MORGAN Stanley Dean Witter was neck-deep in homophobia hell last week when an incident involving a former employee who was axed after he appeared in a gay magazine, thrust the firm’s attitude toward gay employees into the spotlight.
Christian Curry, a former hotshot banker, says he was fired after he posed nude for a gay men’s magazine – although he maintains he is straight.
The topic of homosexuality on Wall Street is still taboo, and coming out of the closet is akin to career suicide – unless you work at Goldman Sachs. Stories of the underground gay world at Goldman make for scintillating late-night reading.
Take, for instance, the 26th floor bathroom, where non-financial services are allegedly rendered.
As for the employees, the highest concentration of gay male employees are said to be in Goldman’s investment banking unit, with good representation on the debt and equity capital markets desks.