Most of Britain isn’t like diverse, mixed-up London. And for LGBT property professionals, coming out at work in the regions can be daunting.
Of course, the big cities are relatively safe places: Manchester is fine, Birmingham too, and LGBT networking groups such as Open Land – the Midlands group now celebrating its first birthday – are transformational for some LGBT property people in the regions.
However, Rob Hudson, co-chair of Open Land and group finance director at St Modwen, says: “It’s definitely harder in the regions. I spent 10 years in Nottingham, then 10 in London, and then returned to Birmingham and it was like moving back in time, and that is in a property sector that is not traditionally very diverse anyway.”
Stories of bullying and fear are still common from LGBT property professions in the regions. There are three main problems.
First, LGBT graduates find themselves forced back into the closet when they take their first job.
Tim Evans, senior associate in the property team at Gowling WLG, explains. “You come home after uni, you’re in a small town and you feel you are being judged again,” he says. “You just don’t feel the place is open and judgement-free.”
It isn’t just small towns in the North and Midlands that have this problem; in southern England, London’s liberal influence is variable.
Chris Camps is senior building surveyor at Cushman & Wakefield. Until recently, he worked in small firms in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire.
“You have people who are out aged 18 but back in the closet with their first job at 22,” he says. “If I’d started my career at a big firm, I think I’d have done the same,” he adds, saying a small firm was a safe place to come out.
“Even people who are out, if you change job, think about when you are going to say where you went last night or who your partner is.”
Some resolve the problem in a brutal and effective way: EG has spoken to LGBT professionals who came out by e-mailing a circular to all staff. Others find a week of silence turns into a month of silence which then turns into years of living painfully in the closet.
Hudson says: “Something like two-thirds of LGBT graduates go back in the closet at work, so there is a real problem.”
The second problem afflicts regional LGBT professionals in mid-career: fear of being blamed.
Paul Barker, property litigator at Higgs & Sons and co-chair of Open Land, says: “Relations with clients are the issue – and this isn’t just a problem for LGBT professionals but for women, too. The fear is that somehow your sexuality will affect relations with the client or screw up a deal. Basically it’s fear for your career.”
Many LGBT professionals who are out with their colleagues prefer to keep their mouth shut with clients.
One told EG: “It is a kind of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. Just a gut feeling that it would be sufficiently risky telling them I was gay for me not to want to do it.
“I don’t want that marked against my card. I don’t want people saying: ‘He lost us work because of his lifestyle.’”
The final problem is a ‘lads-bantz’ culture in some parts of the property business, which plenty of LGBT professionals dislike or are excluded from.
EG was told: “It’s all straight white males, similar people with a pack mentality, and all the lads go out together and that’s very difficult to break into.”
Cushman & Wakefield’s Inspire programme is meant to combat this and promote all kinds of workplace diversity. Other big firms have similar arrangements, among them JLL.
Kelly Canterford, senior surveyor at JLL, is one of the founder members of JLL’s Building Pride network and organised the firm’s first LGBT event in Manchester.
“Perhaps it is harder in the regions because there’s just not enough LGBT people,” she says. “It’s about critical mass, especially for gay women who are a minority inside a minority.”
JLL is working on graduate recruitment schemes designed to avoid default recloseting.
“We want people to feel safe from day one,” says Canterford. “Things have changed a lot in the past five years but we’re not there yet.”
Manchester – neck and neck with Brighton for title of the UK’s gayest city – hasn’t yet got its own Open Land or Freehold but John Doyle, associate director of property and construction at Dooley Associates, organises one of the Manchester get-togethers.
“Bullying banter is being driven down by the big firms and big contractors but, even so, I’ve been exposed to all sort of homophobic abuse,” he says.
“The fear isn’t there any more like it used to be but it is still important to encourage people to be out and proud.”
Paul Baker agrees. “The only way the property industry will change is if LGBT people come out at work,” he says.
Many point to a pervasive lad culture in the regions as the thing that needs to change.
The final word goes to Clarence Dixon, executive sponsor for LGBT at CBRE. “We have a programme called Changing the Face of Property which says we need to be as diverse as our client base. And our client base is not lads. It’s all sorts, black and gay and diverse in lots of ways, and we in the property business need to be diverse as well.
“I’m an African-American. I’m not gay but when you come down to it, what’s the difference? The gay guy and me are both the only ones in the room. We stand out. Anyone from a diverse background will be sensitive to this.”
The UK regions are changing and groups such as Open Land are helping it do so. Diversity is on its way – and in some cases has already arrived. But there’s no disguising that there’s still plenty to do.
