Unconscious bias and LGBTI: Articles

To become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive, many companies have turned to unconscious bias (UB) training. By raising awareness of the mental shortcuts that lead to snap judgments—often based on race and gender—about people’s talents or character, it strives to make hiring and promotion fairer and improve interactions with customers and among colleagues. But most UB training is ineffective, research shows. The problem is, increasing awareness is not enough—and can even backfire—because sending the message that bias is involuntary and widespread may make it seem unavoidable.

The boardroom is finally waking up to the issue of diversity and inclusion, but we still have a long way to go to challenge the systemic inequality that persists to this day. Part of this will be achieved by addressing unconscious bias.

While diversity and inclusion have climbed corporate agendas over the past decade, many LGBTQ+ employees continue to face discrimination, discomfort, and even danger in the workplace. When it comes to true inclusion, everyday interactions with peers and leaders matter as much as organizational policies or formal processes.

If unconscious biases aren't kept in check, organizations and the employees that power them might let these biases influence their decisions in a way that holds them back.

There’s a growing skepticism about whether unconscious bias training is an effective tool to meet corporate diversity goals. Some studies have shown that traditional diversity trainings aren’t effective, and can even backfire. Others have shown that some trainings can be effective. Clearly, not all trainings are equally good — and none are a silver bullet. But three things can help.

Violence against sexual minorities remains a major public health problem in the U.S. and internationally. A recent study concluded that approximately 50 percent of LGBT adults experience bias-motivated aggression at some point. For every highly publicized act of violence toward sexual minorities, such as the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, there are many more physical and verbal assaults, attempted assaults, acts of property damage or intimidations which are never reported to authorities, let alone publicized by the media.

Two experts share examples of common microaggressions, the impact they have, and what we can do to combat them.

When making decisions, we all rely too heavily on intuition and use flawed reasoning sometimes. But it’s possible to fight these pernicious sources of bias by learning to spot them and using the techniques presented in this article, gleaned from the latest research. They’ll open up your thinking about possible outcomes, objectives, and options and lead to better choices.

Unconscious bias is a sneaky thing. We're all guilty of it. If you've ever assumed someone is gay or lesbian, you're guilty of it. Yes, even "gaydar" is unconscious bias.

Over the past few years a number of organizations have implemented “unconscious bias” training. But being aware that we all have biases does not let us off the hook. Given that we are living in a more global, diverse, multigenerational, and multi-cultural society, we have to practice inclusive leadership.

Heightened global concern about the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people has called attention to the lack of adequate research on their lives and situations. This paper uses the furthering of LGBTI inclusion as the criterion for identifying and recommending key research priorities.

In its advisory opinion, OC-24/17 (Advisory Opinion), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR or Court) addressed globally debated issues concerning gender identity, same-sex relationships, and the rights of LGBTI persons.

The purpose of this study is to compare the probability of unemployment and duration of joblessness between partnered gays, lesbians and their straight peers in the EU.

Organizations are hiring for diversity on surface level characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, etc. and making some functional and structural changes to accommodate diverse personnel. To foster inclusion, or the extent to which individuals feel part of organizational processes systemic barriers need to be eliminated and paths need to be created so that everyone can reach their full potential. In other words, organizational culture needs to undergo a fundamental change.

La discrimination à l'encontre des personnes LGBTI reste omniprésente, et représente un coût colossal. Ce rapport dresse un panorama complet des législations visant à assurer l'égalité de traitement des personnes LGBTI dans les pays de l'OCDE, et des mesures complémentaires propres à favoriser cette évolution.

Este escrito tiene como punto de partida la interpretación y el diagnóstico contenido en el Informe de la Comisión Interamericana denominado “Violencia contra personas LGBTI”. Desde allí se explicitan otras formas de violencia, entre ellas, la violencia institucional que se origina en el incumplimiento de las obligaciones de respeto y garantía sobre los derechos de esas personas. Además, se trabaja el tema de las omisiones legislativas y convencionales e identifica algunas estructuras tradicionales de dominio que impiden el reconocimiento y la protección de los derechos de esa comunidad