By Stefan Peterson
For Pride Month, the PSPDG blog is collaborating with students from LTBGS and Lambda Grads for a series of posts highlighting the LGBTQ+ community and related matters at Penn and beyond.
Members of the LGBTQ+ community in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) deal with many challenges beyond those of their non-LGBTQ+ peers. Scientists worldwide share experiences of fear of coming out to colleagues, which is reasonable when considering that harassment is 30% more likely for LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM than their non-LGBTQ+ peers. Harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in STEM result in higher rates of queer students dropping out of STEM majors and of LGBTQ+ scientists planning to leave their careers. Nations and institutions around the world urgently need to address these issues to support the STEM LGBTQ+ community. Over the past two years, one team of early career scientists has been working to address these issues in the United States and the United Kingdom through science diplomacy.
In the Spring of 2021, Shane Coffield, who now works for NASA doing climate studies, was a graduate student studying Earth system science at UC Irvine. His colleague, Kolin Clark, is a graduate student in genetics at Washington University in Saint Louis. These two first met as part of the National Science Policy Network’s (NSPN) first cohort of the Science Diplomacy Exchange and Learning program (SciDEAL). This program, now called the Science Diplomacy Fellowship, connects early career scientists to diplomatic opportunities with organizations, such as non-governmental organizations, consulates, and embassies. Working with the UK Science and Innovation Network, Kolin and Shane, along with Colbie Chinowski, Jacob O’Connor, and Ana Dye, formed a team to address the dramatic attrition of LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM in both the US and UK.
Shane, Kolin, and others on the team knew from first-hand experience that LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM face discrimination. Experiencing homophobia and witnessing discrimination against transgender peers is what led Shane and Kolin to want to join this team to develop effective policies. Both had to find a community of queer peers to support them so they could make it through the already difficult journey of a PhD. And when it came to funding, Kolin found himself asking why his sexual orientation, given all the challenges he had faced as a result, was not considered in diversity for NIH funding. There are many more stories of discrimination against LGBTQ+ scientists, especially those who are also part of other groups facing discrimination. In spite of this experiential knowledge in the community, no one is changing institutional or governmental policies based on these descriptions alone.
Shane, Kolin, and the rest of the group needed data to show that these incidents are representative of queer experiences at institutions across both the US and UK and that they harm LGBTQ+ people in STEM. The team of NSPN fellows set out to devise evidence-driven policies to increase LGBTQ+ retention in STEM. This required a comprehensive assessment of the available data, but the fellows quickly ran into an issue: there is no data on the effectiveness of policies to improve LGBTQ+ retention in STEM. Beyond policy studies, any data about the LGBTQ+ community in STEM is very limited.
Thus, the group took on a new initiative - developing a status report on the needs, barriers, and challenges for improved data collection and policy. Dividing up the work, each team member focused on one of five stakeholders: non-governmental organizations, academic researchers, funding agencies, government agencies, and university administrations. Through interactions with these groups, it quickly became clear that the lack of data was hindering efforts to support LGBTQ+ people in STEM. Academics studying LGBTQ+ communities in STEM said there was a catch-22 for funding studies. There is a lack of funding because there is little data highlighting the issues facing LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM; to get more data, however, there needs to be funding for these studies. Shane, in talking to non-profits and grassroots organizations, found that this lack of data greatly hurts their efforts to support the LGBTQ+ community as, without a national standard for data collection for the LGBTQ+ STEM community, there is governmental inaction and a lack of federal anti-discrimination protections.
In the spring and summer of 2021, Kolin was dealing with unexpected hurdles interviewing governmental agencies. Agencies like the Office of Science and Technology Policy were still trying to get set up under the new presidential administration and did not have time for any new discussions or projects. Across the pond, the UK was dealing with unintended effects of Brexit. These presented a major hurdle - if the topic you want to discuss is not prevalent in the news or actively being discussed already in policy spaces, then it can be extremely difficult to get a listening ear. Additionally, beyond the struggles of political timing, Kolin and the rest of the team found that the bureaucracy engrained in both governments made things move slowly and allowed individuals and entire governmental offices to pass the buck of dealing with data collection on LGBTQ+ in STEM. By the end of his interviews, Kolin was shocked to find that there was even less data collected for the queer community in STEM than he thought. The team needed to take action now.
Across all the stakeholder groups, Shane and Kolin’s team found that this lack of large-scale data collection affects the understanding of when and where LGBTQ+ attrition in STEM occurs and how that varies with intersectionality. Regardless, lack of data is not an excuse for inaction‒ even without in-depth data, institutions can still implement inclusive and protective policies around travel, field work, and healthcare for STEM employees. Institutions can also provide easier structures for pronoun and name changes across systems. The LGBTQ+ community in STEM, like those in other fields, also desperately needs better local and institutional policies to provide gender-inclusive restrooms (Read Maxwell Pisciotta’s post for a local understanding of the situation).
After a year of work, the team submitted a comprehensive report for publication with the UK government. Unfortunately, though, the report remained internal and has not been released publicly despite prior expectation that it would be shared. Shane and Kolin suspect that government bureaucracy and political context, including the UK’s failed “Safe to Be Me” conference last year, contributed to the hesitation in publicly sharing their work. The team found this extremely disappointing, given that they had volunteered so much time and personal energy to a topic that really demands government action.
Finally, another window opened up, and Shane and Kolin, as representatives for the whole team, were invited to a meeting to discuss “Data for Retention: Addressing under-representation of LGBTQ+ minorities in STEM” hosted by Wilton Park in Steyning, UK. This organization is an executive agency of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office that supports UK foreign policy by holding meetings where stakeholders from around the world can break down barriers and discuss concrete solutions to pressing policy challenges. This meeting at Wilton Park represented a culmination of the NSPN team’s previous work, bringing together many of their stakeholders in the same room over two and half days. Finally, they had a chance to confer with professionals from US and UK governmental agencies, academics and university officials, non-governmental organizations, and the funders that supported them all.
Shane and Kolin flew to the UK in February 2023 to attend this meeting with over 40 stakeholders dedicated to solving the problem of LGBTQ+ attrition in STEM. The group had a lively discussion that went even beyond what Shane and Kolin had expected. They found themselves in a room imagining a world where LGBTQ+ people can thrive in STEM. This future is possible, but only through radical change. Restructuring white cis heteronormative power systems is a necessary step, and with it must come an improved service to and voice for those with intersecting identities who are the most marginalized, particularly communities of color. Of course, the group also talked about the desperate need for collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data in STEM and the caution that should be taken to listen to community concerns and protect privacy.
After all their hard work, the pair found it inspiring to be in the room where big decisions were being made. These two found themselves in a discussion even bigger than STEM, a discussion about radical versus reformist change of institutions and liberation of queer and trans communities. The mission of collecting more data can’t be to just have it or end up using it to change a few surface level policies. Increasing data collection on our marginalized community must be done in order to spark complete conversion of the systems that oppress LGBTQ+ individuals.
In holding this discussion, the US and UK fostered bilateral collaboration to support the LGBTQ+ community in STEM. This meeting finally brought together two nations, dealing with the same issues facing LGBTQ+ people, and allowed them to define similar goals and recommendations for data collection. Together, this group also compiled a list of existing data and devised new funding mechanisms to promote research on LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM. All that was left to do was to publish a report on the group’s work.
At the end of the meeting, Kolin and Shane found themselves at the formal end of their extended SciDEAL fellowship and an end to their diplomatic work with the UK. They submitted another written report, but even now, months later, there is still not a detailed public report of the Wilton Park meeting or the work that the NSPN team did over the past two years. This stall in a public facing recognition of their work is emblematic of problems facing many diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
During our conversation, Kolin mentioned how over their years of work, he has started to think of things as either his day job (i.e., graduate lab work) or his “gay job” – the often unpaid and under-recognized or under-celebrated work it takes for those in the LGBTQ+ community to support each other. As they wait for a published report of their diplomatic work, Shane, Kolin, and the many others working in this space will continue at their “gay jobs,” advocating for better sexual orientation and gender identity questions in STEM surveys. With new federal recognition of the urgent need to implement federal data collection on LGBTQ+ equity, hopefully we will soon have better data collection and policies to support and protect the LGBTQ+ community in STEM.
Shane and Kolin plan to continue this effort and even make a steering committee to keep the work going. If you would like to get in touch with them, follow them on Twitter @KolinClark39 and @shane_coffield.
Here are local and national resources for LGBTQ+ members in STEM:
Local Community Centers
Penn’s LGBT Center Resources Page
https://lgbtcenter.universitylife.upenn.edu/communityresources/
William Way LGBT Community Center
Galaei for Queer and Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC)
https://www.galaeiqtbipoc.org/
National and International Community Centers
Out to Innovate Resources Page on LGBTQ+ STEM issues
The STEM Village (UK based) Resources Page
https://www.thestemvillage.com/resources
Resources for LGBTQ+ in STEM Data Collection
“DO ASK, DO TELL: Capturing data on sexual orientation and gender identity globally” report by Stonewall (UK based)
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/sites/default/files/do_ask_do_tell_guide_2016.pdf
Queer data: Using gender, sex and sexuality data for action. Book by Guyan, Kevin. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022.
Resources to improve STEM environment for LGBTQ+ individuals
Pronouns Guide by GLSEN
https://www.glsen.org/activity/pronouns-guide-glsen
Supporting Bisexual Employees in the Workplace report by InterEngineering (UK based)
https://interengineeringlgbt.com/supporting-bisexual-employees-in-the-workplace/#
Increasing the visibility of LGBTQ+ researchers in STEM. Sinton et al. Lancet. 2020
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32626-X/fulltext
How to Make Virtual Conferences Queer-Friendly: A Guide by Queer in AI https://www.queerinai.com/how-to-make-virtual-conferences-queer-friendly