While the military has dropped its ban on transgender troops, the science world is struggling to improve on a history of harassment against transgender physicists and other scientists.
According to a study released in April from the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, transgender physicists experience some of the highest rates of harassment of LGBTQ scientists: One-in-two transgender physicists have encountered harassment or exclusion in university and research settings.
As a result, nearly 36 percent of transgender physicists consider a career change, and many of their lesbian, gay, and bisexual peers avoid specializations in physics for fear of harassment.
This corresponds with a larger survey of sexual harassment on university campuses, conducted in September 2015 by the American Association of Universities.
That report, the “AAU Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct,” found that both undergraduate and graduate students who were transgender, gender queer, non-conforming, or questioning (called TGQN) were at the highest risk for sexual assault or misconduct.
The study found that the highest rate of “the most serious form of sexual assault” — rape — on campuses was experienced by “[TGQN] undergraduates (12.4 percent), [TGQN] undergraduate females (10.8 percent), and TGQN graduate/professional students (8.3 percent).”
Along with harassment, many LGBTQ physicists are ostracized for their gender expression, making it harder to conduct collaborative research, find mentors, and network with peers, the survey found.
“I think the first issue to raise is that there is an issue within the physics community,” Dr. Elena Long, a transgender physicist at the University of New Hampshire and co-author of the study, said. “We tend to think everything is based on the science and nothing else matters. [But] there is a culture behind that — there are less women, less people of color, and then statistics show a number of issues for LGBTQ people in the field.”
Long said that in her own experience, transgender scientists are sometimes called by incorrect gender pronouns and or not allowed to formally change their names in scientific publications.
To Dr. Ramon Barthelemy, a science policy fellow at AAAS, LGBTQ physicist, and co-author of the study, not being able to change a professional publication record is especially problematic in the sciences.
“Trans physicists can either out themselves as trans, or remove half of their publications. Either way, they have to potentially face discrimination or make themselves look less accomplished during the job search,” Barthelemy said.
In order to address the harassment faced by LGBTQ physicists, especially those who are transgender, the American Physical Society recently adopted six policy recommendations.
But Dr. Van Dixon, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute and head of the AAS Committee for Sexual-Orientation & Gender Minorities in Astronomy, said harassment doesn’t stop with LGBTQ people. He thinks people of color and women in the sciences experience harassment as well.
“[There are] challenges faced by people with ‘additional marginalized identities’ and the hostile environments in which transgender and gender-nonconforming people often find themselves,” Dixon said.
“We speak of ‘intersectionality,’ people at the intersection of two minority groups (lesbians of color, for example) who face discrimination not only from the majority culture, but from within their minority communities.”
Barthelemy said he interviewed an African-American lesbian scientist for the study who said she had experienced so much harassment in the sciences as an LGBTQ person and a racial minority, she was considering a career change.
“She said she simply couldn’t handle being a woman, a person of color, and a lesbian in this community anymore,” he said.
Some science societies are taking note. The American Society for Cell Biology and the American Astronomical Society have created committees that not only address the experience of LGBTQ scientists, but people of color and women.
Dr. Bruno da Rocha Azevedo, lab director and research scientist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, heads the LGBTQ Diversity Committee of the American Society for Cell Biology. He said his committee has sponsored LGBTQ seminars, mentoring, and networking events at annual meetings.
“My experience hearing stories from multiple people tells me that trans people have a harder time [when it comes] to being openly LGBTQ. Some people think that ‘being gay doesn't change anything regarding his/her science,’ an approach I personally disagree with,” da Rocha Azevedo said.
Universities across the country are implementing programs that encourage inclusivity in their graduate programs, according to Emily R. Miller, director of the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative.
Over all, Miller said, more needs to be done to make university campuses more inclusive.
Berthelemy agrees, though he sees progress happening slowly.
“It’s the campfire rule,” he said. “You want to leave the site better than when you entered it.”
Danielle Prieur is a reporter with Medill Services in Washington. She covers health and science stories on Capitol Hill.
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