From The Wild Hunt: article on coming out as pagan in the workplace

From Manny Tejeda-Moreno, at The Wild Hunt, on workplace "micro-aggressions" in the workplace towards pagan co-workers.

Column: Religious Discrimination in the Workplace | The Wild Hunt: For me, this raised questions about the experiences of Pagans in the workplace. Pagans are, essentially a rarer find in the social fabric of faith where the most common thread is Christian. In other words, when an individual says “I’m Christian” in the United States, most people think some variant of “you and 260 million other Americans.” With less common faiths, such as Judaism, individuals may be marked by stereotypes, but are also recognized as present in the mainline religious experiences. However,if someone says “I’m a witch,” most people – almost exclusively those unfamiliar with Paganism — are just left with Halloween imagery or TV episodes as a way of understanding the statement. That left me with questions about the kind of discrimination potential that could occur when someone discloses their Pagan faith. In other words, what happens when someone’s actual identity collides with the identity society expects us to have? (Manny Tejeda-Moreno, The Wild Hunt)

Micro-aggressions is a term social scientist Tejeda-Moreno used in the article. It's like teeny moments of passive-aggressiveness. A few years ago, at work, a co-worker "teased" me about being a "crystal cruncher." I took it with good humor and never made a thing about it, but this comment was uttered often, in front of others. (Can you imagine calling someone a "crucifix cruncher" or some such?) Those comments about my being a "crystal cruncher" were forms of micro-aggressions. Those of us open about our pagan and/or witchy ways expect such responses, I suppose, but then again, we are always faced with the issue of hiding vs. coming out. It's something each of us need to decide for ourselves. For myself, I am who I am and find myself very unhappy trying to suppress myself. That's just me however. I would never tell anyone to come out, or, not.