diverse work pools from a global perspective, companies are taking into account their employees’ sexual orientation by ensuring that they attract and retain the best talent. Hewlett said research revealed that LGBT are more educated and qualified than their heterosexual counterparts. In many ways, Hewlett’s data presentation was similar to the published results of the General Social Survey conducted by The Williams Institute. That survey suggested that 37 percent of lesbian and gay people (LG), and 46.6 percent of those who are bisexual (B) reported higher levels of education either with college or graduate degrees than 26 percent of their heterosexual counterparts. The Institute, a part of UCLA School of Law, said a combined 43.6 percent LG and B are out in the workplace and known among other employees.

But, in workplaces LGBT employees still have to contend with stigma, discrimination and racism. Many feel isolated and disengaged; they are disinterested in participating in company events, including bringing their partners to parties or outings. Many do not have photos on their desks or as screen savers, or have phone conversations with their partners while at work, as do many heterosexuals.

Close to 95-percent of those who attended the summit indicated by standing that they were out at work. Few, who remained seated, raised their hands to show that they are LGBT but not out at work and fewer still said they were straight.

“It says a lot that even at a LGBT event that there are some LGBT who do not feel comfortable to stand up and identify that they are gay or lesbian,” said Brian McNaught, a LGBT trainer and a moderator for one of the panel discussions.

When asked why someone at a branch or a desk should come out, Mark Stephanz, vice chairman of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said, “Hiding is tiring.  I came out three years ago because I couldn’t continue to expend the time, energy and brain function.”

Married with two children, Stephanz said he told his wife and the first person he told at work was his boss, “I felt it important to have that one-on-one conversation with my colleagues and clients. Then, I thought I was risking my career. Many think that coming out would be much worse that it turned out to be for me.”

But another panelist, Sonelius Kendrick-Smith, who is African-American, and a director and portfolio manager with Deutsche Bank and a member of his company’s Rainbow group, said that in one of his previous jobs, even though at the time he was already out to family and friends, he was concerned about coming out on the trading floor.

“At one of my previous jobs, I went to my boss, the head of the Fixed Income Department, and told her that I am gay and I didn’t want to go back into the closet. She assured me that the company will protect me. She said that she has two brothers who are gay and gave me her support. But the problems I had after coming out was more of some stupid stuff. Once I went to the bathroom. When I walked in, I met another man using a urinal and as soon as he saw me, he turned his back and tried to hide himself,” Kendrick-Smith said.

The definition of a straight ally is someone who is a little more than “pissed-off” who wants to make things better said Bonnie Howard, chief auditor, Global Control Head, Citigroup. Many straight people, who want to be allies often feel as though they would likely say the wrong thing.

Hewlett added that lesbians are more likely to have children and do not seem to receive the harsh treatment as men because that are seen as mothers who are gay. Data shows that isolation and backlash is more often directed toward men than women and that many gay men distrust their employers. And, compared to women, she said, a pattern among gay men has emerged of those who come out after they have been married.

But, McNaught, said that it’s important to have people in the top level management who are out or comfortable with LGBT issues, which makes it easier for employees to come out. Heterosexuals, he added, are not the enemy, management need to be authentic in their demonstrations of support for LGBT.

An openly gay member of the NY Stock Exchange, Walter Schubert, said that as the first person to come out on the trading floor, it took about a year for people to become comfortable with him.

“I’ve learned that homophobia is anti-feminism, where homosexual men are assumed by heterosexuals to be just like women, but being gay is not personal, it’s a public matter. A person’s behavior is private, but their orientation is public. It is important that employers and managers be available to talk,” said Schubert.

Many Wall Street companies have embraced a program where managers have symbols of a tent in their offices as a sign to LGBT employees that these offices are safe places to come for refuge.

A source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his company’s public relations department had not given permission to speak with the press, said that companies have to assure candidates when they are being hired that it’s okay to go to a multicultural or diversity group, “From the get-go, African-American LGBT are under enormous pressure, such as skin color, their sexual orientation and the number of projects they have to deal with. The challenges are there and everyone has to make the decision which battles they would deal with. I was fortunate that the racism was not that great and the homophobia was dealt with by an overt support system from my managers, which helped my confidence and productivity. Being comfortable, I was able to bring all my talents and skills to my job.”

As if demonstrating the strength and power of being LGBT, Maggie Stumpp, Ph.D., chief investment officer with QMA Associates who is transgender, manages an estimated $80 billion in assets and investments, said she had a picture on her desk of herself in drag. No one commented because they thought it was her sister. She decided to transition from male to female 10 years ago. At the time, she came into her office with a business plan on how to tell people about transitioning. On one occasion, her team was fired by a client when they found out she is transgender.

Introducing the panel discussion on driving innovation with strategic partnerships and investments, and quoting from a national transgender survey, Stumpp said that 47 percent of transgender lose their jobs, 16 percent are involved in the illicit drug trade, and 14 percent have incomes above $100,000. She added that 27 percent of all transgender have college degrees compared to 10 percent of the general population, and 20 percent have graduate degrees as opposed to 9 percent of the same general population.