Avoiding Allegations of Sexual Impropriety

By Carl Simons

People often make groundless sexual allegations against the LGBT community for various homophobic reasons. How can you avoid getting caught up in one of these situations at work or in a family setting? The honest answer is you cannot. You cannot prevent people from saying what they are going to say. However, you can cover your butt to the best of your ability and try to be aware of problems before they occur.

It does not take a genius to realize that people often make allegations against people they do not like. The key is to not give them any evidence to back up such allegations. LGBT folk have to keep on their guard as we are often "more" suspect than are heterosexual workers. Many workplaces now have filters on their computers that prevent access to any "adult" Web site. But if your company does not have any such filters, do not access these sites while you are at work. You are only asking for trouble. As you probably know, many companies can easily access your "footprints" and see what Web sites you have visited.

Additionally, it is important to be politically smart regarding your situation at work. If you are aware of individuals who may be likely to make such allegations against you, you may want to keep notes on their interactions with you—particularly if such interactions become threatening. Also, it is mandatory that you make some sort of report to your human resources personnel regarding such behavior. You will not be sorry later should some issue regarding your behavior arise.

Family situations are also important to monitor. These situations are exceptionally volatile if there are underage individuals around. As paranoid as this sounds, if you are in a situation where there are relatives who have openly showed hostility toward you, I would avoid being alone with underage children. I have been involved in too many cases where family members encouraged underage kids to make false allegations against a family member or partner of a family member. Law enforcement takes these allegations very seriously and usually will arrest now and ask questions later. As you can imagine, you can end up spending a great deal of money very quickly should a situation like this arise.

It is unfortunate that people still discriminate against us.  Although it is getting a great deal better than it was 10 or 20 years ago, law enforcement agencies and society as a whole have become a great deal smarter regarding simple allegations of sexual impropriety.  This is not to say that problems do not still arise, however, as long as there is no evidence to support these allegations and you do some minimal tasks to CYA, you can often diffuse a very volatile situation. 

Most importantly, you must do a realistic assessment of your work and family life situations and see whether or not there is a potential problem. Do not ignore it—deal with it. If you have questions regarding this or any other legal matter, please feel free to contact me at the Law Offices of Carl Simons at (310) 749-4LAW.