skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Fieldwork and LGBTQ+ Identities: Queering the Outdoors
Synopsis Fieldwork is considered an integral component of research within conservation biology and ecology. Oftentimes, institutions and researchers share resources on general safety when collecting data in field settings. Despite an increasing awareness, there has been a lack of transparency and communication in terms of the hazards associated with fieldwork. These include but are not limited to an increased risk of sexual harassment and assault. These risks are compounded particularly for those from marginalized racial, sexual, and gender identities. In addition to this lack of acknowledgment, the added risks to those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (trans), and/or queer or members of other marginalized sexualities and gender identities (to reflect the “+” in LGBTQ+) are often overlooked. We have found that there is not only a lack of data on sexual orientation and gender identities of researchers and the barriers they may face as field-based scientists, but also a lack of awareness of how we can support those from these marginalized groups within our disciplines. Creating a SAFE and INCLUSIVE community for those with marginalized identities is key to sustaining the diversity within our discipline. Here, we outline a series of recommendations that can be utilized to address the harassment, homophobia, and transphobia that our LGBTQ+ colleagues face. These recommendations range from what can be applied at the local level (within a lab group), at the department level, at the institutional level as well at specific field sites.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2225652
PAR ID:
10555038
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
Oxford University Pres
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Integrative And Comparative Biology
Volume:
63
Issue:
1
ISSN:
1540-7063
Page Range / eLocation ID:
79 to 85
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, AGU Advances)
    Fieldwork, including work done at sea, is a key component of many geoscientists' careers. Recent studies have highlighted the pervasive harassment faced by women and LGBTQ+ people during fieldwork. However, transgender and gender diverse (TGD) scientists face obstacles which have not yet been thoroughly examined. We fill this gap by sharing our experiences as TGD people. We have experienced sexual harassment, misconduct, privacy issues, and legal and medical struggles as we conduct seagoing work. In this work, we provide recommendations for individuals, cruise leaders, and institutions for making seagoing work safer for our communities. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Oceanography)
    Sexual assault and sexual harassment (SASH) in STEM is a well-documented problem, particularly in academic and fieldwork settings (NASEM, 2018; Kelly and Yarincik, 2021; Ackerman et al., 2023). Historically marginalized groups in STEM (i.e., white women; Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; LGBTQ+ individuals) are particularly vulnerable to SASH due to underrepresentation and persistent, long-standing cultural norms shaped by dominant male and white identities. For individuals who hold multiple marginalized identities, the risks and impacts are compounded (Cech, 2022). SASH results in negative impacts to individual mental health and physical safety, productivity, and employee retention, and represents a barrier to entry, retention, advancement, and success of a diverse STEM workforce. To address this, culture change within STEM, the process of shifting organizational norms to promote improved employee wellness, inclusion, and productivity, is needed. 
    more » « less
  3. ; (, Proceedings of the 2023 ASEE National Conference and Exhibition)
    The purpose of this research paper is to test the difference in likelihood that LGBTQ students are open about their sexual or gender identities to peers in STEM than other members of their networks. LGBTQ students face pressures in STEM to hide their sexual and gender identities, which threatens their ability to experience state authenticity within STEM, or a congruence between their social identities and the environment. Incongruence would lead LGBTQ students to leave STEM majors at higher rates which undermines efforts to broaden participation in engineering. We used egocentric social network analysis to test differences in the likelihood that LGBTQ students are “out” to different members of their networks. We hypothesized that LGBTQ students are less likely to be out to peers in STEM than other members of their networks because of the culture and climate within STEM. Experiencing continued incongruence between one’s social identity and one’s environment, more common for minoritized individuals than others, can become a barrier to continued participation within that environment. Outness therefore serves as an indicator of how comfortable LGBTQ students are in STEM as an early predictor of whether they will persist in STEM. Results indicate participants were less likely to be out to peers in STEM than other peers. When we took whether the participant was a STEM major into consideration, the picture became less clear. Among STEM majors, participants reported being less likely to be out to their peers in STEM than other network members, but none of these factors were significant in a full-factor, mixed-effects regression model. These results suggest some degree of inauthenticity experienced by LGBTQ people with their peers in STEM, though the situation may be improving. These results implicate the role of climate in STEM through LGBTQ students’ relationships with their peers. If they feel they must be less open about their sexual or gender identities with peers in STEM, LGBTQ students are likely not experiencing a level of state authenticity within STEM that would retain them within these fields. Educators should consider how academic environments are construed to provide a supportive climate that allows LGBTQ students to be open and that sets expectations for all students to respect and welcome the contributions of their LGBTQ peers. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; (, PLOS ONE)
    Grinnell, Frederick (Ed.)
    Queer identities are often ignored in diversity initiatives, yet there is a growing body of research that describes notable heterosexist and gender-normative expectations in STEM that lead to unsupportive and discriminatory environments and to the lower persistence of queer individuals. Research on the experiences of queer-spectrum individuals is limited by current demographic practices. In surveys that are queer-inclusive there is no consensus on best practices, and individuals with queer genders and queer sexual, romantic, and related orientations are often lumped together in a general category (e.g. LGBTQ+). We developed two queer-inclusive demographics questions and administered them as part of a larger study in undergraduate engineering and computer science classes (n = 3698), to determine which of three survey types for gender (conventional, queered, open-ended) provided the most robust data and compared responses to national data to determine if students with queer genders and/or queer sexual, romantic, and related orientations were underrepresented in engineering and computer science programs. The gender survey with queer-identity options provided the most robust data, as measured by higher response rates and relatively high rates of disclosing queer identities. The conventional survey (male, female, other) had significantly fewer students disclose queer identities, and the open-ended survey had a significantly higher non-response rate. Allowing for multiple responses on the survey was important: 78% of those with queer gender identities and 9% of those with queer sexual, romantic and related orientations selected multiple identities within the same survey question. Queer students in our study were underrepresented relative to national data. Students who disclosed queer gender identities were 7/100ths of the expected number, and those with queer orientations were under-represented by one-quarter. Further work developing a research-based queered demographics instrument is needed for larger-scale changes in demographics practices, which will help others identify and address barriers that queer-spectrum individuals face in STEM. 
    more » « less
  5. (, Society for the Scientific Study of Science annual meeting)
    During the COVID - 19 pandemic, the United States (US) operated a patchwork response of varying closures and restrictions that depended on individual states. At the federal level, efforts to address COVID - 19 risk focused primarily on elderly populations and largely ignored the disproportionately high risk of COVID - 19 exposure among Black , Latin x, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and otherwise queer - identifying (LGBTQ+) populations . These groups have elevated risk of COVID - 1 9 exposure due to social, political, and economic vulnerabilities that structure poor health. In this paper, I describe how a grassroots racial, sexual, and gender justice organization responded to state failings in meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ Black and Latinx populations during the COVID - 19 pandemic. Drawing from ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in Orlando, Florida, that began in 2016 following the Pulse shooting, I describe how a social justice organization advanced a notion of intersectional belonging in response to the absence of health and social services during the COVID - 19 pandemic. Specifically, I show how one organization, the Contigo Fund, created an LGBTQ+ COVID - 19 relief effort that provided financial assistance to Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ populations when the state of Florida failed to marshal resources for its most marginalized communities . The state’s failure is just one of many ways the state has historically refused to meet the needs of populations with intersecting queer and racial minority identities , reproducing longstanding health and social inequities. Overall, I argue that the Contigo Fund’s response demonstrates how grassroots mobilization can challenge the necropolitcs of state - sponsored neglect and advance health equity 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email