Based upon data that is 12 years old, the Harvard University professor of sociology concluded that diversity training does not work, nor do Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). But his sole criterion for making these assertions is whether the company’s goal was to increase the number of women and racial minorities in management.

In response to this study on women and minority affirmative action, the black female Director of HR of a firm with which I am familiar has curtailed all diversity training in favor of mentoring, which Dobbin recommends as a means of getting women and blacks into positions of responsibility. That appears to be the chief objective of the HR Director in question. She may achieve her affirmative action goal, but she is radically and carelessly setting back the advances made in Diversity and Inclusion at her corporation. She has thus doomed the company to failure in its attempt to attract and retain the best and brightest employees, and to effectively market to the entire community.

Dobbin’s report on "Evidence-Based Diversity Management" was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. It provides vindication to people who were infuriated in the past by their mandatory participation in an angry, guilt-driven presentation by an unskilled trainer with an axe to grind. It has also given an arsenal of ammunition to social conservatives who oppose the education of others on the issues facing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees.

Dobbin says mandatory training does not work because people resent being told what to do, and diversity presentations in general fail to change people’s beliefs. I strongly disagree. Mandatory training of senior managers is essential if you expect attendance by busy, distracted, and unenthused people, some of whom are among the few whose behaviors are most disruptive to the corporate culture. Over the years, I have been approached by dozens of people who stay after a training to say "I didn’t want to come to this but I’m really glad I did. I learned a lot. Thank you."

Written evaluations of my training by attendees consistently affirm the value of the presentation in changing attitudes about gay and transgender people, and of raising awareness of how bad behaviors can affect teamwork. But my diversity training is not angry or guilt-driven, I do not have an axe to grind, and my goal is not to see more gay and transgender people in management, nor to see more women or blacks there.

That is how I know that Frank Dobbin never attended one of my corporate diversity trainings. Had he, his report would have been sure to state clearly that his results should not be taken as proof of anything other than that classes on race and gender do not increase the presence of blacks and women in management. If Dobbin cared about the conditions in which gay and transgender people work, he would have made sure corporate HR Directors did not use his work to support their biases about diversity training, or the importance of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

When Dobbin concludes that Employee Resource Groups bring together people on the lowest rungs of the corporate ladder and, as such, can not help women and blacks become senior managers, he again dangerously creates the illusion that money is wasted in the corporate support of ERGs. His study does not show the importance of ERGs in marketing corporate goods and services to their communities, in recruiting and retaining the best employees, in educating management and other employees to the problems faced by minorities in the workplace, and in breaking down stereotypes by putting faces on the issues.

The conclusions of Dobbin’s report that I most affirm are that to be successful in achieving diversity goals, corporations need to create respected Diversity Councils that involve buy-in from people of influence on the business side of the company, and that mentoring enables executives to break down stereotypes by working with people different from themselves.

The enormous negative influence of Dobbin’s report will grow and remain for decades, I fear, outlasting me and the misguided HR Directors who cite his work in support of their bias. It is important that everyone concerned about diversity and inclusion be aware of what he said, and why he said it.

"You should see the elephant’s ear," he said sitting side-saddle, looking down from the front.

"You should see his ass," I replied leaning down off the back.

If I actually did exist in a past life—which is commonly accepted here—one manifestation of "Brian" had to have been an elephant in Jaipur. None of the beautiful 17th Century forts and castles looked familiar to me, but I was very much at home among the cart-pulling camels and horses, and the free-roaming cows, calves, water buffalo, monkeys, wild boars, dogs, goats, roosters, and sheep that mingled freely on the main and back streets among the motorized rickshaws, human-hauled wooden carts, astoundingly beautiful, flowing saris, turbans, burkas, open-air specialty shops, abundantly stocked vegetable stands, honking rusty trucks and old buses, small circles of men playing card and dice games, and beautiful children sprinkled throughout in 110-degree temperatures.

I was quite happy being in what felt like a childhood fantasy of storybook sights. It was as if I had a bit part in the best historic costume drama ever filmed. I flew back to Delhi looking back—as I will to India on our flight to Boston via London on Saturday.

It sadly occurs to me, though, that my romantic experiences in Jaipur are heavily influenced by my secure status as a well-to-do white American male riding in an air-conditioned, new car accompanied by two tour guides, a driver, and my gay spouse of 34 years. What was picture-perfect for me was not so ideal for the characters in my vacation fantasy who struggle with illiteracy, hunger, diseases easily cured elsewhere, acid-induced disfigurement, non-existent dental hygiene, drug abuse, HIV, sexual repression and sexism, religious intolerance, fear of terrorism, inadequate schools and hospitals, poor sanitation, and spotty, bribe-managed municipal services, among other hardships.

I saw, but didn’t photograph, the shiny glass buildings going up a few blocks away. Jaipur’s oil has attracted the hungry interest of multinational petroleum companies. Office spaces are going up quickly to accommodate the foreigners who are landing in large numbers throughout all of Asia to take advantage of its emergence as a source of cheap natural and human resources. The same corporate workers will need nice hotels, homes, restaurants, good schools and health care for their children. They’ll also need updated municipal services, like Internet access, potable water, and frequent clean-up of the camel, cow, and elephant poop. Streets will be widened, police forces will be expanded, and eventually—as has happened throughout the developing world—the animals will be tied up and posed for tourists.

I dread that happening because my really special costume drama will end. But so, too, will the rampant illiteracy and joblessness. In the not-too-distant future, Jaipur won’t look as old-world charming to the well-to-do white American male in the air-conditioned car passing through on his five-star tour. But he will have less reason to worry about the well-being of the children on the street.

As happens at the end of all of our trips away from home, Ray and I are now asking each other, "Are you ready to go home?" I’m not sure I am. These last two weeks have been exceedingly meaningful to me, and I don’t want to end the thrill and satisfaction of feeling that I am making a positive difference in the world for gay people. There is a big part of me that wants to stay in Asia to try to help the wonderful folks at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs transform the culture in their Japanese and Indian offices to be more open and welcoming to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

I feel at home in Asia, particularly in India—though I loved the well-ordered, proudly efficient, exceedingly polite services and people of Japan. India has been the beautifully colored, relaxed, spiritually centered, and exotic amusement ride that is ending with me wanting more.

I will miss not having to make the bed, but mostly the intimate one-on-one time I have had with Ray. We thoroughly enjoy each other’s company, and I marvel with gratitude and delight at the extent to which we try to take care of each other. When you are in a foreign land, exhausted by your desire to be the best emissary possible for gay people, and challenged to keep up with your daily encounter with the unknown, having a deeply caring and completely supportive soul mate at your side is a priceless gift.

A friend e-mailed me a couple of days ago suggesting that our home and life in Provincetown, Massachusetts is going to feel dull by comparison to what we have experienced in Japan and India. Though the friend is right that I will miss the politeness and good order of Tokyo, and the sensuality and easy smiles of the Indian cities we visited, I will be glad to be back in one of the most beautiful places in the world in which I feel completely safe and valued as a gay person, with good friends who love Ray and me, and miss us when we are gone. It will also bring me back to the whales off Cape Cod with which I am certain I swam in another past life.

It is good to be home, isn’t it? No matter where in the world home is.

Tomorrow, Ray and I will rise very early for an extraordinary all-day whirlwind tour of Agra and Jaipur, in which we’ll see the treasured Taj Mahal, several beautiful forts and palaces, and, most exciting for me, ride an elephant. But as I lie here listening to Ray’s gentle nap-time snore, I’m aware of being a little depressed about leaving Mumbai, feeling as if I departed prior to being ready, and before I really understood the meaning of all that I had witnessed.

It’s not that I don’t feel great about the success of my work. I’m thrilled with the session I did with Kevan Watts’ leadership team at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch (BA/ML). I feel very good about the historic opening of doors and minds that took place in our two-hour dialogue about how the firm might be a leader rather than a follower in effectively addressing gay and transgender workplace issues in India. It wasn’t a workshop without major cultural challenges—incredibly strong expectations to marry and have children, aversion to sexual topics, narrow gender role beliefs, confusion between sexual and gender identity, religious intolerance, Victorian influences, lack of personal exposure to any happy, openly gay people, and reluctance to stand out in the crowd, even as a corporation—but the resistance I initially sensed in some people, particularly in a few of the men, dissipated when trust was established, information was provided in a non-threatening way, and I was able to touch their hearts by putting a face on the issue. Many senior leaders came up to me or to Ray afterward and said how much they had learned, and how grateful they were for the honesty and directness of the session. They were coming away, they assured us, with a much better understanding of why sexual orientation and gender identity were business issues that deserved their attention.

At dinner afterward with Anshuman Das (A.D.), the indefatigable 33-year-old Indian head of BA/ML’s Asian gay networking group, Charu Sippy, the beloved and highly respected local head of Diversity and Inclusion for the firm, and Kevan Watts, the very wise and skilled, but regrettably soon-to-be retired head of the region, we each offered reflections on the impact of the session and discussed the next logical steps in addressing the issues. Kevan had announced at the end of the afternoon presentation that he wanted to regroup in two weeks to strategize with his team on where they go from here. A.D. desperately hoped it would include immediately creating an Indian gay networking group but it seemed from the discussion as if that might need to wait until the country’s BA/ML senior leaders were all on board.

Despite my feelings of relief and satisfaction at a job well done, I nevertheless felt enormously frustrated that despite how hard I had worked to become culturally competent prior to and during my stay in Mumbai, I had yet to get my arms around the many facets of India’s soul. I wanted to confidently offer wise insights on how the bank might proceed in transforming the workplace to be more conscious of—and responsive to—its gay and transgender employees, but India defies easy analysis and understanding. Here I was in the nation’s counterpart to the progressive financial centers of New York, London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, and yet those in Mumbai were far more reluctant to address gay issues than in Delhi.

My contribution to the discussion seemed limited to providing an understanding of who gay and transgender people are, what they need, and why it makes good business sense to address their issues. I successfully countered the arguments given on why India was different from the other countries in which I had spoken, and why it was not ready to "accept" homosexuality, but I couldn’t add much to the discussion on how best to proceed, especially when I learned that the firm had already been threatened with violence for its socially progressive positions by a rapidly-growing right-wing nationalist party in Mumbai, described by some as Gestapo-type "goons". Pushing a firm to take steps that might endanger the physical well-being of employees was beyond my expertise and pay grade. But I had done my job.

So, it was not with feelings of professional failure that I left Mumbai, but more that I hadn’t yet figured out the heart and soul of the city. Also, I so loved our experiences there that I didn’t want to end my discovery process.

Mumbai, more commonly referred to as the port city of Bombay in the rest of India, has a population of 20 million people living in a space too small for 10 million. It presents an extraordinary banquet for the senses and the psyche that may well defy description and understanding even by those who have lived there for many years. I can’t imagine a person spending time in the city without being mesmerized, repulsed, delighted, horrified, confused, inspired, energized, and exhausted. It is filled with contradictions and opposites. Its people are physically beautiful, friendly, fun, curious, spiritual, wise, and resilient. If you smile at any one of them, they will smile back gratefully. But they can also be pushy, oblivious of others, and prone to litter.

The Hindu women are dressed in extraordinarily beautiful saris in colorful patterns as exquisite as any fabric I have seen in any design showroom. The joy of that sight is balanced by the presence in each crowded sidewalk of the dour, black burkas of Muslim women. Religious beliefs—as well as caste, skin color, and Indian state of birth—determine where you live, work, and with whom you socialize. Animosity and suspicion between Hindus and Muslims is strong, yet the people speak earnestly of, and are deeply devoted to, their Eastern beliefs in the equality of all living things, including bugs.

Five-star hotels line the Arabian Sea coast in postcard-perfect settings—except for the high gates, metal detectors, machine-gun clad guards patrolling and stationed in bunkers, and the security personnel who prohibit the taking of pictures in the lobby. Multinational corporations are building skyscrapers with abandon in the home of the largest slum in all of Asia.

Women, seemingly revered, can’t be touched unless they initiate a handshake, but they are second-class citizens who receive less affection and deference from their husbands than do his male friends.

The city hosted a large, gay film festival while we were there and is considered by some to be the gay mecca of India, but we didn’t see any openly gay people in our extensive tour of the city and no native with whom we spoke, including our two very savvy tour guides, knew any homosexuals personally.

The World Heritage-designated Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station, stunning in its colonial architectural beauty, is filled daily with hundreds of Indian people who patiently sit on every open inch of inelegant floor space waiting for trains into which they will push and pull to pack themselves into cars where they can barely move for the two-hour standing rides home after work.

A few blocks from the fanciest and most expensive import shops, hungry birds circle over a sacred small forest to devour the waiting remains of Parsi men, women, and children who have been placed on nets by the two priests designated to enter the woods.

A short distance from the most trendy housing area of town, 12 million pieces of laundry a day are boiled in a dingy, open-air labyrinth of washing and rinsing cement tubs where open fires are stoked and clean, wet commercial sheets, towels, aprons and uniforms—as well as personal attire—are hung to dry on miles of lines before they are ironed by hundreds of people and then stacked into large, heavy cloth bundles to be carried for miles on the backs of permanently bent men who, grateful for the work, pay a dollar a month to live in a dirt floor hovel in one of the city’s many slums.

Honking cars ignore all rules of the road including red lights and lanes, pedestrians cross wherever there’s an opening, and illegal tea carts draw large crowds of men to the nation’s favorite drink which is served in quickly washed and reused tin cups. In their midst are late-model town cars operated by staff drivers and bearing corporate executives and wealthy women. They fight for road space with human-drawn, rickety carts, flea-infested dogs, and the occasional wandering cow.

People—especially the uneducated indigent—accept their condition because of their beliefs in karma and reincarnation. They are told, and they accept, that they are poor because of something they did in a past life. Their task is to live joyfully and to learn from their oppression, and if they are successful, they may be rich in their next life.

Amazingly, in the midst of all of this contradiction and inequality, you see smiles and looks of resignation. Despite the huge piles of garbage on the street in front of their tiny, corrugated tin rooms, in which they have no personal space or privacy, you’ll nevertheless see the slum residents fastidiously washing the cabs most of the men drive, sweeping the small area in front of their door, and putting out at their entrance a potted plant that also seems to be struggling for survival.

To begin to understand India—which, given its status in the world, we all would be wise to do—it is important to give it a framework, the most important element being that a baby is born every second and in 40 years the country, one-third the size of the United States, will have the world’s largest population. Over half of the country’s population are illiterate and without sustainable work. One-third of the population is wealthy, and the rest hover above the poverty line. India lives in constant vigilance against terrorism from fundamentalist Pakistanis, who on November 26, 2008 infiltrated the city of Mumbai and with guns, grenades, and fire bombs, killed over 200 foreigners and nationals, including some in our Trident Hotel. India has nuclear weapons but a government known for rampant, systemic graft and political instability. Each of the country’s 27 states are independent and autonomous. Though it is considered the oldest populated land in the world, it didn’t achieve independence as a nation until 1947 through the non-violent political resistance of Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. Some people wish the British—who once considered India the jewel of their crown—would return to restore order and services.

Ray and I will eagerly return for the season to our Provincetown home on Saturday, where my boat and garden await me. But we will arrive there forever changed by our trip to Japan and India, most deeply impacted by what we experienced in Mumbai. We won’t ever be able to adequately describe to ourselves or to others what we saw there. The experiences are all unconnected but cherished dots.

We hoped to have left some positive impressions and questions in the hearts and minds of those we encountered in India—not just the BA/ML executives, but also everyone else with whom we made personal contact, from our tour guides to the hotel staff, all of whom we engaged in discussions on gay life.

It is always my goal to start a ripple of awareness that will create waves in the cultural consciousness of each place we visit. I believe we did so this trip with Amish, our 29-year-old tour guide who holds two Masters degrees and is an expert speaker on his faith of Jainism. The son of a wealthy family—and considered the top guide in Mumbai—the ever-pleasant Amish told us at the beginning of our extensive day-long tour of the city that we were the first gay couple he had ever met. Throughout our time together, I repeatedly brought gay issues into the conversation. We talked about marriage, stereotypes, bisexuality, transgender people, homosexuality in Indian history and religious lore, and how he might be treated if he was gay. When Amish proudly brought us to his beautiful Jain shrine, I suggested to him that a gay person couldn’t achieve spiritual self-realization without coming out.

By the time he dropped us off at the hotel, Amish was freely using the word "gay" and he left us with the statement, "You are absolutely the two nicest people I have ever met, and I want you to come to my marriage whenever it might be arranged." He repeated his affirmation of affection in an e-mail two days later.

Though Indians are well-known to exaggerate their feelings to make others feel good, I trusted the sincerity of the young man’s statement and I believe that just as India is forever in our heart, so too are we a part of its heart.

Keeping up to date has been a challenge on this trip because my T-Mobile Blackberry didn’t have service in Japan, Ray’s modern touch-pad Verizon Blackberry had service but its super-sensitive system confounded me, and the Hyatt’s computer wouldn’t allow me to send messages. I was forced to await our arrival in India to offer these impressions of Japan.

With the exception of the shared religious influence of Buddhism, the heavy emphasis placed on familial responsibility, narrow gender role expectations, the steering wheel being on the right, and the lack of comfort in discussions of sexuality, Japan and Indian culture seem to have little in common.

Japan is an exceedingly clean, reserved, and well-ordered country where black is the most common color of clothing, people wait for others to depart subway cars, there is no loud music, there is no litter or graffiti, vendors do not hawk their goods, the homeless do not beg, crime is negligent, terrorism is foreign, no one crosses against the light, people sit erect with both feet on the floor, smokers are generally invisible, shrines are bountiful, statues and fountains are rare, technology is cutting edge, ground transportation is excellent, people who vacuum subway stairs and wash the glass panels on escalators take great pride in their work, English is not commonly spoken, water is potable, everyone minds his or her own business and never makes eye contact unless engaged in conversation, and homogeneity is greatly valued. In Japan it is said that the protruding nail gets hammered. This seemed very true to us. There is very little deviation in dress or manner.

After New York and London, Tokyo is the largest financial center in the world. The population is 12 million. It prides itself in adaptability and ingenuity, having rebuilt itself from scratch after the devastating earthquake of 1923 and the Allied bombing at the end of World War II. Until recently, Japan was the leading exporter in the world. Its people are hard working, with the caricature of the Japanese manager being a man who wears black suits, arrives at work early, stays late, socializes with other businessmen until after his children are asleep, and sees his respectful wife and well-behaved offspring only on weekends.

The birthrate in Japan has dropped for the third consecutive year, as has tourism. Though the country has traditionally looked with aghast at the economic disparity of the American people, Japan now recognizes its own significant percentage of people living below the poverty line. The younger generation of Japanese have different attitudes toward sexuality and family than their parents, influenced heavily by the Internet, time abroad, Western films and television, and exposure to Western tourists.

I was brought to Tokyo by Bank of America/Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs to help educate their senior executives on gay and transgender issues. This education is part of their war for talent. In order to attract and retain the best and brightest people, it is commonly accepted in the business world that you have to create an environment in which people feel safe and valued. There are few openly gay Japanese nationals in the workplace. Those who are out at work tend to be Western. Both gay Japanese and Western workers at Merrill and Goldman predicted that the Japanese executives in my audiences would be keenly interested in knowing how better to relate to gay Westerners but they would not see the information as applicable to the Japanese, where homosexuality is tolerated as an oddity. It was my challenge to make the case that the protruding nail actually gets promoted in corporations in Japan as elsewhere.

Another goal of the presentations was to help the banks more effectively market to the gay community locally. In every country in the world there are wealthy gay people who want to be treated with respect and who will loyally support companies that make a good effort to address their unique needs.

To fully prepare myself to understand the unique cultural challenges I faced in addressing these issues in Japan, I did homework in advance by reading extensively on Japanese culture and what influences attitudes there, and by speaking at length with Japanese gay men in the United States and with gay Western men in Japan. (Japanese lesbians are less visible and accessible.) To that end Kenji Yoshino, the esteemed professor of law and celebrated author at New York University’s School of Law, Steven Golden at Goldman Sachs, and Jason Kendy at Merrill Lynch were extraordinarily helpful. From them I learned, among other things, that the lack of fundamentalist religious influence in Japan and the absence of the often polarizing Gay Rights Movement allowed gay people in Japan to live safe if not celebrated lives.

Once we arrived in Japan, Ray expertly navigated the subways to help me get a flavor for the culture by visiting several historic museums, parks, cemeteries, and shrines. We also took the high-speed train to Kyoto to get a better sense of the Japanese countryside and to view the uniquely beautiful Shogun castle and temples there.

Pagoda-style shrines dotted the mountainous countryside and small rivers snaked their way through villages but there was little charm to be found among the electrical and telephone wires and concrete buildings that could have been outside a train traveling through almost anywhere in the world. Baseball teams practiced in open fields surrounded by houses with ceramic tiled roofs, but there was little that felt exotic beyond the respectful bow that the train attendant gave the car’s passengers each time she moved from our car to the next. (I tried in vain to imagine a conductor on a train in New York or Boston doing the same.)

Ray and I left our home in Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday, April 15 at 6:00am and arrived in our room at the Grand Hyatt at 6:00pm on Friday. American Airlines took us from Miami to Tokyo via Dallas. The flight attendant on the leg from Dallas ended up being a friend of Ray’s cousin, Jim Struble, so we got extra ice cream. Ray watched four movies, including the horrible "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" I spent much of my time trying to figure out if the cute guy sitting across the aisle who made extended eye contact was gay. After noting that all he watched were re-runs of "The Office" I decided that he was straight or bi-curious.

My sister Kathy sent Ray and me inflatable seat cushions that made a big difference in our comfort on the long flights and on the two-and-a-half hour train ride to Kyoto. Ray’s back pain and my chronic sciatica were regrettable challenges to our full enjoyment of the trip.

At the Grand Hyatt in Tokyo, we upgraded to have access to the lounge where we saved money morning and night by eating our breakfast and making the appetizers our dinner each day. Tokyo is a very expensive city. We also saved money, and experienced the city like the locals, by riding the extensive subway system. Ray loved the challenge of figuring it out for each outing.

Though the cherry blossoms bloomed in abundance—along with azaleas, dogwoods, and camellias—during the week we were there, it also snowed on the first morning, the latest such occurrence for Tokyo in decades.

My actual workday began on Tuesday when I spoke at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch from 5:00 to 7:00, followed by reception and dinner with the Global Diversity team, including the Executive Director Geri Thomas from Atlanta.

Half of my audience at the BA/ML talk were from other firms, banking and otherwise. I felt very good about my time with the group and received a wonderful response. Kenji Kawashima, the Deputy President and Representative Director of the firm told me and others he thought it was the best presentation he had heard on any subject. That was nice to hear.

During the talk and in the reception afterward, we had a terrific discussion about cultural differences between the West and the East and whether it was not patronizing for any Westerner to assume that Japan was incapable of shifting attitudes on homogeneity and the value of the protruding nail. One Englishman had challenged my belief that every person wants to die knowing he or she had been true to themselves and had experienced their uniqueness. He said that people in Japan and elsewhere might well die content that their lives had served the greater good. I acknowledged my Western bias but was then supported in small group discussion by Japanese women and men who said that in their hearts they seek individual affirmation too. The significance of this discussion is of course whether it’s possible for a corporate ideal of valuing individual differences to effectively transcend cultural norms. Several of the Japanese audience members privately speculated that the homogeneity that is commonly associated with Japan is more a unique characteristic of Tokyo and is necessitated by the good order required for the smooth running of such a large city. People in more rural areas were considered to be far less alike.

After the reception that followed my presentation, Jason Kendy, the firm’s openly gay and exceedingly charming and entertaining head of public relations and marketing in Japan hosted Ray and me and a small group of diversity professionals for a wonderfully unique and authentic Japanese dining experience around a fire pit on the second floor of a very old building in which we shared everything from sushimi and miso soup to fish grilled on sticks in the fire between us and chicken, pork, and beef that we grilled ourselves. It was a really fun evening.

One of the things that most impressed Ray and me about the gay bankers in Tokyo was the network of friendship and cooperation they have established among themselves. An inter-bank group meets regularly both socially and professionally. It is a multicultural cadre of wonderful young men, including several American nationals who are extraordinarily proficient in Japanese. At both of my presentations and at all related social gatherings there were representatives of other investment banks, including Nomura, Citi, Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Barclays. They are all pioneers in this important work, feeling frustrated at times by the seeming lack of significant progress. I assured them all of their extraordinary significance as role modeling messengers.

The gay men from the inter-bank group—many of whom were Asian but none Japanese—told me that the arguments they frequently get in opposition to gay diversity initiatives are that Japan is unique and will not change. It is an isolated island nation and very unlike the West in attitudes. I told them that I had heard it all before: "We don’t have any gay people in Maine. They all live in San Francisco", "Black people aren’t gay. It’s a white problem", "We’re not like New York. This is the South and the Bible Belt", "This is not the U.S. This is the U.K. We’re very different", "Spain is very Catholic and conservative", "It’s illegal here in Singapore", "We don’t have any gay people in Cambodia. They all live in Thailand".

Each excuse is an attempt to stop things from changing. Gay people themselves can be the obstructionists: "Leave well enough alone. People ignore us".

I remind my Japanese audience members of their historic record of adaptability and the reverence they have for Emperor Meiji (1852–1912) who ended Japanese isolation, reached out to the West, and introduced new technology to the country. Additionally, though they may not feel comfortable acknowledging it, the experiences of Japanese gay youth are no different than that of gay youth globally—isolation, fear, and loneliness. Those gay youths each have parents who regardless of the culture have an innate instinct to protect their offspring from rejection.

On our final day in Tokyo, I met for lunch with members of the gay employee group at Goldman Sachs during which we strategized on meeting their organizational goals. That evening I spoke to over 300 Goldman Sachs employees, many of whom were listening in from offices in other parts of Asia.

Merrill is Merrill Lynch, the investment banking firm, more accurately known today as Bank of America/Merrill Lynch. My sisters’ names, for the record, are Kathy and Maureen. They are not coming with me to Asia. Ray is.

The script for this trip is well worth seeing. The synopsis is that Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs are bringing me to Japan to work with their senior executives on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues. After two presentations in Tokyo, I am going with Merrill to Mumbai for another groundbreaking talk with their senior executives in India.

For me and others working on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues, the invitation by Merrill and Goldman is enormously significant. These historic talks are the first efforts being made by corporations to ensure that their workplaces in those cultures are as welcoming for gay and transgender people as they are in New York, Toronto, or London. Besides the immediate effect of building the confidence and competence of the senior managers in my trainings, there is great potential for rippling effects upon diversity efforts in other local companies, as well as on attitudes in the culture. A person educated about gay and transgender people is more likely to be an ally when someone comes out in the family or the neighborhood.

As I have prepared for this maiden voyage, I have thought less about tailoring my message than I have of the social customs of my hosts. I suspect that the script of my talk is known to the members of my audiences, even if it has never been given voice in their workplaces. What most people lack is permission to discuss the topics, an understanding of how they are workplace issues, and the confidence to engage in conversations because they are unfamiliar with the proper terminology. I am skilled at providing them guidance in these areas. Where I have needed help is in not unintentionally offending the members of my audiences before I open my mouth.

One of the ways that I have increased my cultural competence before boarding my upcoming flight to Tokyo is to speak at length with Kenji Yoshino, author of Covering – The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, who is also the esteemed Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. After hearing Kenji’s keynote address at last year’s Out and Equal conference, I asked for his mentoring. We exchanged business cards, and I later took him up on his offer to help.

My questions for Kenji were basic—and perhaps painfully predictable:

• Do I respectfully bow or shake hands? (Follow the lead of the person with whom you are talking.)
• How do I give and receive business cards? (Hold your card with two hands and give it to the other person with your name facing him or her. Receive the other person’s card with two hands. Look at it, and do not stick it into your pocket.)
• Will Japanese members of my audience give me non-verbal feedback?
• Will they participate in discussions?
• What is the influence of religion in Japan?
• Are there generational differences in attitudes?
• What impact does religion have on attitudes?
• Do Japanese workers talk at work about their private lives?

In addition to speaking to Kenji, I also talked at length with gay people at Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs about their experiences as Westerners in Japan. My file folder is filled with notes from those conversations, as well as material from the Internet.

I have more work to do in researching attitudes and customs in India, though I have a good story from my own experience that will be instructive to the audience there.

Many years ago, when I was speaking predominantly on college campuses, my friend Toby Simon invited me to speak to her class in human sexuality at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. A young Indian man seated in the front row smiled as he tape-recorded my presentation. When I finished speaking, he raised his hand and excitedly told me that he was gay and his sister was lesbian. "My parents in India don’t know we’re gay, and they don’t know anything about homosexuality. I’m going to take this home and play it for them."

There will be men and women in my audiences in Tokyo and in Mumbai who have gay and transgender children—whether or not they are aware of them—or know anything about homosexuality. The wonderful happy ending of the dramatic script of my work is that regardless of the country or the culture in which I am engaged, knowledge enables people to respond to their children and to their workplace colleagues with wisdom and understanding. This has certainly been true with my sisters Kathy and Maureen, as well as with Merrill.

In a few weeks, I will report on what Ray and I experienced on our trip to Japan and India. Until the first of May then, I respectfully bow out.

Suggesting that most people have the capacity to be physically attracted to both sexes is not new and revolutionary. The renowned Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung asserted as much. If there were no cultural taboos, nor fears of ramifications on a relationship, the majority of men—and certainly of women—would acknowledge their "bi-curious" nature. Very few people are completely same-sex oriented and very few people are exclusively other-sex attracted.

In saying that the majority of people are transgender, I am positing that most men and women have in their nature the capacity to express both their masculinity and their femininity. Without social taboos, women and men would regularly express all aspects of their gender make-up. Very few people are truly completely incongruent with the sex of their birth. If everyone were allowed to express him or herself as they feel called, there would be far less need for sex reassignment surgery.

In response to a recent piece I wrote on the contributions of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to industry, my good friend and colleague, Susan Gore, reminded me that many of the names I listed as gay, such as Malcolm Forbes and Leonard Bernstein, were actually bisexual. Susan got me thinking about the many people I know who say they are gay or lesbian but who are actually bisexual, and the many people I know who label themselves as straight but are in fact bisexual. That got me wondering what our world might look like if everyone who is bisexual could say so without worry of negative ramifications.

Most people in heterosexual marriages are bisexual but can’t say so. When I say that they are bisexual, I don’t mean that if given the chance they would enjoy homosexual sex as much as they do heterosexual sex—although that would be true for some. I am simply saying that if given the chance—in a world without social taboos—the majority of the women and men would like the opportunity to explore their curiosity. That’s bisexuality.

Think of all of the famous people we know who identify as gay or lesbian. Now let’s make a list of all of the famous people we know who identify themselves as bisexual. Though every study of human sexual behavior has shown that more people report having had sex with both sexes than sex with people of the same sex, there are very few people who publicly say so. Why? Because they fear that if they say they are bisexual, they will lose their community of support, be it gay or straight. But what if the culture embraced the reality that most people are bisexual, and valued it as the norm? Would supermarket tabloids need to speculate anymore as to whether Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Oprah Winfrey are gay? Would we be spending millions of dollars every year battling over same-sex marriage? Would having gay people serving openly in the military be an issue? And would corporations need to spend so much time and energy educating their employees about the issues facing gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues?

In the often (but irresponsibly) used acronym GLBT, the B represents the biggest group of employees, but it gets the least attention. Today that makes little sense. Remember, this is coming from a man who identifies as gay and who has made his living speaking and writing mostly about what it is like to be gay. There now needs to be a shift in focus.

The same holds true for the T in GLBT. To begin with, it seems silly to add the T to the acronym if a company isn’t going to give the issue the attention it deserves, but when the subject is discussed it should focus on the common experience of diverse gender expression and not just on the transitioning of one person from male to female, or vice versa. Transsexuals would welcome a broader discussion of the transgender nature of the majority of the population. They know that if their colleagues are able to acknowledge and embrace their own place on the gender continuum, fewer eyebrows will be raised when someone behaves in non-traditional ways, or enters a restroom that feels appropriate to their gender expression.

Corporations have for many years been in the forefront of education on these issues. Companies understand that a workplace in which every person feels safe and valued is more likely to attract and retain the best talent, maintain the highest levels of productivity, and effectively market to the widest possible audience. Future educational efforts should include increased emphasis on bisexuality and gender expression to achieve these goals. Doing so will certainly guarantee more buy-in by the largest number of employees.

The Internet site MySpace asks its member to say who are the people they would most like to meet. My list of those with whom I would like to spend time and ask questions include Desmond Tutu, Pema Chödrön, Jimmy Carter, Ellen DeGeneres, and George Clooney. (I have Jake Gyllenhaal down too, but we wouldn’t need to talk.) These well-known names are the celebrities of my mind, the people who in my eyes have become bigger than life because of their beliefs and behaviors.

Recently, I’ve come up with a list of lesser-known people with whom I would also very much like to have a meal and a conversation. They are gay men, lesbians, or transgender people who have distinguished themselves in the workplace. My table place cards include:

• George Kalogridis, the president at Disneyland
• Laura Liswood, a managing director at Goldman Sachs
• Margaret Stumpp, a senior vice president at Prudential Financial
• Ken McNeely, the president of AT&T California
• Marcelo Roman, the director of Global Learning at IBM
• Virasb Vahidi, director and CEO of Phorm

George and Laura are white; Margaret is a white transgender woman; Ken is black; Marcelo is Latino, and Virasb is Middle Eastern.

Before the end of the year, it is my plan to meet each of these individuals and to ask them questions about being gay, lesbian, or transgender in the workplace. Their answers will be incorporated into a DVD that I am working on with the Stonewall Museum for use by corporations during Gay Awareness Month in 2011.

What would you ask if you had the chance to talk with these corporate leaders? What would you want them to tell you about the experiences and contributions of openly gay and transgender people in the workplace—particularly if you knew that their responses would be heard by hundreds of thousands of managers and colleagues throughout the world?

Personally, I am interested in their individual stories of triumph.

• What prompted you to come out of the closet?
• Did your race, sex, or religious beliefs make coming out more or less difficult?
• What reaction did you get from your manager and coworkers?
• Do you feel you would be in your current position of leadership if you had stayed in the closet?
• How does being out impact your working relationships with others inside and outside of the company?
• Do you have any regrets about coming out or about not coming out sooner?
• What advice would you offer to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees who are considering coming out?
• Do you have any good stories about people coming out to you as a result of your being out to them?

Professionally, I would like to have these leaders in commerce talk about how their coming out has helped or hurt their employers.

• What gifts do you bring to the table because of your sexual orientation or gender identity?
• What positive or negative effects has your being out had upon attracting or losing talent?
• Has your public posture attracted or lost business for the company?
• What advice would you give to corporations on how to make it easier for gay and transgender people to come out of the closet?

I suspect that the conversations I will have with these bright shining stars of the corporate world will provide all of us with great insights into being out at work. My conversations with any of them will be at least as personally and professionally rewarding as any I might have with Desmond Tutu, Pema Chödrön, Jimmy Carter, Ellen DeGeneres, and George Clooney; it may not be as much fun for me as sitting at a table and looking at Jake Gyllenhaal, but I suspect that George, Ken, Marcelo, and Virasb would agree.

That’s not so hard to do today, especially in the arts. Think of Lily Tomlin, Ellen DeGeneres, Merv Griffin, Paul Lynd, Tennessee Williams, Cole Porter, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Rosie O’Donnell, and Stephen Sondheim, to name just a few. Fran Leibovitz once wrote that "…if you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would be pretty much left with Let’s Make a Deal." (For those who might not remember, that’s the television game show in which audience members dressed in outlandish costumes hoping to be picked to compete for cash and prizes.)

But what about industry? Who are the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people in the corporate world in whom other gay and transgender people can take special pleasure and pride? And, if you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence, and all of the transgender people and their influence, from American industry, what would you be left with? Those are the questions being addressed in an upcoming DVD presentation created for corporate use by the Stonewall Museum (www.stonewall-library.org.)

Many straight and gay business people may be familiar with the names of David Geffen, Malcolm Forbes, Anderson Cooper, Suze Orman, Rachel Maddow, Jim Hormel, Tim Gill, and Allan Gilmour. These well-known and highly respected gay men and lesbian women have left indelible marks on their respective industries. But who else — who besides all of the incredible, inexhaustible worker bees who guide and assist corporations through the company’s Employee Resource Group (ERG), who are the gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender people whose names we should know for making significant contributions to the vitality and success of their corporations, as well as to the wellbeing of most Americans?

Please consider the following, among others:

• Bruce Wayne Bastian, the American computer programmer, businessman, philanthropist and social activist who co-founded the WordPerfect Software Company in 1978
• David C. Bohnett, the American philanthropist and technology entrepreneur
• Andy Cohen, the television executive and host, who is currently senior vice president of Production and Programming at the Bravo cable television network
• Alphonse "Buddy" Fletcher, Jr., the African-American philanthropist who had previously been a successful money manager at Kidder, Peabody & Co. and at Bear Sterns, and who later founded his own firm, Fletcher Asset Management
• Brian Graden, the television executive at Fox who commissioned Parker and Stone to develop the series South Park
• Chris R. Hughes, who co-founded and served as spokesman for the online social directory Facebook
• Nina Jacobson, a film executive who was president of the Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group for Disney
• Cristina E. Martinez, the CEO of Mad Clik, Inc., a commercial printing company in Texas
• Martine Aliana Rothblatt, the founder and CEO of United Therapeutics
• Margaret Stumpp, the senior vice president at Prudential Financial, and the first openly transsexual person out of over 60,000 employees in the firm. In February 2002, Stumpp transitioned at age 49 from male to female while simultaneously maintaining her position at Prudential Financial, where she functioned as chief investment officer for Quantitative Management Associates, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary of Prudential.
• Kathleen Marie Sullivan, the revered professor at the Stanford Law School and potential U.S. Supreme Court nominee
• Megan Wallent (born Michael Wallent), the executive at Microsoft who worked on Internet Explorer versions 4 through 6, and served as general manager for versions 5.5 and 6
• Robin René Roberts, the co-anchor of ABC’s morning show Good Morning America
• Richard Hampton Jenrette, one of the founders of the Wall Street firm, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ) in 1959
• Lori Fox, who served as a director of Human Resources and business partner for the McDonald’s Corporation
• Stephanie Battaglino, the assistant vice president and communications director at New York Life Insurance Company, who successfully transitioned on the job in October of 2005, and is the first transgender person to do so in the 165 year history of the company
• James Scott P. Pignatella, the senior systems engineer at Raytheon. He started his engineering career with Hughes Aircraft Company in 1994 as a new college hire, and completed transition on the job shortly thereafter.
• Michelle Smith, in engineering in Boeing’s Advanced Military Aircraft Division of Integrated Defense Systems. She was vice president and outreach director for the St. Louis Gender Foundation, a transgender support organization.
• Jon Stryker, one of the leading global funders of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. In 2000, Stryker founded the Arcus Foundation whose mission is to achieve social justice that is inclusive of sexual orientation, gender identity, and race, and to ensure conservation and respect of the great apes.
• Judy Dlugacz, who co-founded Olivia.
• Tina Podlodowski, an executive with Microsoft until 1991. She was later executive director for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Puget Sound, Washington.
• Robert Hanson, the president of Levi Strauss Americas, responsible for leading the company’s businesses in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Latin America
• Kenneth McNeely, the president of AT&T California, responsible for all legislative, regulatory, governmental, and external affairs activities in California
• George Kalogridis, the president of the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California who most recently served as chief operating officer for Disneyland Resort Paris
• Susan Arnold, a member of the Board of Directors of the Walt Disney Company who in 2004 became Vice Chairman of Procter & Gamble
• Laura Liswood, managing director, Global Leadership and Diversity for Goldman Sachs
• Virasb Vahidi, the senior vice president for Planning at American Airlines, Fort Worth, Texas
• Sally Susman, the senior vice president of External Affairs and Worldwide Communications for Pfizer Inc., and a member of the company’s executive leadership team
• Kevin Brockman, the executive vice president, Global Communications, Disney/ABC Television Group
• Kyle Spainhour, the vice president of Corporate Finance at Motorola Inc.
• Tom Johnson, the vice president and Corporate Controller at the Clorox Company
• Tara Bunch, the vice president of Global Customer Support Operations of Hewlett-Packard
• Marcelo H. Roman, who leads IBM’s global learning delivery outsourcing services
• Julie A. Hogan, the vice president for Xerox Sales, Technical Services Delivery, and Professional Services
• Rita Lane, the vice president of Mac Desktop Operations at Apple Inc. Prior to joining Apple, Rita was at Motorola where she served as senior vice president, Supply Chain and CPO.
• Keith Powell, the COO/CFO, of Kodak Gallery in the San Francisco Bay area
• Todd Sears, the director of Diversity and Inclusion at Credit Suisse
• Lynn Conway, the famed transsexual pioneer of microelectronics chip design whose innovations during the 1970s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) have impacted chip design worldwide. Many high-tech companies and computing methods have foundations in her work.

If we personally question the contributions these openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender business people have made to their respective corporations, we can always ask WordPerfect, NBC Universal, Kidder Peabody, Bear Sterns, Quark, Fox, Facebook, Disney, United Therapeutics, Prudential, Stanford, Microsoft, ABC, CNBC, CNN, Hormel, Ford, Forbes, DLJ, McDonald’s, New York Life, Raytheon, Boeing, Oracle, Olivia, BP, Levi Strauss, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, American Airlines, Pfizer, Motorola, IBM, Xerox, Clorox, Apple, and Kodak who they take special pleasure and pride in.

Jack and Jill came out in school,
but went back in the closet.
Jack was sad, and Jill was mad,
and their employer lost ’cause of it.

A writer for Jungle Campus, an employment magazine aimed at college students, asked me:

Should gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender graduates come out at work?

A better question, I suggested, is how and when—not if—they should come out on the job.

In today’s work world, there is no good reason for a qualified gay or transgender person to seek employment in anything other than a company that wants them to be out of the closet. The majority of companies, at least in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, understand the value of diversity, and how the corporation’s ability to compete in the marketplace depends upon their willingness to be proactively inclusive.

Prior to applying for a job at—or accepting an invitation from—a company, a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender person ought to first do a little research on the Web. By entering in their search engine "Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index" (or in the U.K., "Stonewall"), he or she can quickly find out how the company has been rated in its efforts to create a safe and productive work environment for gay and transgender people.

The reporter also asked:

Should gay and transgender graduates include involvement in gay-related organizations in their resumes?

Yes. In applying for a job, I would be sure to include information on involvement in gay and transgender organizations. If you omit the truth here, you’re starting a pattern of deception that will be hard to stop. On the other hand, I would balance the gay and transgender entries with other activities so that the potential employer doesn’t fear they would be hiring an activist whose sole interest is gay or transgender equal rights. Most major companies would be glad to have a gay or transgender person out of the closet because they know that such personal secrets negatively impact individual and team productivity. But they also want the out employee to be really good at the work he or she is hired to do. Being highly qualified is what needs to come through loud and clear on a resume or in an interview.

How should a gay or transgender college graduate come out at work?

Once someone starts work, it’s best not to walk in with a bullhorn and announce, "Hi, I’m Brian, and I’m gay." What works best in coming out at work is if this information is shared casually, such as by using the proper pronouns when reporting on your dates or your partners, displaying pictures of your beloved in your work area, joining the company’s gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Employee Resource Group (ERG), and by speaking up at a meeting—when relevant—that, "From my experience, that won’t sell well in the gay community", or "Other gay people might find that offensive."

How do you come out to your manager?

It’s great if our manager is aware of our sexual orientation so that when we need a day off because our partner’s parent has died (or some other personal issue arises) we don’t have to fumble through an excuse for our needs. Some managers may not feel they need to know if an employee is gay, but it is generally helpful if they do. To come out to your manager, ask if you can meet with him or her privately. When you meet, say simply, "As a gay person, I’d like to be a resource for you on anything related to gay and transgender issues, if they come up." If he or she asks you how you are feeling so far with the group, be honest. If the group needs diversity training on the issues, ask your manager if it’s possible to have it provided.

What can a gay or transgender person do at work to make it easier to be out?

• Getting a mentor at work would be a great way to navigate through some of the issues that might arise. A gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender employee—or a heterosexual ally—who has some seniority can be found through the company’s gay ERG, or through the Offices of Human Resources or of Diversity and Inclusion. Introducing yourself to the people working in those offices is always a good idea, especially if you’re not sure who in the office you can safely talk to.
• Be aware that for the first time in your life you’re entering a world that is multi-generational. People considerably older than you grew up with different attitudes toward gay and transgender people, and have been less exposed to the openness of younger generations. That doesn’t mean that they’re hostile—some of them may have gay children—it just means that you should be aware that they may not be as openly affirming as your friends at school.
• Don’t use the word "queer" at work—or any other gay or transgender words that might not be understood by others, or worse yet, be offensive. Understand that many older gay people hate the word "queer" because it was used so viciously against them when they were young. Consider the fact that a gay employee can be charged by another gay person with creating a hostile work environment, so be sensitive and respectful.

As is true with all of life, coming out at work as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, and fitting comfortably into a new job in a company requires patience, open and honest communication, and a good sense of humor.

Jack and Jill came out at work,
and the profit share grew fast.
Jack had glee, and Jill was free,
and the company said "At last!"

As a certified sexuality educator, I know that the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT), as well as the American Psychological Association (APA), and the American Psychiatric Association, strongly call into question the possibility of a person being "ex-gay". So, to begin with, I don’t believe such a creature exists. Were a corporation to actually name them, it would be like them adding "fairies" to their non-discrimination policy. But even if a gay or lesbian person could actually successfully choose to no longer be attracted to people of the same sex, and could really create strong feelings of attraction for people of the other sex; they wouldn’t be called "ex-gay" any more than I would be referred to as a person who was formerly straight. A person who is suddenly attracted to people of the other sex would be called "heterosexual", and heterosexuals are covered in corporate non-discrimination policies. Non-discrimination policies that prohibit intolerance against employees because of their feelings of erotic or romantic attraction use the words "sexual orientation". That covers everyone, even the make-believe "ex-gays".

There are only three recognized sexual orientations in the science of human sexuality: heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual (although some people argue that asexual is also an orientation.) You have to fall in one of these categories. There are literally millions of people in the world who once called themselves "heterosexual". Many of them were married—or are still married—to a spouse of the other sex. When these individuals acknowledge their homosexual feelings, they are not referred to as "ex-straights". They are called homosexuals or gay.

If people who claim to have changed orientations from homosexual to heterosexual feel that they should have their own category in the lexicon of sexual orientation, and that this new name should be used in corporate non-discrimination policies, in fairness, the policies would logically also say that the companies do not discriminate "on the basis of sexual orientation, be it heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, ex-gay, ex-straight, and ex-bisexual". When it mentions "marital status" it should include "ex-married". And when it speaks of gender identity, it could include "ex-women" and "ex-men", but then again, people might think it’s a reference to Wolverine, Storm, and Cyclops.

This effort to have the existence of so-called "ex-gay" people recognized by corporations is, in reality, an attempt to stop corporations from affirming the dignity and value of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people by eliminating or amending diversity training on sexual orientation, and by helping the Religious Right bring light to their efforts at reparative therapy and 12-step programs for homosexuals. Ex-gays are described in the Disney proposal as "men and women with unwanted same-sex attractions who leave homosexuality by gender affirming therapy, faith based ministries, Homosexuals Anonymous support groups, or other non-judgmental environments". The sponsor of this Trojan Horse proposal would likely next seek to have every corporate diversity training on gay issues balanced with a presentation on how gay people can learn to control their desires. Companies would be pressured to create and fund Ex-gay Employee Resource Groups.

I think that the people who are wasting the Disney stockholders’ time with this anti-diversity message are living in Fantasyland. The resolution, as they well know, is silly, and it has no chance of ever passing. But that’s not their goal. What these religious fundamentalists seek is a public forum on their attempts to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals. They should be careful. They may get what they wish for, and regret it. Since the dawning of the so-called "ex-gay movement", newspapers and magazines have been filled with stories of how the male leaders of these organizations have been arrested for soliciting sex with a man in a public restroom, or they’ve been photographed in a gay bar. In the latter example, the poster boy for Focus on the Family’s ex-gay program insisted he was only in the gay bar to go to the bathroom.

To succeed in their quest, so-called "ex-gay" people should seek the help of the real X-men. Perhaps their superpowers might be effective in creating the illusion that a person can change his or her sexual orientation. On the other hand, if the ex-gays do team up with the X-men, the guys will undoubtedly fall in love with Wolverine, and the women will surely fall in love with Storm, and then the ex-gays will be ex-ex-gays, who are more commonly referred to as homosexuals.