Discrimination in Inclusive Organizations: Silencing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) workers in Italian Social Cooperatives

Most studies on diversity and discrimination in the workplace have focused on “visible” minorities such as gender or race, often neglecting the experiences of invisible minorities such as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) workers. This paper explores the practices of diversity and inclusion/exclusion of LGBT in the workplace in Italian social cooperatives, which are specifically founded to create employment for people who are otherwise disadvantaged in the labor market. The study focuses on the organizational as well as the employee perspectives and examines: a) how organizations, which mainly employ workers from specific social minority groups, manage the inclusion of LGBT workers; b) what are the experiences of LGBT workers within such organizations. The paper reports that the culture of silence existing in the five organizations studied, prevents LGBT employees from constructing a work identity which encompasses their sexual identity and prevents the organizations to achieve their aim of being fully inclusive workplaces.