The Ethno-Sexual Hyphen: Communicating Gay-Mizrahi Subjectivity in Israeli Workplaces

This study examines how gay-Mizrahi men in Israel navigate the communicative processes through which workplace subjectivities are constructed, negotiated, and legitimized. Mizrahiness refers to a Jewish ethno-cultural position associated with Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, historically shaped by unequal relations with Ashkenazi hegemony and intersecting class, geographic, cultural, and gendered hierarchies. Based on semi-structured interviews with self-identified gay-Mizrahi men across diverse occupational sectors, this study examines how sexuality, ethnicity and professionalism are read together in everyday organizational interactions. The findings reveal three strategic mechanisms: identity calibration, hyphenated subjectivity, and compensatory professionalism. Identity calibration refers to the ongoing tuning of identity visibility, timing, intensity, and communication. Hyphenated subjectivity captures the relational process through which gayness and Mizrahiness are not simply combined but continuously negotiated in relation to social expectations and organizational norms. Compensatory professionalism describes intensified investment in excellence, credentials and self-control to counter anticipated devaluation. These mechanisms show that organizational belonging is not a static outcome of diversity or inclusion but an advanced communicative achievement. Thus, this study contributes to workplace communication and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) scholarship by illustrating how marked workers achieve professional legibility. We argue that DEI practice must move beyond visible categories of diversity towards affective and communicative dimensions through which inequality is reproduced.