Experiencing Injustice

What some people do not understand is that there is a reason why I am not open about my sexuality at work to the participants and to my other coworkers. It is not something I have in my resume or staff file or in an introduction about myself. Not telling people I work with about my sexuality was a decision I made so people do not question my ability to do my job correctly and so they will not look at my every move. I normally tell people my sexuality when it happens to come up in casual conversation or there are situations where I do not even tell them and I just talk with my friends. I am giving this history because I feel it is necessary in order to understand this experience I had in the work place.

Two summer ago, summer of 2015, I worked at a summer camp with many different types of people. There was one staff member who was openly gay and told the participants about his sexuality. Throughout the summer he and I had to work together and closely with each other. When this started to happen, other staff members would come up to me and ask me about how him and I are doing. They are thinking that something intimate is going on, once I reassure them that everything is strictly work related, they kind of shrug it off. Fast forward to eight weeks into the summer camp season and him and I are with our group of teens at our water park. I am talking to a group of teens about something and he comes over and blatantly asks me out in front of them. I denied him multiple times since he kept asking me over and over again. This happened for the rest of the afternoon and even that next morning.

Once that next morning came I approached the section director, assistant camp director, and camp director about this. This is where I believe the injustice comes into play. Once I told them what has happened, they told me that what he did was inappropriate and they will have a private conversation with him about not doing this in the workplace. Doesn't seem like injustice, right? Well, a few days after I complained about this, another male staff member, who is straight, complained about this same staff member and the directors asked him if he wanted to file a complaint to HR and have him switched to a different section to stay away from that staff member.

My initial reaction to him asking me on a date in front of the teens and during work hours was that it was completely unprofessional and it was crossing the line between personal life and work. At the time I could not fully express my displeasure in what he was doing because of the setting we were in, but I was completely uncomfortable and I was shocked and at a loss of words. Once he did that, the teens started asking me questions about my sexuality. When I got hired back in 2012, I made a promise to myself that I will never release my sexuality to the participants because that is not something they need to know. The only way I would release my sexuality would be if a youth came to me about their own questioning sexuality (it hasn't happened).

At the time I did not think of it much and was pretty content with the outcome, but now that I am, it bothers me about how different the directors handled the situation. If this happened to me now I would have insisted that I get moved to a different section and I file a complaint with HR so the directors can see that I am very uncomfortable by what has happened. He does not work for the organization I do anymore, which is a good thing for myself and the other male workers, and he cannot ask me out anymore because he is blocked on all social media sites including his phone number.