Out at work?: More LGBT people say they are San Francisco Chronicle Copyright 2013 San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Published 3:47 pm, Wednesday, February 13, 2013 Study co-author Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founding president and chief executive officer of CTI, said the findings show that companies employing LGBT workers can benefit as much from an accepting office environment as the employees do. "After our 2011 work, we felt there was still much to explore with respect to how employers can make full use of their LGBT talent: specifically, the opportunity companies have to drive business and the bottom line by leveraging the leadership potential and connections of their LGBT employees and allies," Hewlett told Passport , a gay travel magazine. Fifty-eight percent of Fortune 500 companies now offer domestic-partner benefits, and companies such as Google now cover the additional costs that gay and lesbian employees incur when their partners receive domestic-partner health benefits. The so-called double jeopardy of gender and anti-gay discrimination entails further risk for female employees - according to the CTI study, 74 percent of lesbians say they encounter bias based on sexual orientation, compared to 51 percent of gay men.