While Corporate America has seen a significant shift in the way LGBTQ+ people are treated in the workplace, many LGBTQ+ people still prefer to stay closeted at work. In addition to being concerned about how their colleagues will view them, they are careful how much of their personal lives they share with clients.

That was the consensus of legal executives who served on a Minority Corporate Counsel Association panel this month titled "Coming Out in a Straight-Laced Profession: Cultural Challenges LGBTQ+ Attorneys Continue to Face in the Legal Profession."

Panelists said that, to spur change in the workplace, it's up to them as representatives of the LGBTQ+ system to have discussions with people—who sometimes use "thinly veiled language" to address them—to effect change.