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Reprinted from Orlando
Weekly, June 4, 1998.
Out at the Mouse
By Jeff Truesdell
For many workers at Disney World, every day is Gay Day
He doesn’t want his name used, but it’s not because he doesn’t
want his co-workers to know he’s gay; they’ve known that since he
started working at Walt Disney World in the mid-1980s.
But he’s risen far enough in management to know that he’s not
supposed to talk to the media, that to breach his company’s confidence
is to risk censure. Indeed, few companies are as skittish about image as
Disney -- even the post-"Ellen," post-Baptist boycott Disney
-- and they zealously guard who in the company speaks and how they say
it. And so he has agreed to speak anonymously, in that tradition that
promises something secretive, something revelatory, something he
doesn’t dare say for attribution because, well, it’s too juicy.
But what he says isn’t juicy at all.
He loves his job.
He loves his employer.
He loves them both, in part, because Disney is a place where he can
work and be himself: a gay man and, in the vernacular, "out"
about it.
Disney should put this guy on a recruiting poster.
Then again, they don’t have to.
"Being gay to me as far as Disney was concerned wasn’t a plus
or a minus; it was a given" says Bill MacKellar-Hertan, Disney
World’s former manager of diversity planning and administration, now
with ABC in New York. "I wasn’t looking for an organization that
specifically was open to gays and lesbians, but certainly had I
experienced Disney as a company that was not accepting, I wouldn’t
have considered the job. My experience with Disney was, just being who I
was, was absolutely acceptable."
Numbers are impossible to come by, whether overall at The Walt Disney
Co. or among any sizeable workforce; although subject to endless and
often contentious debate, matters of sexual orientation still are not
required to be listed on job application forms.
But it’s a locally accepted truism that gays and lesbians
complement Disney World’s 35,000-member workforce in
larger-than-average numbers. Anecdotal evidence backs it up. And as
transient anti-gay protesters storm the city to confront thousands
flocking here to join in the eighth annual staging of grass-roots events
collectively known as Gay Days, it’s notable that for gays and
lesbians who punch the clock, Disney World may indeed be The Happiest
Place on Earth.
"More times than not it’s become a situation where I’ll
consider everybody gay until they come out straight," says Denis
Gawley, an actor in Epcot’s Futureworld who relocated from New York
City in January. "There’s certainly an open environment that is
accepting, which has been very pleasant so far. If anything, Disney
seems to stress diversity, and being gay certainly falls within that
realm."
Confirms Ed Mickens, author of the book "100 Best Companies for
Gay Men and Lesbians": "Disney has turned out to be one of the
absolutely best role models because they’re just concentrating on
their business and not telling their customers or their employees how to
run their lives."
It wasn’t always so.
"It was all happening as I was doing my book," says Mickens,
whose resource guide came out in 1994. "I really think that Disney
was by nature a gay-friendly company. And of course we’re talking
about a huge conglomerate ... there were some sections that were doing
very badly by my scale, and some that were superlative."
That scale had three core criteria: a clear company policy of
nondiscrimination that included sexual orientation (which Disney has);
education efforts within the ranks to address sexual orientation among
both employees and customers (which Disney was then developing); and a
program extending standard company benefits to same-sex partners (which
Disney was starting to explore and has since fully embraced -- although
they were the last major Hollywood studio to do so).
At the time of his research, Mickens says, Disney was
"struggling with the image of themselves as a family entertainment
purveyor, and whether or not acknowledging that the gay and lesbian
component among their employees was consistent with that. For a while
they were actually terrified of that.
"And then they broke though," he says. "Everything
happened very quickly once they got over that fear -- which, in a way,
is the fear of exactly what is happening this week."
ABC, which Disney officially acquired in 1996, did not make Mickens’
cut. "They were being extremely secretive and didn’t want to talk
to me," he says of the broadcast network. "This is a fear that
affects a lot of companies. I had a lot I was talking to who never made
my book because they got too caught up in their fear; they actually were
doing good things [but] didn’t want to talk about it."
Those forward steps at Disney are easily recalled because of the
atmosphere that they replaced.
The anonymous operations manager -- one of several employees at all
levels who spoke on the condition that their names not be used --
remembers that earlier time. For example, it was widely repeated within
the ranks that one former Magic Kingdom administrator refused to assign
men to an administrative desk that took incoming calls because, as the
story went, he had said, "I won’t have any faggots answering my
phones." And for the first years of the unsanctioned Gay Day that
took root at the Magic Kingdom in 1990, it was those same park execs who
erected signs at the entrance alerting guests that homosexuals were
gathering inside.
Says another manager who recalls the early ’80s: "At the time
there was an awareness that gays and lesbians worked there," most
in lower-paid hourly jobs that put them in direct contact with guests.
"There was a tolerance of those cast members as long as the guests
couldn’t perceive that they might be openly gay."
He adds: "The management team at the time wasn’t as
comfortable with it. They were raised on a different set of rules, and
that impacted the way they reacted to the ‘out’ cast members.
"In the years since then, not only has the culture shifted, but
as Michael Eisner came in, he moved some of the upper management around,
and eventually within the past couple of years moved some of them into
retirement. It’s allowed more acceptance because some of the more
liberal-minded folks are moving into the upper ranks."
Two of those now gone are Bill Sullivan and Bob Matheison, whose
retirements were announced together in January 1994. "Sully,"
who was then executive vice president for the Magic Kingdom, started
with Disney as a ticket-taker at Disneyland in 1955; Matheison, then
executive vice president for parks, had been with the company since
1960.
Sullivan was replaced by Greg Emmer, who moved over from Epcot. And
with Gay Day in particular, "the whole cycle started
changing," the manager says. Then, in 1995, the warning signs
disappeared.
"The response [to anti-gay complaints] has always been that
everybody is entitled to enter our theme parks; we do not discriminate
against anyone," says the manager. "Under ‘Sully,’ we were
saying that, but we didn’t mean it. Under Greg Emmer, we mean
it."
Moreover, on Gay Day, Emmer has been seen joining in the cheers that
bounce back and forth between groups as participants congregate in front
of Cinderella’s Castle in the moments before the afternoon parade.
"That takes a whole lot for a company exec to take time and go out
there and be a part of that," the manager says. "Whether or
not he has personal biases toward gay and lesbian people, he doesn’t
show it."
Fredricka Howard, Disney World’s director of diversity, says gays
and lesbians are just part of the fabric in training where "we
really are focused on retaining a culture that respects, cultivates and
values" differences. At the moment, those efforts are focused on
disability issues -- not just guests’ disabilities but also on
disabilities affecting other workers, who are brought in to share their
experiences with their peers, she says. Recently the company also
observed Asian-Pacific-American heritage month, complete with employee
seminars and specialty entrees at employee cafeterias. And there’s
Black History Month, American Indian month, Kwanzaa -- the list goes on,
though not to include Gay Pride.
"There are gays and lesbians in every one of those
cultures," offers Stan Berry, a manager in Magic Kingdom
merchandising who is gay. "By them not singling us out, they’re
not discriminating against us."
He continues: "If I worked for another company, I know [gays and
lesbians] would be out there, but not so open. I would be intimidated,
thinking, ‘I’ve got to act straight.’ Here I can just be myself.
... The homophobes basically stay away from me, because they know who I
am and what I am."
But they’re there?
"Oh yeah. It’s up to me and the other gay and lesbian cast
members to change their mind." And on Gay Day, he says, "if
somebody is not comfortable with it, it’s like, ‘You’re going to
have to put aside your differences for this one day. You’re at work;
you’re representing the Disney company; you’re not representing your
own views right now. You need to relax.’"
But acceptance and empowerment are not the same thing. In the late
’80s and early ’90s, when a gay employees alliance took root, Disney
helped spread the word but remained watchful of its purpose. Members
were conflicted. Some wanted a social club. Some wanted the equivalent
of a grievance committee to filter concerns to management. "We sort
of became at odds with ourselves," says one participant. When the
leadership finally pushed a more active role, they "probably
stepped out in an area that was not appropriate for the company --
either for the company or for the members of the group." The
alliance faded away.
Within the past year a new group has emerged in its place. Called
LEAGUE (Lesbian and Gay United Employees) at Lake Buena Vista -- after
two similarly titled groups at Disneyland and Disney’s California
studios -- it currently is struggling with some similar issues. Most
pressing, though, is its exact relationship to Disney, says Charles
Cantrell, its co-chairman. The Cast Activities office, which oversees
LEAGUE (along with employee clubs for fishing, singing, amateur radio
enthusiasts, the hard-of-hearing and Christian fellowship), has ordered
several revisions in a planned LEAGUE brochure, all of them apparently
designed to put distance between the group and its corporate identity.
"The biggest problem at first was the word ‘Disney,’" says
Cantrell. "We could not mention it anywhere. The biggest one last
time was in a section of LEAGUE history" -- specifically, the
reference to the Anaheim group as a liaison for "labor
relations."
"They won’t give us a reason," he says. "They just
don’t want that there."
It’s easy to see why. Currently 21 unions are represented on Disney
property, with about 20,000 employees -- half of them union members --
covered by bargaining agreements negotiated for one of the six unions
that make up the Services Trades Council. Not until 1994 did Disney and
the council add sexual orientation to its categories of protected
classes. But elsewhere across the country, a constituency group of the
AFL-CIO called Pride at Work seeks to draw workers together on matters
of concern to gays and lesbians. That hasn’t happened here. But
advocacy groups are always in the wings. "There are efforts
currently afoot within the company’s minority communities to start
having affinity groups" that might play such a role, says one gay
manager.
But just as important would seem to be the example that
"out" individuals provide as role models. "In the areas
where I’ve been working there’s an atmosphere not just of tolerance
but of acceptance," he says. "The heterosexuals who work with
us are part of our family, just as we are part of theirs. Being in
middle-management and ‘out’ allows the hourly cast members to feel
more confident that there won’t be discrimination against them in the
company, that you can move up and be ‘out.’ That’s the message I
try to send in a subtle way by being who I am."
Adds Richard Rasi, co-editor of "Out in the Workplace: The
Pleasures and Perils of Coming Out at Work": "Disney’s
effect is multigenerational. They’re involved in the education and
entertainment of people at every single level of growth.
"For them to be inclusive and to be a role model for the rest of
society in this way, it just makes a lot of sense."
The party pays off
Last year, local AIDS service groups were left out of the
fund-raising bonanza created by the crush of parties staged around Gay
Days, leaving the cash raised at benefit events to outside organizations
["Kingdom Come," June 5, 1996]. This year, some of the bounty
finally will stay in Orlando, as Hope & Help of Central Florida and
CENTAUR join in high-profile fund-raisers.
But the Orlando-based AIDS Resource Alliance again has chosen not to
align itself with events tailored to gays and lesbians. "We’re
not fund-raising," says Caroline Gertz, ARA’s executive director,
adding that her agency felt the money should support groups such as Gay
and Lesbian Community Services of Central Florida. "They need the
money. That’s their day."
Last year, CENTAUR declined to loan its name to an outside promoter.
On Sunday, June 7, CENTAUR will benefit from three brunches held at the
House of Blues and promoted by Russ Crumley. "We’ve had a long
relationship with Russ. He’s doing all the work," says Russell
Scott of CENTAUR. Yet he echoed Gertz’s misgivings; after all, he
says, CENTAUR is an AIDS organization, not a gay and lesbian
organization.
"Part of our job is to educate," Scott says, pointing to
the still-popular misconception that AIDS only affects gay men, although
half of CENTAUR clients are heterosexuals. "There’s a sensitivity
to see that not all our events are over-the-top gay events. Our message
is, we serve everyone."
Hope & Help figures to enjoy a windfall from several nightclub
events, as well as the sale of a musical cassette of songs parodying the
Southern Baptist boycott of Disney and the Operation Rescue protests of
this year’s events. "We feel really fortunate that our community
partners took a stand to see that some of the money stays in the
area," says Mary Beth Fleck, Hope & Help’s development
director, noting that the gay community has supported AIDS organizations
for a decade. "It’s not one or the other," she says.
"We’re in this together."
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