Whenever I’m asked to give a research seminar, I always include a little queer content. Most of the time, this is a shout out at the end when I show my last slide with contact info, website, and Twitter handle, where I give a shout out to LGBTQ+ STEM, which I help run.
But lately I’ve started developing a different kind of seminar, aimed at telling the story of my journey as a gay/queer man in ornithology, and more broadly about some of the challenges, difficulties, issues, and other things that LGBTQ+ folk in STEM experience, think about, and consider, and how that relates to their science. I’ve been doing queer ed since 2006, and to be honest, I was surprised that some of the questions I got earlier this summer in the LGBTQ&A were nearly identical to the questions I had running the campus Safe Space program 12 years ago.
Now, I’m just one person with one perspective (and a white male perspective at that). So I thought it would be useful to canvas a broader cross-section of the LGBTQ+ STEM community.
If you’re LGBTQ+ and in STEM, what do you wish you could communicate to your straight colleagues?
Earlier this summer, I put together a list of things I wish I could instantly transplant into my straight friends & colleagues’ minds that would give them a bit of a perspective on where I come from. As you’ll see, they’re not all science-specific, because being a scientist is only one facet that doesn’t act in isolation from the others.
So if you had the opportunity to convey something to your straight friends & colleagues about being LGBTQ+ in STEM, what would it be? Drop your answer (anonymously) in this Google Form, and I’ll work them into my talk on “hidden diversity” in STEM, and post a summary here.
Looking forward to what you all have to say!
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