Across the Texas oil and gas dtry, lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr workers stggle to navigate the workplace where acceptance, openns and
Contents:
- THE ISOLATED LIV OF NORTH DAKOTA'S GAY OIL FIELD WORKERS
- GAY WORKERS AT TEXAS OIL COMPANI FACE CHOICE BETWEEN ‘PRCIPLE AND PAYCHECK’
- BIG OIL PANI SAY THEY SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS, BUT OPERATE MORE THAN 40 UNTRI THAT CRIMALIZE SAME-SEX BEHAVR. IT LEAV SOME LGBTQ WORKERS UGHT BETWEEN 2 WORLDS.
THE ISOLATED LIV OF NORTH DAKOTA'S GAY OIL FIELD WORKERS
Though attus are slowly shiftg the nservative state, gay men who e for lucrative work the boomg Bakken shale formatn often feel prsured to keep their inti hidn. * gay oil rig workers *
Like most such enunters the oil patch, ours origated on Grdr, the mobile hookup app for gay, bisexual, and cur men. "You make money up here and you leave, " another gay worker, a 23-year-old who works for a pany that rents and sells motors to drill wells, told me.
"And leav ltle time for gay men to build a muny. Onle platforms like Grdr provi a means for some gay workers the area to nnect wh one another.
Homophobia never lgers far om the surface.
GAY WORKERS AT TEXAS OIL COMPANI FACE CHOICE BETWEEN ‘PRCIPLE AND PAYCHECK’
* gay oil rig workers *
Others figure the risk of creatg ictn at the workplace isn't worth their peace of the vast majory of employers the state, most pani the oil patch do not provi discrimatn protectns for gay and trans workers. That means, if you're a roughneck who's out on the job—or a tck driver, or a welr, or a pipe fter—your boss n probably fire you for beg gay, and there's not a damn thg you n do about . Are no gay bars North Dakota.
The state's three biggt ci, Bismarck, Grand Forks, and Fargo, offer the ocsnal drag show, but they, too, are hours away om the Starle Club, one of the regn's few LGBT-iendly bars Mot, a growg cy of 46, 000 on the eastern edge of the patch, is the clost there is to a gay mec the parts. Last year, the group Pri Mot held weekly viewg parti for the TV show RuPl's Drag Race, and plans to do the same for the show's upg, there are a uple of Mot bars that are known for attractg a sizable gay male clientele—a mix of lols, airmen, and oil hands willg to make the trek. At the Starle Club, a karaoke bar a strip mall next to the lol airport, I hung out wh several gay men, a bi woman, and a self-scribed "fag hag.
BIG OIL PANI SAY THEY SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS, BUT OPERATE MORE THAN 40 UNTRI THAT CRIMALIZE SAME-SEX BEHAVR. IT LEAV SOME LGBTQ WORKERS UGHT BETWEEN 2 WORLDS.
Jason and Cody are one of the area's few openly gay Marshall, a 36-year-old rotabout, or oil-rig handyman, recently accepted an offer to operate a natural-gas-procsg plant Ligne, a sleepy town of 150 near the Canadian borr. "I jt really don't know what to thk of the people, " said a gay 22-year old who recently moved to Williston om Las Vegas. He is referrg to lbian, gay and bisexual people who don’t ‘e out’ at work, but stead hi their sexual orientatn om lleagu for fear of discrimatn or bullyg.
"It was immediately obv to me that was unacceptable to be gay bs and most fely the oil bs, " he has said.