“If people can’t be out, you’re saying we can’t get funding”: Social service workplace practices and ideologies that impact queer and trans lived experience experts

Queer and trans social service providers have distinct experiences from their heterosexual and cisgender colleagues. These differences are compounded when queer and trans employees have lived experiences of the sex trades, housing instability, and/or homelessness. This secondary analysis of 17 queer and trans lived experience experts draws from a qualitative, constructivist grounded theory study exploring the pathways to leadership roles within social service organizations for lived experience experts. Using Citation2021 implementation of the inequality regimes analytical framework, we explored participant experiences within the themes of disclosure, visibility, and recognition; organizational policies and practices; and protection from discrimination. Our participants discussed the complexities of visibility and disclosure, along with the impacts of workplace culture and protections (or lack thereof) from identity-based discrimination. We discuss implications for social service organizations that employ queer and trans lived experience experts.