#queer stem

(I made that one in German and did not translate it yet.)

The plots:

- R is sensory problems - noise is far louder than before I started T. My sensory filters are very poor. I need to put conscious mental effort to "detangle sensory stimuli". The tactile sense/feeling touch and stings is reduced. (I feel far less if someone touches me. I do not even feel the needle of my insuline pump when I have to apply it - which I usually felt. (It felt awful and gave me meltdowns btw. So this is actually a good side-effect of this.))

- T is clumsyness problems (and my tendency to be ambidextrous) Left-right-distinction problems are included in this category as well.

- K is concentration/focus and hyperactivity problems

- S is speaking problems [primarily problems with phonetics, such as difficulty regulating speed, volume, clearness; ...sometimes also word finding difficulties due to overwhelming many ways how to convey the same message in all different kinds of ways (plus too many synonymes)]

- Sy is synaesthesia - sounds turn into sorts of function plots/fractals in my imagination. (Some techno is really like epileptic-seizure-inducing flashlights and I really hate it.) - additionally, this one makes it even more difficult to process visual as well as acoustic information simultaneously - before testo this problem was already present, but now it is really noticable.

- D is depression (primarily this category only has the symptom of low mood, hopelessness, severe sadness listed) > This one went away almost entirely throughout the months.

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- The problem of processing spoken language and noise simultaneously is also worse. It's like my brain is like "only one task at a time...Please wait while we detangle this information knot clot... " (ohh, good pun-ny thought: It's like my mind needs to actively use fourier transform to detangle the information clot...)

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Lauren Esposito has spent much of her career studying scorpions, so it might not sound too surprising that she sometimes feels isolated. Her field of arachnology — the science dedicated to typically eight-legged arachnids, such as scorpions, mites, and yes, spiders — remains quite small. In fact, the San Francisco Chronicle once awkwardly declared Esposito the “world’s only female scorpion expert.” But over the past decade, she’s found it’s not just the narrow focus of her research that’s to blame for the loneliness she has experienced in her professional life.

Esposito openly identifies as queer in the sciences, where gender, racial, and sexual minorities continue to struggle for equal representation. Implicit and explicit bias too often limits the full participation of LGBTQ+ people and women at nearly every level, from education and employment to speaking opportunities and research funding. And while the dilemma of diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) has risen to buzzword status, LGBTQ+ inclusion often seems left out of the conversation.

“Being queer in STEM is a constant process of coming out, and it can be exhausting,” says Esposito, who serves as the Assistant Curator and Schlinger Chair of Arachnology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. “I actually don’t remember ever working with any other queer people in my broader field of biodiversity-based science. That’s created a really strict division in my life.”

It’s unfortunately a common experience among LGBTQ+ STEM professionals, many of whom refrain from coming out to their colleagues due to fears of prejudice and harassment. A 2013 survey found that more than 40 percent of LGBTQ+ professionals stayed in the closet on the job. And in another study, of out STEM faculty at universities, nearly 70 percent reported feeling uncomfortable and discriminated against in their departments.

These numbers suggest that, despite some progress, the traditionally heteronormative culture of STEM fields remains inhospitable to many LGBTQ+ scientists and engineers, especially transgender and non-binary researchers. Esposito seeks to challenge that dominant culture with 500 Queer Scientists, a visibility campaign she cofounded in June 2018 to give queer scientists a platform for sharing their personal STEM stories.

“I realized that my professional life was devoid of any LGBTQ+ community, and that led me to form 500 Queer Scientists,” says Esposito, who took direct inspiration from her informal involvement with 500 Women Scientists, a nonprofit that similarly advocates for women in STEM. She says that although she lives in queer-friendly San Francisco, she’s “the only faculty member” at her institution who is openly queer. “I was under the assumption that other people in less queer-friendly places were having the same experience that I was.”

She’s certainly not alone. In the past six months, 500 Queer Scientists has reverberated widely. Students and professionals from around the world have contributed hundreds of entries and sparked conversations about foot-dragging within STEM institutions on issues of LGBTQ+ inclusion. But what’s most encouraging to Esposito is the positive tone that many of the stories strike, celebrating the accomplishments of LGBTQ+ people in science and technology, and the wealth of knowledge their collective work represents.

Queer scientists have, of course, a decades-long history of organizing to fight for greater equity in their fields. This eventually culminated in the formation of the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals (NOGLSTP), in the early 1980s.

But in an era in which science is under attack and LGBTQ+ people face increasing violence, members of this young movement are renewing efforts to make their voices heard. It’s a rainbow wave that flows through the work of 500 Queer Scientists, stalwarts such as NOGLSTP, and volunteer groups of graduate students. Together they are working to ensure that the next generation of STEM professionals is queerer than ever.

To these advocates, representation in STEM matters for the same reason that it does in any other corner of society: because the lives of queer people matter, period. But discussion about diversity in the sciences invariably turns to the question of meritocracy, a rather simplistic notion that professionals should succeed solely on the merits of their work.

That’s a sleight of logic that arises from a misunderstanding of the issue at hand. While cults of personality frequently surround luminary scientists, the reality is less egocentric. Major breakthroughs generally result from the work of teams instead of from a lone wolf working late in the lab. And several recent studies suggest that diverse scientific teams, those that more fully represent the socioeconomic spectrum, may indeed be more productive and better at solving complex problems, and drive more innovation.

That makes queer inclusion fundamental to moving the work in these fields forward, Esposito says. And it underscores the significance of efforts to address issues of workplace conditions, career satisfaction, retention of faculty and researchers, and recruitment of young talent into educational programs.

“None of us had our own queer mentors in STEM. We had mentors that were either queer and outside academia or mentors who were just academics,” says Julie Johnston, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota and the creator of Queer Science Day.

Twice a year, Johnston and her volunteer team of facilitators welcome queer and transgender high school students to the University of Minnesota’s campus for a full day of experiments and demonstrations in everything from microbiology and environmental chemistry to astrophysics and computer programming. Last month, STEM-curious students at the fifth Queer Science Day tried their hands at coding, building robots, blowing up dissolved metals in balloons, and more — modules all led by queer and transgender scientists.

And while Johnston operates the program on a small scale, she has seen notable growth over the past three years, with about two dozen students now participating at each event. That’s a considerable turnout given the localized geographic focus and narrow segment of the high school population that Queer Science targets. Johnston hopes to expand the variety of events offered to eventually include an annual field trip focused on the natural sciences and even a summer camp. Queer Science has the potential to grow nationally, she says.

The first program of its kind in the country, Queer Science Day aims to fill a gap in university efforts to reach LGBTQ+ youth, a student population that’s statistically more likely to leave STEM than their straight, cisgender counterparts are.

“No one has really ever done something like this in the queer way that we’re doing it,” Johnston tells me. “We’re bringing people together from across disciplines, departments, and educational backgrounds. It’s our queerness that unites us.”

The hope is that small steps like these — introducing high school students to LGBTQ+ mentors and cultivating a deeper sense of community among out STEM professionals — may inspire more queer people to see a future for themselves in the sciences.