Original article from OhMyNews.

“No girl(boy)friend? Why don’t you get married?” For gays and lesbians, those questions are light jokes. At work or anywhere else, for sexual minorities they are a torment. They may laugh outwardly for their co-workers, but inwardly they are wounded.

At 7 pm on March 5 a “Sexual Minorities and the Workforce” press conference was held at Women’s Plaza, and brought up several types of workplace discrimination that heterosexuals are unaware of. Solidarity for LGBT Human Rights of Korea (동성애자인권연대) and other organizations for sexual minorities publicized the results of interviews conducted last December with five lesbians and five gay men.

All have them worried that if they made their sexual orientations known at work they would be badly disadvantaged. Ms. L, a lesbian in her early 30s, said, “I just don’t whether I would receive threats or be asked to leave the company, so I’ve never even thought about coming out.” Mr. K, a gay man in his mid-30s who came out to two of his co-workers, worries about being harassed while competing economically.

But it is not easy to hide one’s sexual identity. The most upsetting situation is any discussion of marriage and significant others. Sexual minorities receive a lot of stress from co-workers who say thing like, “you should break up with a (boyfriend/girlfriend) who doesn’t talk about marriage” or “why haven’t you ever talked about who you’re in love with?”

Because of this sexual minorities will tell lies such as “I’m not interested in sex” and “I have someone but we’re not thinking about marriage,” and pretend that their partners are heterosexual. When they write on sexual minority internet communities about such situations they write, “I’m like an alien” or “I’m always afraid of being found out by my co-workers.”

The unmarried are discriminated against in promotions. The company may not officially ask about spouses, but without one it isn’t easy to increase one’s paycheck. One gay man said, “I’ve completely given up on being promoted, so until I retire I’ll have to satisfy myself with being a department head.”

There is also discrimination against sexual minorities in finances.

Ms. J, a lesbian in her early 30s who works in a bank, cannot qualify for a W90 million apartment security deposit because she is “single”. She and her same-sex partner live together in a W60 million apartment.

Ms. P, a lesbian in her late 20s, pays W4,00 per month for a mutual aid society membership but receives no benefits. That is because all benefits large and small, from marriage benefits and spousal hospital bills to family death benefits, are for “normal families” only.

One gay man who works for an airline company said, “we can get free or discounted tickets for spouses and their parents, so I want to get the same benefits for the person I live with.”

Ms. S, a lesbian in her early 30s who works in government, said, “I get W300,000 in special benefits, but if I had a spouse I would get another W300,000.”

Lega (a pseudonym), an activist with the Democratic Party’s committee on sexual minorities, said, “at work we have been fired for our sexual identities and always subject to the fear of being outed, but we receive no protection from the law.”

But can a labor union really help sexual minorities much? Mr. K, a gay man involved in labor activism and currently on strike, said, “labor unions take no notice of sexual minorities, so working with them isn’t going to be perfect.” So, he said, “when something really bad does happen the union doesn’t offer any protection, I think.”

Lee Gyeong, the Solidarity activist who publicized the results of the interviews, said, “we are not even approaching a discussion of the rights of sexual minorities, there must be better education at young ages.” Fortunately the Democratic Party is growing more likely to include the labor rights of sexual minorities in its party platform.

The study did not include any transgendered people. But at the press conference there was an activist named Kim Il-ran from the group 성적소수문화환경을 위한 모임 who said, “while looking for a job sex-change patients cannot produce their ID cards, limiting them to small companies where they can have sit-down interviews.”

In the end, most transgendered people wind up as irregular workers at low pay. Naturally it is difficult to pay for the surgeries, and without the surgery they cannot change their legal sex. Because of this their job search is more difficult and they stay poor. Kim Il-ran said, “transgendered people are raising their voices in protest against these continuing problems.”