For those that are unfamiliar June is Pride month.
The month of June was chosen for LGBT Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall riots, which occurred at the end of June 1969. As a result, many pride events are held during this month to recognize the impact LGBT people have had in the world.
I'm planning on trying to take a couple of days off from work in order to attend a few Pride events. The main one being a parade that a friend will be marching in, in remembrance of the Pulse nightclub shooting where her partner's little sister was killed. I wasn't working where I currently work at the time, so my supervisor isn't aware of this.
Requesting time off where I work is always a little dicey. We run on a skeleton crew, so there usually isn't an extra set of hands to help when someone needs to take time off. To further complicate matters, I work in a county that doesn't offer explicit workplace discrimination protection for LGBT folks, and those protections wouldn't apply even if we had them because I work for a religious non-profit. I can technically be fired for being queer, although I think that's somewhat unlikely.
I'm "out" with a few close friends at work, but unfortunately my immediate supervisor isn't one of them. He's made some unkind/homophobic remarks in the past, so I've been hesitant to talk about my life outside of work with him. (One of those unfortunate things about passing privilege is that you get to hear what people really think.)
I've been considering just flatly coming out at work for months now, just because I'm tired of having to lie and avoid certain conversations. Namely conversations like "what did you do on your day off?" or "what are your plans for the holidays?" or "why haven't you moved closer to work yet?" But I'm also thinking that coming out in the context of asking for time off, probably isn't ideal. There are some differences between this and, say, asking for time off for an interview.
There are rules for extended leave, a week or more, but a single day or two is more discretion based. This would be unpaid leave, but they often try to force the use of paid time off in order to make sure it's all used by the end of the year.
I could of course put in a request for the days off without offering any reason at all, but requests like that tend to be denied. The supervisor always asks why I'm asking for time off in order to gauge how important it is...
I guess I'd like to hear from other folks who've had to walk this line in their workplace. How have you managed to successfully navigate these situations? Is coming out the only way to do this without lying?