let's take for example the workplace imagine yourself at your workplace you are on a break, having coffee with your colleagues, you start to discuss, everyone describes their weekend mostly pleasant imagine now a lesbian in this situation it is most probable, unfortunately, that this woman will cut short her description to avoid telling everyone that  for the weekend she was off to visit her girlfriend's family it is also highly probable that she might not even take part in the discussion for a heterosexual person, this  kind of discussion among colleagues is pleasant and without consequences but for the lesbian that I was talking about, this brings her back to her coming out and hence to expose herself to potential judgment from the others imagine yourself in her place imagine not being able to talk about your wife or your husband about your children about your holidays, your weekend, or furthermore your friends in the end, to not be able to share the important stages of your life it seems impossible but it is in fact what most homosexuals live on a day to day basis a person who is not able to share his  or her personal life will have a tougher time integrating  at the workplace and the consequences that follow are well-known: decrease in motivation, frequent absence, stress and even depressions it could even go further: take the case of a gay man who is a teacher at a school where the majority of people strongly believe in the established stereotype that children should not be around gay men this man, if he talks about himself, would be afraid of losing his job think about how many homosexuals with similar professions have to hide their true selves perhaps even your children's teachers and imagine how you would feel being afraid  of losing your job because of who you are because of something that was not your choice and someting that you cannot change the examples that I talk to you about are not exceptions: in Switzerland one in two homosexuals is not open about his or her sexual orientation to his or her colleagues and 75% of homosexuals do not dare coming out to their employers out of fear of consequences certainly you all have lived through similar situations wherein you felt cut off from others at your workplace finally, each one of you could be standing here in my place telling your story because irrespective of whether the stereotypes concern our sexual orientation our gender identity the color of our skin or our origin in any case, they limit our interactions with others the experiences of exclusion that  you have lived through are the same as those felt by homosexuals we are all responsible for the persistance of our stereotypes and we cannot make them disappear just like that, in an instant because it is difficult and it takes a lot of time to change our beliefs however, what we all can do,  starting today, is to adapt our behaviour and this is first achieved by breaking the taboo linked to homosexuality it is too often considered as something associated with the private life sometimes even as a secret we do not talk about it, because  we do not dare out of fear of saying something wrong or out of fear of putting the other person out of ease and why does this taboo persist so easily? it is because sexual orientation, as opposed to the color of the skin for example, is not something that can be perceived also because it concerns a domain that we quickly classify as intimate if we reduce the sexual orientation of a person to his or her sexual life speaking about it openly allows us to grow out of our stereotypes and to pass on the message that being homosexual is not a problem just as being heterosexual is not a problem 