Microaggressions Experienced by LGBTQ Academics in Canada: 'Just Not Fitting In… It Does Take a Toll'

Given contemporary attention to diversity and inclusion on Canadian university campuses, and given human rights protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, it is tempting to believe that marginalization is a thing of the past for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) academics. Our qualitative study (n = 8), focusing on everyday experiences rather than overt discrimination, documents numerous microaggressions, the often-unintended interactions that convey messages of marginality. With colleagues, students and administrators, participants reported isolation, tokenism, invisibility, hyper-visibility, dismissal, exoticization, and lack of institutional support. Maintaining constant vigilance and caution was taxing. The everyday microaggressions that lead to isolation and a sense of dis-ease in pervasively cisgender-normative and heteronormative institutions are very difficult to challenge, as they are not the kinds of experiences anti-discrimination policies and procedures are designed to address.