the business climate “has never been so progressive”, but discrimination persists

According to the results of the L’Autre Cercle x Ifop LGBT+ barometer published Thursday, 77% of employees consider their organization to be benevolent towards the LGBT+ community, but “gray areas” still persist and Again.

In France, in 2024, six out of ten LGBT+ people are visible to their colleagues at work, an increase of ten points in six years, according to the results of the LGBT+ barometer | L’Autre Cercle x Ifop published Thursday April 25. The study, carried out among the largest nationally representative sample of LGBT+ employees ever surveyed (more than 1,000 people), reveals an improvement in the atmosphere at work regarding topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity , this climate “has never been more progressive than today.”

For example, nine out of ten employees are in favor of access to parental rights for their colleagues who have had a child via surrogacy, even if they are not the biological parent. Generally speaking, 77% of employees consider their organization to be benevolent towards the LGBT+ community. But “there are nuances”explains Thursday April 25 on franceinfo Catherine Tripon, spokesperson for the Other Circle. “We are first visible to a few colleagues in whom we trust. We are not yet at total visibility, but on the other hand, we see an evolution”she notes.

Homophobic insults are not decreasing

This progressivism is also visible with the decline in physical violence against LGBT+ people (which went from 14% to 10% in three years), and discrimination in remuneration (16%) or recruitment (15%), which fall by two points. On the other hand, homophobic insults are not decreasing: 53% of LGBT+ employees say they have already been insulted. In 40% of cases, victims of teasing or offensive comments did not tell anyone. “These comments are so trivialized that we no longer see them,” regrets Catherine Tripon. “More than half of the respondents heard these comments, while respondents considered heterosexual, that is to say more than two thirds of the survey, are only 34% to have noted it“, she explains.

The barometer also reveals “gray areas” concerning transgender and non-binary employees: nearly 35% (compared to 21% of LGBT+ employees) noted unequal treatment because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Also, more than a third of transgender and non-binary people have been attacked in their workplace, nine points more than LGBT+ employees. Added to this is the “faintness” 21% of non-LGBT+ employees face coming out from a transgender college (compared to 6% if it is a gay, bisexual or lesbian coming out). “We have evolved on the issue of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, but on transgender and non-binary people, there is still real educational work to be done”, concludes Catherine Tripon, spokesperson for the Other Circle. Moreover, this “corroborates the aggravated violence against transgender and non-binary people in the public sphere”.

Methodology: Ifop study for L’Autre Cercle carried out by self-administered online questionnaire from January 24 to February 20, 2024 with a nationally representative sample of 8,997 employees residing in mainland France, and from January 22 to February 14, 2024 from a sample of 43,252 employees and agents working in 83 organizations that are signatories to L’Autre Cercle’s LGBT+ Commitment Charter.