What if we stopped apologizing?

Among GLBTQ scientists, we often talk about when is best to come out in the job search.  Opinions range widely, from the first in-person interview to the post-offer negotiations.  We need to come out at some point, maybe because we’re trying to assess the climate in our potential new department, maybe because it’s time to negotiate support for a trailing partner.  But we fear possible biases and bigotries, and we try to minimize the risk by managing who knows what when.

If you stop and think about it for a minute, that entire conversation is built on a paradigm that being gay can only be a negative thing.  If you’re lucky, they’ll be neutral and it won’t be relevant; if not, you won’t even get an interview.  That’s a pretty defeatist attitude to take.  In moments like this we’re still basically apologizing for being gay and asking people not to hate us for it.

What would it look like if, instead, we saw being queer as one of the selling points in our application package?

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I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from my fellow scientists (and others) something along the lines of, “It shouldn’t be any more important that I’m a lesbian than that I have brown eyes.”  The cultural norm seems to be to downplay being gay, to try to make it not relevant, not an issue, let’s move on please, ok?  So when I’ve been networking and advocating and what-have-you for queer science issues, I often get asked why I care?  Why does this matter so much to me?  And it’s been hard for me to put that into words.  But with a few years’ insights and hindsights, I’m beginning to articulate what I find at the tension between being queer and being a scientist.

To start with, there’s the simple fact that, as a grad student, science is much more a part of my identity than any job has ever been.  Though previously I’d studied science and worked in science, though I’ve been the one with a science background in a multidisciplinary crowd, this is the first time that I feel fully justified in claiming the label: “I’m a scientist.”  And it’s as much a statement of who I am, not just a job I do.  It’s not just a suit I put on for 9-to-5 and then go back to my real life.  To undertake – much less complete – a Ph.D. demands a deep motivation and commitment.  I’ve thrown my heart and soul into this work, damnit, and it’s drawn plenty of blood, sweat, and tears along the way.  I don’t know how to do that halfway, to give that much of myself and yet be only partly present.  I can’t keep part of me tucked away in some little box and only let it out after working hours. 

Discovering only what we expect

We think that our science is nice and objective, but it’s not that simple.  Scientists are pretty willing to admit that there’s a strong bias in terms of what we choose to study and what questions we ask, but today someone was seriously arguing that the rest of it is (or at least can and should be) unbiased.  I had to disagree pretty strongly.

It’s not too hard to design a study that avoids most bias (randomize!) and to collect data accurately.  But data have to be interpreted to have any meaning.  There’s a reason we labor over working out figures and writing up our findings, rather than simply handing out copies of our datasets.  And the interpretations and conclusions are filtered through our biases, expectations, and assumptions.

I recounted one of the Cedar Creek intern presentations this summer.  They were watching red-headed woodpecker behavior, and they had a finding: “Both males and females feed the young.”  This was really startling because it’s absolutely impossible to sex a red-headed woodpecker without a DNA test.