Purpose This study conceptualises workplace bullying as a failure of protection within the employment relationship that drives cumulative resource erosion among LGBTQ+ workers. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, it examines how bullying undermines employee voice and silence processes, disrupting recovery through defensive silence, rumination and sleep disturbances and assesses the buffering role of individual resilience across gender identities. Design/methodology/approach Survey data from 1,018 LGBTQ+ workers in the United States were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) and multi-group analysis comparing cisgender and gender-diverse workers. Validated measures captured bullying exposure and behavioural, cognitive and physiological indicators of resource depletion, alongside individual resilience. Findings Workplace bullying significantly increased employee silence behaviours (ß = 0.538), rumination (ß = 0.471) and sleep disturbances (ß = 0.467), indicating multi-domain resource erosion. Individual resilience attenuated these effects but did not fully offset them. Gender-diverse workers exhibited significantly stronger silencing responses, signalling heightened vulnerability under conditions of constrained protection. Practical implications The findings highlight the need for stronger institutional safeguards, credible voice mechanisms and proactive governance of psychosocial risks, particularly to protect gender-diverse workers from sustained withdrawal. Social implications This study highlights how workplace bullying functions as a mechanism through which institutional fragility and unequal protection translate into social exclusion at work. By showing that bullying suppresses voice, disrupts recovery and disproportionately harms gender-diverse LGBTQ+ workers, the findings underline the societal costs of weak protections. The results stress that reliance on individual resilience shifts responsibility onto vulnerable workers and risks normalising inequality. Strengthening institutional safeguards, voice channels and accountability is therefore essential to promote dignity, inclusion and sustainable participation in work. Originality/value This study advances COR theory by demonstrating how resource loss unfolds among LGBTQ+ workers under conditions of contested protection. By integrating behavioural, cognitive and physiological depletion processes and identifying gender identity as a boundary condition of resilience effectiveness, it offers a context-sensitive extension of COR to inequality within employment relations. Highlights
Pacheco et al. (Mon,) studied this question.