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Engineering as a field is dominated by toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, whiteness, and cisnormativity, as well as the promotion of objectiveness and depoliticization of identity. There is a dearth of knowledge surrounding transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) student experiences in engineering, and much of the [limited] available research on TGNC STEM student lives assumes a universalized trans experience, not taking into account intersecting marginal identities that can affect a student’s performance and sense of belonging in engineering or STEM environments. STEM-related research into marginalized populations’ experiences is often done without the use of feminist, queer, trans, and anti-racist research methodologies that take into consideration power imbalances between the researcher and participant and the implications of conducting research on and with subordinated population groups. This study addresses these research gaps. We used critical collaborative ethnographic site visits to center TGNC positionality and community-centered research ethics. Critical ethnographic methods put critical theories into action by rooting the participant’s experiences and study observations in larger global justice frameworks at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, culture, and disability. This framing places the researcher with the subjects to co-create results from the fieldwork, allowing students to retain power in the relationship with the researcher and exert some control over their portrayal in the research products. Further, marginalized population group research is best conducted by members of that population group so as to upset inherent power imbalances between the researcher and the participant. So, as a critical part of our methodology, our research team consists of transgender, gender nonconforming, and cisgender interdisciplinary researchers in engineering and women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS), with a transgender and queer WGSS researcher as the only point of contact with the TGNC research participants. This paper details the results from a 4-day critical collaborative ethnographic site visit involving two mechanical engineering students at a prestigious private university in the Northeastern United States. The activities of the visit included formal semi-structured interviews as well as less formal interactions with each participant, such as attending classes, visiting important campus and community spaces, or hanging out with the participant’s friend/peer groups. The visiting researcher also explored the college campus and the broader community on his own, noting the location's unique specificity. As predicted by previous literature and theoretical grounding and significant findings from previous phases of this research, the results pointed to the uniqueness of each student’s identity, location, political worldview, and support system. The two TGNC student participants, both with multiple intersecting marginal identities, had incredibly different experiences in the same mechanical engineering program, leading to one participant experiencing resounding success and the other leaving STEM altogether. The findings from this critical collaborative ethnographic site visit suggest that barriers to success or finding belonging for TGNC students in engineering must be considered through the use of intersectionality theory. 

Online research that solicits participation from marginalized communities or is conducted by scholars of marginalized identities may be targeted by individuals who intend to tamper with the study outcomes and/or harass the researchers. Our goal is to identify and interpret malicious responses recorded in a first-of-its-kind national questionnaire for transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) students in undergraduate engineering and computer science programs. Data categorized as malicious (50 of the 349 total responses) contained slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team. The data was coded inductively and discursively interpreted through social justice frameworks. The responses contained homophobic, transphobic, ableist, anti-Black, antisemitic, and anti-Indigenous content. Online memes associated with white nationalist and fascist movements were present throughout the data, alongside memes and content referencing gaming and “nerd” culture. Malicious responses can provide critical insight into the social conditions in STEM education. In application, we call for researchers to critically analyze, rather than discard, malicious data to shed light on these phenomena and generate empowering “counterspeech” to confront hate and reclaim agency. These findings show that social justice STEM education must include perspectives on online hate radicalization and center anti-colonial, intersectional solidarity organizing as its opposition.