Happy #pridemonth! If you're queer and ready for some cheer we point you toward our store as The Nautilus Pin is ready for its debut, alongside the Trilobite update/restock. Help us fund their production - in return be the first one to take them on adventures, choose any pride flag you want, and get them for a special preorder price. Which pride flag you wish there was more cool merch of? 😊✨ Share=❤️🧡💛💚💙💜 Store link in the bio. #pride #pride2020 #pridemonth2020 #lgbtinstem #lgbtstem #queerowned #queerbusiness #lgbtq🌈 #lgbtcommunity #lgbtbusinessuk #fossil #fossilmerch #fossilpin #ammonite #nautilus #ammonitepin #nautiluspin #enamelpin #pinsofinstagram #pinpreorders #pinpreorder #lgbtmerch #lgbtart #lgbtaccount (at Bristol, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/CPnYoxpNK-k/?utm_medium=tumblr
Transgender scientists and engineers face extra hurdles. But they are gaining support. And trans researchers are finding peers through meetings and social media.
When Miles Ott was in high school, he had a love-hate relationship with math. Sometimes, he enjoyed his classes. At other times, he felt confused. “I did not understand what the point was,” he says. “I just thought I wasn’t good at it.”
But that changed in college when he took a calculus class. The teacher explained the concepts very clearly. “‘Oh, this makes sense now,’” Ott recalls thinking at the time. “It was a great feeling to finally understand this thing that was so profoundly confusing to me. And I just never wanted to stop.”
He didn’t. Later, he went to graduate school and studied biostatistics. That field combines math and statistics to understand how to improve the health of large groups of people. Ott now works at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. He has done research on topics such as HIV in South Africa and alcohol use among college students.
He also has explored mental health issues in transgender people. This area has special meaning to Ott because he is a transgender man.
What does being transgender mean? Imagine that when a baby is born, the doctor looks at their body parts and proclaims, “It’s a girl!” But at some point, that person comes to realize that they don’t feel like a girl at all. In fact, they knowthey’re supposed to be a boy. Put another way, their “gender identity” is male, making that person a transgender boy or man.
This can go the other way around, too. Doctors could say that a child is a boy at birth. But that person grows up knowing they are female. This is a transgender girl or woman.
Many transgender people then go through a process called a “transition.” Often, they start wearing clothes that match their gender identity. They may change their name. A transgender man named Andrea at birth, for instance, might start going by Alexander. And they can change their pronouns. Pronouns are words such as “he,” “she”, “him” and “her.” A transgender woman would ask people to refer to her as “she” and “her.”
Some people take medications or have surgery to change their bodies. A transgender man could undergo these treatments to develop male features. A transgender woman could go through other treatments to develop female features.
For Ott, being a transgender scientist has come with challenges. He was going through his transition when he applied to graduate school. He wasn’t sure which name to use on his applications. He decided to list his old name, even though it didn’t feel right.
In grad school, some people asked him overly personal questions. He slowly learned how to deal with these situations. “It took me a while to figure out that I don’t have to answer anybody’s questions,” he says. “I get to decide what I’m comfortable with.”
Becoming a scientist takes years of hard work and dedication. Transgender scientists and engineers, though, face extra hurdles. Sometimes they feel alone because they don’t know other transgender researchers. When they transition, colleagues may treat them rudely and disrespectfully. And transgender researchers can be in greater physical danger when they travel to other countries for fieldwork.
But these scientists and engineers are gaining support. Universities and organizations are working to make them feel included in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. More researchers are talking openly about being transgender (often abbreviated as “trans”). And they are finding other trans people through meetings and social media.
“It is slowly — maybe slowly, but surely — changing for the better,” says Daniel Cruz-Ramírez de Arellano. “I genuinely feel like that is the case.” He is a chemist at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Cruz-Ramírez de Arellano also has studied transgender scientists’ experiences.
I've noticed a lot of posts going around as of late that perpetuate the idea that LGBTQ people can't do math, or LGBTQ people dont like science. While this is a joke and clearly not meant to be taken seriously, I think everyone should know that plenty of queer people have been successful in scientific fields. It's especially important for younger queer people to see that you dont need to suppress your love of STEM fields just to fit in with your community.
Some Queer STEM folks:
Sir Issac Newton
Sir Francis Bacon
Leonardo da Vinci
Florence Nightingale
Sara Josephine Baker
Louise Pearce
Alan Turing
Sally Ride
Angela Clayton
Ben Barres
Allan Cox
Niel Divine
Alexander Von Humboldt
Sonja Kovalevsky
Margaret Mead
Jim Pollack
Bruce Voeller
Clyde Wahrhaftig
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Uzi Even
Gavin Arthur
Ron Buckmire
Mary Ann Horton
Kate Hutton
A much-needed celebration.
That's just a few. Here's a website listing a bunch of living queer scientists.
Stories
Here's another
Improving LGBT visibility in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
*I didn't not hardcore fact check anything here. A basic Google search will give you the same results I got. Feel free to research more and prove me wrong.
In conclusion, science and math is for all gays, any gays, any LGBTQ person. Dont let memes get you down. Go be an astrophysicist or a chemist or a microbiologist or a mathematician. Enjoy yourself, and embrace your interests and culture to the fullest.
I really loved the #lgbtstem on Twitter. I wondered if Tumblr had a hastag like that and there isn’t one! I think that it’d be great for the sciblr/gradblr/science side of tumblr to start one to for lgbt science peeps! It’d be cool for visibility and also for networking posts. What do you all think?
Also the hashtag on twitter gave me confidence to come out professionally so it’d be cool to like have that on tumblr.
It's finally here! The Volgaynoes leftover sale will launch on February 13th at 8 pm GMT!!! 🌈🗻
This leftover sale is perfect for all of you who missed the Kickstarer crowdfunding or if you're one of our backers who loved your Volgaynoes so much you want more! This will be their one last run and they won't be available for purchase after this one last sale, so make sure to plan ahead if you were thinking of getting them.
Mark your calendars and set the alarms because we have an extremely low stock of some items, so make sure you don't miss them.
“Volgaynoes” is a science-art collaboration between us, Palaeoiris, and volcanologist and artist @alias_in_ink (Instagram) that shows off the beauty and diversity of volcanism on our planet, while simultaneously celebrating the diversity of humans too.
Our myriad magmatic creations illustrate the beauty and majesty of volcanic processes across the world in a series of colours that champion members of the queer population.
Our mash-up of science meets art shows the message: we want members of our Earth Science community to be visible and proud. They are also meant for allies to display, show their alliance, and help create welcoming environments for queer people. It's not easy being so often-prosecuted minority and so it's our hope to help you communicate your love for LGBTQ+ people and volcanology in one.
