Category Archives: queer

Hello, SciAm readers!

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If you’ve just arrived here on account of my contribution to the Scientific American guest blog, welcome! I hope you’ll have a look through the archives, and consider adding me to your regular online reading. Allow me to suggest a few posts that should give you an idea about what’s going on here:

Only a week left to contribute to the Diversity in Science blog carnival

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Diversity in Science CarnivalThere’s just a week left to send in your posts for the Pride edition of the Diversity in Science Blog Carnival. The carnival will be right here at Denim and Tweed on 30 June, so I need submissions by the 27th so as to have time to put it all together.

Let me add a point I don’t think I’ve made before: blog carnivals are traditionally about aggregating links to blog posts, but you don’t have to write a thousand-word essay to contribute. You can send in photos, videos, even favorite songs—or send links to other folks’ work (credited appropriately!) that you think the DiS audience would appreciate. Carnivals celebrate by aggregating, and we’re interested in all kinds of media.

You can submit posts and other material directly to me by e-mailing a link, or use the handy online form Alberto Roca has set up at MinorityPostdoc.

Thanks to all the folks who have contributed so far!

From the archive: Evolution’s Rainbow

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White-throated sparrow Photo by hjhipster.

No new science post this week, because I’m taking my time to put together a (hopefully) particularly good, detailed article for the near future. In the meantime, let me suggest something from the D&T archives for Pride month, in advance of the Diversity in Science carnival in a couple weeks. Specifically, my review of Joan Roughgarden’s survey of sexuality across the animal kingdom, Evolution’s Rainbow:

This interest in the evolutionary context of diversity would eventually become much more personal. In 1998, [Roughgarden] came out as transgendered, taking the name Joan after decades spent establishing her scientific reputation under the name she was given at birth, Jonathan. In addition to the challenges inherent to gender transition, Roughgarden’s expertise intersects with her identity in one awkward question: in a biological world shaped by natural selection, how can we explain the evolution of lesbians, gay men, and transgendered people—individuals who are not interested in sexual activity that passes on their genes?

Roughgarden’s answer was to begin a program of research questioning the dominant way of thinking about sex in an evolutionary context. In 2004, she presented her conclusions comprehensively in the book Evolution’s Rainbow, calling for biologists to re-think they way they understood and described sexual behavior throughout the animal kingdom. As another biologist with an admitted personal interest in the question, I’ve found Evolution’s Rainbow to be a great starting point for thinking about sexuality in an evolutionary context.

For in-depth looks at three examples of “alternative” animal lifestyles and the reception Roughgarden’s ideas met in the broader evolutionary biology community, go read the whole post.

Show off your pride and your science! Diversity in Science Carnival submissions due 27 June

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Photo by littleREDelf.

Happy Pride Month! There’s just 26 days left to send in your posts for a special Pride edition of the Diversity in Science Blog Carnival to be hosted right here at Denim and Tweed at the end of the month.

Diversity in Science CarnivalAlberto Roca of Minority Postdoc and I are looking for blog posts and other online writing about the science of human sexual diversity, the experiences of sexual minorities in the sciences, and everything in between. Write something brand new, or submit a classic post. Tell us how science, engineering, or technology helped it get better for you—or tell us how they didn’t help at all.

You can submit posts directly to me by e-mailing a link, or use the handy online form Alberto has set up. Please send submissions by Monday, 27 June so I have time to put everything together for the 30th.

Thanks to all the folks who have contributed so far—it’s shaping up to be a great carnival.

Diversity in Science Carnival, now with online submission form

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Diversity in Science CarnivalTo celebrate Pride Month 2011 (just eight shopping days left!), Denim and Tweed is hosting a relaunched Diversity in Science blog carnival, collecting online writing about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues from across the science blogosphere. Alberto Roca of Minority Postdoc is leading the DiS relaunch, and he’s just created a handy online submission form for the carnival.

So now sending in your posts—new for June or years old—is as easy as copying a permanent URL into the form (preferably in the “message” box) and signing it with your e-mail address. What are you waiting for? [Edited to add:] You have until Monday, 27 June to submit, so I can put the carnival online by the 30th!

The Daily Show on the Minneapolis gay scene

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Following up on The Advocate’s declaration that Minneapolis (soon to be one of my two new hometowns), is the gayest city in America, a Daily Show investigation compares Minneapolis to the San Francisco to determine whether the new gay is Minnesota nice. I must admit, banana bread is more my speed, although I’m not so sure about patronizing Target.

Don’t watch unless you don’t mind and/or want to see Jason Jones in a, um, compromising position. Not just shopping at Target, either.

Via The Blotter.

Coming in June: The Diversity in Science Carnival relaunches for Pride Month

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Updated, Friday 13 May: Added a suggested topic and a link to the “recent NAS report.”

Diversity in Science CarnivalJune is Pride Month in the U.S., and I’m proud to be joining Alberto Roca of Minority Postdoc to commemorate the month with a blog carnival. On 30 June, Denim and Tweed will host a new entry in the Diversity in Science blog carnival, collecting posts about sexual minorities in the sciences, the science of sexual minorities, and more. For Coming Out Day last October, Steve Silberman and Maggie Koerth-Baker did a fantastic job bringing together the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered scientists and engineers—Alberto and I are hoping to build on and extend that theme.

GLBT folks and allies who work in the sciences or write about science are invited to submit new posts as well as relevant pieces from their archives. We don’t have a Blog Carnivals submission page online yet (Alberto is working on reviving the DIS page), but you can send links with background information to me at the Denim and Tweed e-mail account—just put “Pride Month blog carnival” in the subject line. Please submit by Monday, 27 June to give me time to put together the carnival post.

Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Inspiring personal/career stories of famous scientists/leaders
  • History of the science, scientists, & subpopulation politics (e.g. Pride month primer)
  • Reflections of one’s own identity and its impact on one’s career/science
  • Relevant subpopulation identity issues in science, medicine , health, etc (e.g. recent NAS report)
  • Career & Professional Resources: websites, articles, books, events, funding, etc
  • Outreach & mentoring activities to give back to the community (e.g. helping vulnerable high school students)
  • Advocacy/leadership stories and opportunities
  • Stories of safe space work environments in academia, industry, government, etc.
  • Being a minority within a minority: LGBT scientists of color
  • Building relations with and educating allies
  • Specific topics unique to the LGBT community including gender identity and expression
  • Coming to terms with being a minority in a majority environment

Again, while we’re hoping to prompt new writing on these topics, we’re also delighted to have folks contribute previously posted work. Please send links to specific posts, and include any information you think might be helpful for me to introduce your contribution.

Help make it better for queer students at U of I

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The Palouse in summer. Photo by jby.

Just as I’m wrapping up my time at the University of Idaho, the University’s LGBTQA Office is starting up an important new initiative: an emergency fund for queer students who’ve been disowned by their parents.

Moscow, Idaho, isn’t what you’d think of as a good place to come out of the closet—it’s a tiny university town in the middle of lots and lots of farmland. But Moscow is disproportionately queer-friendly for its size, and many U of I students come from even smaller, more isolated, much more conservative towns in other parts of the state. For queer students coming from towns like that, Moscow is the first town they’ve ever lived in with a any kind of queer community, and the first chance they’ve ever had to explore and express their identities without fear of ostracism or worse.

Unfortunately, parents back in small, hyper-conservative Idaho towns are not necessarily supportive when a son or daughter comes to terms with a new sexual identity at university. Often that means strained relations buffered by a six-hour cross-state drive. Sometimes, though, it’s meant that U of I students who come out to their parents—or who are outed—find themselves cut off financially in the middle of earning a degree.

To help make sure that students in such a situation can continue their studies, the LGBTQA Office is starting an emergency scholarship fund. It’ll be enough, hopefully, to provide for basic needs, help such students achieve financial independence, and give them breathing space to change their status with the IRS so they can apply for financial aid directly, to replace what they used to have through their parents. The current goal is to raise $5,000 as a first step toward building a self-sustaining fund.

So I thought I’d ask you, Dear Readers: can you help?

This is still all so new that there isn’t yet a web page devoted to the project, or a means to donate online. (A page is in the works, and I’ll alert/pester you again when it’s online.) So if you want to help, make out a check to the UI Women’s Center, with “LGBTQ Emergency Fund” in the memo line, and mail it to

LGBTQA Office at Women’s Center
PO Box 441064
Moscow, ID 83844
USA

You can also e-mail Rebecca Rod, the LGBTQA Coordinator, with questions about the fund.

Thanks in advance.

Queering ecology

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Eastern bluebird, car. Photo by Automania.

Via Kate Clancy at Context and Variation: Alex Johnson takes a look at the way we think and write about the natural world, and finds it wanting.

Our culture sets Nature as the highest bar for decorum, while simultaneously giving Nature our lowest standard of respect. Nature is at our disposal, not only for our physical consumption, but also for our social construction. We call geese beautiful and elegant and faithful until they are shitting all over the lawn and terrorizing young children. Then we poison their eggs. Or shoot them.

Having popped the naturalistic fallacy with a few pokes, Johnson proposes queering ecology—a deliberate reference to the term’s usage in human sexuality—to better acknowledge the complications of the natural world and humans’ relationships to it. That summary doesn’t do the work justice, though—go read the whole thing.

(Kate linked to this more-or-less alongside my first volley in the old adaptive homophobia kerfuffle, but Johnson’s essay is another order of thought altogether. Also, how cool is it that I can just go to Flickr and find an illustration for Johnson’s point with a simple keyword search? Pretty cool, I think.)