No matter what the Supreme Court says, you can’t just go around asking people if they’re gay or straight. Some people's identities are more complicated than fitting a simple category, or they’re still figuring it out. Others feel that it’s none of your business. Still others are hiding the truth from families or communities that wouldn’t be supportive. In more than half of the 50 states, LGBT people have no protection from job discrimination. 

So a lot of people are being careful. Alanna, a 45-year-old lesbian in Minnesota, invited some co-workers to her wedding, but she isn't out to everyone at the office. “Work is where you have less control,” she says. “I have to put up with a certain amount of whatever to be here.” But she's not shy about being gay when she hires a real estate agent or walks into a store with her wife. “I’ve always been out in that situation because I have control,” she says.

Still, she is used to an awkward pause when someone realizes that she and her spouse are a couple. A furniture saleswoman recently surprised them by not skipping a beat. She saw the rings and asked about their wedding. "I kept her card," Alanna says. "It makes a huge difference, not wondering if you're being treated differently."

Need To Know

A number of investment firms want to be ready for potential LGBT clients, so they're training advisors as to how to tackle the topic. “It’s important to have a full picture of your client,” says Tim Bresnahan, head of the LGBT and nontraditional-families practice at Northern Trust Wealth Management, which handles $233 billion in client assets. 

Clients often walk into an advisor’s office wanting to talk about one thing—their investment lineup, for example—without realizing they have further serious financial planning issues that need attention. “It’s so important to get back to basics,” Bresnahan says. A client might own property with a boyfriend or girlfriend in a way that could trigger a big estate tax bill if one of them were to die. An age difference between two partners might make the younger partner likelier to want to retire early.

LGBT clients don’t need to be in a couple for orientation to be a factor. Single people might want to save up for adoption or fertility treatments, for example, or they might want their estate to go to friends, not estranged family members. Further special issues affect advice from doctors or tax accountants. These can’t be addressed if professionals don’t know a client is gay.  

How To Pop The Question

Bresnahan says sexual orientation can be brought up organically. “People respond positively to earnest questions,” he says. For example: “Are you just thinking about yourself, or are there other people who are important to you?” An additional good question, says Stuart Armstrong, a planner with Centinel Financial Group in Needham Heights, Mass., is, “Do you have any financial obligations that we need to take into account in our planning?” That could be a partner, a child, or a parent. Some of his gay clients end up taking care of friends they consider family.

Sometimes advisors can build up enough rapport to ask directly. Even if  they don't absolutely need to know, they may start to feel distant from a client when they don't know anything about his or her romantic or home life. “Are you dating anyone?” can clear the air, though it could get awkward if a man says yes and the advisor were to follow up with “What’s her name?” Streed, the Baltimore doctor, appreciated when a personal trainer used gender-neutral pronouns in asking about his dating: "What do they do?" It was a subtle sign that she’d be all right upon learning he’s gay.