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Support from mainstream diversity initiatives would create a virtuous circle of visibility and benefit science for all, urges Jon Freeman.
At university in New York City in the 2000s, a professor warned me that I wouldn't get into any PhD programmes if I kept "looking" the way I did. During a single tenure-track job interview in 2011, 13 people asked me: "Do you have a wife?" And when I was an assistant professor, a colleague pulled aside a candidate for a postdoctoral position in my lab to let him know that I'm gay, just in case it would be a problem.
I doubt these people had bad intentions; much has changed since 1975, when gay men and lesbians were still banned from federal employment in the United States.
After all, this week, we mark the first International Day of LGBTQ+ People in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) with plenty of mainstream sponsors, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to the Wellcome Trust. But heteronormative assumptions can still create less conscious forms of bias, and an unwelcoming environment that puts scientists from sexual and gender minorities (LGBTQ) at a disadvantage.
And science should care more. People who identify as LGBTQ are leaking out of the scientific pipeline in similar ways to women and those from minority ethnic groups. But many initiatives to increase diversity do not support them. Including LGBTQ people in diversity initiatives would foster their representation, and it could bring in perspectives that improve science itself.
LESS VISIBLE LOSSES
Research on LGBTQ people in STEM is scarce, and complicated. Data are hard to collect, not least because sexual identity can be fluid or deliberately concealed. What studies there are, are sobering. Estimates suggest that LGBTQ people are 17-21% less represented in STEM fields than expected1,2. Male undergraduates from sexual minorities are much more likely than their straight counterparts to drop out of STEM degrees (see 'Leaky pipeline'), even though they're more likely to pursue practical research experience3. In fact, they are dropping out of STEM degrees at a higher rate than women overall3.
When LGBT Q people continue in STEM, they report more negative workplace experiences than do their counterparts in other industries, or than do non-LGBTQ scientists1. Among...