Twenty-four scientists from around the globe—all of whom either identify as trans or have trans family members—have an urgent message for the scientific community: Sexual and gender minorities in science fields face various systemic barriers, and all members of the research community must strive to address them, the group writes today in Cell.
“It will be tempting for people with prejudices—unexamined or not—toward trans people to dismiss this piece as ‘woke,’” says author Fátima Sancheznieto (she/her/ella), a biomedical and social scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re challenging them to lean into their discomfort and read the piece with an open mind. If you consider the reality, which is that all the variables we lump into the category of sex exist on a spectrum, it can actually lead you to be more creative, rigorous, and precise with your science.”
Coming together to write the commentary “felt very organic,” says author Jess McLaughlin (they/them), an evolutionary biologist and genomics researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “It’s not like there’s a lot of trans scientists out there, so we reached out to people we knew.”
In addition to outlining concrete actions that people across the scientific community—from administrators, to researchers, to science communicators—can take to make science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) more inclusive, the authors also wove in messages of solidarity and support for other trans researchers. “We didn’t want trans people to see this and say, ‘I’ve read this before. This is just a milquetoast “Trans 101” about how to be an ally,’” Sancheznieto explains. “We wanted them to see themselves reflected in the piece and know that other people out there get the urgency and are pushing in a way that isn’t just keeping people comfortable and continuing the status quo.”
The commentary, part of a special Cell issue on sex and gender in science, comes at a crucial moment for many trans researchers living and working in the United States and beyond, where laws and policies undermining trans rights and health care are increasingly becoming the norm.
Science sat down with some of the authors to learn more about their work and the various challenges trans people in STEMM face today. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Fátima Sancheznieto: As a community, we’re hurting. When you’ve got the public debating your existence or seeing it as a threat, to the point where legislation across the country is actively leading to the deaths of people in our community, that takes a cognitive and emotional toll. We were writing this piece when the news about Nex Benedict hit, and we were all holding space for each other.
J.M.: When I heard the news about Nex, I couldn’t do anything for about a week, because it happened an hour away from where I did my Ph.D. How do I explain to my PI [principal investigator] that I couldn’t get the stuff done that I was supposed to this week, because it felt like the floor was falling out from under me?
Bittu Rajaraman (he/they), behavioral ecologist and psychologist at Ashoka University: India has a very large trans community, but every year, we’re losing a couple of people that we know personally to suicide and murder. A couple of us started to create a trans mentorship program, and we’re really getting a sense of how many individual scientists we’re losing to transphobia.
F.S.: On the other hand, we fought very hard to make sure that this commentary was not “trauma theater.” We wanted to demonstrate how difficult things are at this moment without going into aspects that really take it out of us emotionally.
Maeve McLaughlin (she/they) is a microbiologist at Michigan State University who studies bacteria and phages. “This piece wouldn’t have happened without the support of our incredible editor, Isabel Goldman, who is also trans,” she says. “She fought for the piece to get published, even when others thought that it was too controversial, because she knew the importance it would have for our community.”
J.M.: In one of my recent papers, I talk about how, if we don’t assume that animals have binary sex, we can actually become better evolutionary biologists. And I don’t think I would have been asking those questions if I wasn’t nonbinary. I’m always going for areas that are blurry and gray because I’m standing in a place that’s outside the binary.
B.R.: Being trans has helped me study the evolution of neural systems, because I don’t assume that things like neurodivergence, which are normatively considered to be “disorders” are necessarily evolutionary disadvantages. I also teach psychology, and being trans makes a huge difference in questioning the categorical validity of different structures.
F.S.: I do want to caution that, while being transgender brings diverse backgrounds and experiences to science, that should not be viewed as the only reason why we should be allowed to do science. It’s been incredibly beneficial to our work, but it shouldn’t be fetishized or seen as a superpower.
F.S.: There’s this whole historical context, rooted in colonialism and racism, that informs why you incorrectly see scientific rigor as rooted in binary sex.
S.S.: It’s also crucial to point out that, although our author group is diverse and includes trans people of many intersecting identities, there are no Black trans femmes who were able to contribute their perspective and voices. This is a failure both on our part as authors and our scientific institutions as they currently operate. Black trans femmes have been and currently are at the forefront of social liberation movements, while experiencing unique forms of targeted discrimination, oppression, and violence. There is an entire body of scholarship dedicated to identifying and describing the specific histories and structures that enable this form of harm to persist. As scientists, we must specifically name transmisogynoir as the reason for exclusion of Black trans femmes not just in these discussions, but in our academic institutions and scientific practice.
J.M.: There’s this expectation that, just by virtue of being trans in academia, you’re going to work on trans issues. And to an extent, you have to, because no one else is going to do it. I have this whole additional body of work that, if I were cis[gender], I wouldn’t be doing, and more importantly, I wouldn’t be expected to do. That’s a common experience for all sorts of groups that have been excluded from science historically.
J.M.: Early on, people told me that focusing on equity and inclusion would interfere with my academic career, that nobody would take me seriously as an evolutionary biologist, and that being nonbinary would stop me from getting a tenure-track job. And that’s just not true. There are a lot of people out there who actually do want to support trans scientists.
F.S.: We see you, we’re here, come find us. Because honestly, we can’t do this without each other.
Archive.
Notes (from me):
JM, AKA Jess McLaughlin, studies birds, not humans. She has published multiple articles on how sex isn't binary because reptiles can change sex via temperature changes.
Simone looks like this:
“It will be tempting for people with prejudices—unexamined or not—toward trans people to dismiss this piece as ‘woke,’” says author Fátima Sancheznieto (she/her/ella), a biomedical and social scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re challenging them to lean into their discomfort and read the piece with an open mind. If you consider the reality, which is that all the variables we lump into the category of sex exist on a spectrum, it can actually lead you to be more creative, rigorous, and precise with your science.”
Coming together to write the commentary “felt very organic,” says author Jess McLaughlin (they/them), an evolutionary biologist and genomics researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “It’s not like there’s a lot of trans scientists out there, so we reached out to people we knew.”
In addition to outlining concrete actions that people across the scientific community—from administrators, to researchers, to science communicators—can take to make science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM) more inclusive, the authors also wove in messages of solidarity and support for other trans researchers. “We didn’t want trans people to see this and say, ‘I’ve read this before. This is just a milquetoast “Trans 101” about how to be an ally,’” Sancheznieto explains. “We wanted them to see themselves reflected in the piece and know that other people out there get the urgency and are pushing in a way that isn’t just keeping people comfortable and continuing the status quo.”
The commentary, part of a special Cell issue on sex and gender in science, comes at a crucial moment for many trans researchers living and working in the United States and beyond, where laws and policies undermining trans rights and health care are increasingly becoming the norm.
Science sat down with some of the authors to learn more about their work and the various challenges trans people in STEMM face today. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: In your commentary, you talk about how some trans scientists may feel unsafe doing fieldwork in certain locations or face problems having their preferred name listed on publications. What are some other challenges to being trans in science—and in general?
Jess McLaughlin: I think all of us have made key career decisions based on where we can be safe. I was in a Ph.D. program in Oklahoma and ended up relocating to California. Being openly trans was a big part of that decision, and there was a period when it looked like that decision may have put my career at risk. There’s this expectation, which is especially common in the early-career stage, that you should be able to go anywhere to pursue opportunities. That’s not realistic for a wide range of people, but it’s particularly limiting when there are laws on the books that classify wearing the “wrong” gender’s clothing as adult entertainment.Fátima Sancheznieto: As a community, we’re hurting. When you’ve got the public debating your existence or seeing it as a threat, to the point where legislation across the country is actively leading to the deaths of people in our community, that takes a cognitive and emotional toll. We were writing this piece when the news about Nex Benedict hit, and we were all holding space for each other.
J.M.: When I heard the news about Nex, I couldn’t do anything for about a week, because it happened an hour away from where I did my Ph.D. How do I explain to my PI [principal investigator] that I couldn’t get the stuff done that I was supposed to this week, because it felt like the floor was falling out from under me?
Bittu Rajaraman (he/they), behavioral ecologist and psychologist at Ashoka University: India has a very large trans community, but every year, we’re losing a couple of people that we know personally to suicide and murder. A couple of us started to create a trans mentorship program, and we’re really getting a sense of how many individual scientists we’re losing to transphobia.
F.S.: On the other hand, we fought very hard to make sure that this commentary was not “trauma theater.” We wanted to demonstrate how difficult things are at this moment without going into aspects that really take it out of us emotionally.
Maeve McLaughlin (she/they) is a microbiologist at Michigan State University who studies bacteria and phages. “This piece wouldn’t have happened without the support of our incredible editor, Isabel Goldman, who is also trans,” she says. “She fought for the piece to get published, even when others thought that it was too controversial, because she knew the importance it would have for our community.”
Q: Do you feel that your trans identity helps you do better science? How so?
Simón(e) Sun (they/she), neuroendocrinologist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory: As someone who has gone through some form of gender transition and experienced changes to my own biology, it’s very motivating to wonder what precisely is going on. What genes are changing because of hormone fluctuations? What areas of the brain are they affecting, and how may that contribute to mood and behavior? These things are no longer abstract, but truly experienced.J.M.: In one of my recent papers, I talk about how, if we don’t assume that animals have binary sex, we can actually become better evolutionary biologists. And I don’t think I would have been asking those questions if I wasn’t nonbinary. I’m always going for areas that are blurry and gray because I’m standing in a place that’s outside the binary.
B.R.: Being trans has helped me study the evolution of neural systems, because I don’t assume that things like neurodivergence, which are normatively considered to be “disorders” are necessarily evolutionary disadvantages. I also teach psychology, and being trans makes a huge difference in questioning the categorical validity of different structures.
F.S.: I do want to caution that, while being transgender brings diverse backgrounds and experiences to science, that should not be viewed as the only reason why we should be allowed to do science. It’s been incredibly beneficial to our work, but it shouldn’t be fetishized or seen as a superpower.
Q: Could you speak more about the history of trans people in science?
S.S.: Historically, certain scientific approaches and institutions were targeted by people who had ideological antagonisms to the idea of sex and gender diversity. The library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft [Institute for Sexual Science], which contained groundbreaking research on sex and gender diversity, was burned away by the Nazis. And in the early 20th century, we had the “eugenics boom” within the biomedical sciences, which placed value judgments on certain traits that were supposedly rooted in “scientific evidence.” We look back on that now as a “dark history,” but I don’t think the scientific community has really grappled with it.F.S.: There’s this whole historical context, rooted in colonialism and racism, that informs why you incorrectly see scientific rigor as rooted in binary sex.
S.S.: It’s also crucial to point out that, although our author group is diverse and includes trans people of many intersecting identities, there are no Black trans femmes who were able to contribute their perspective and voices. This is a failure both on our part as authors and our scientific institutions as they currently operate. Black trans femmes have been and currently are at the forefront of social liberation movements, while experiencing unique forms of targeted discrimination, oppression, and violence. There is an entire body of scholarship dedicated to identifying and describing the specific histories and structures that enable this form of harm to persist. As scientists, we must specifically name transmisogynoir as the reason for exclusion of Black trans femmes not just in these discussions, but in our academic institutions and scientific practice.
Q: Are any of you working on any trans research that you’re particularly excited about?
S.S.: I get a little worried answering this type of question, because I think that having the word “trans” in front of “research” implies that the research is exclusively limited or applicable to trans people. If I’m doing a study on a selective estrogen receptor modulator, for example, it could help us improve the health of people who need some kind of alternative hormone therapy. There’s a way to frame that as trans science, but we all have hormones. Trans scientists shouldn’t be treated as a subpopulation, but as part of a larger scientific community working together to improve our knowledge.J.M.: There’s this expectation that, just by virtue of being trans in academia, you’re going to work on trans issues. And to an extent, you have to, because no one else is going to do it. I have this whole additional body of work that, if I were cis[gender], I wouldn’t be doing, and more importantly, I wouldn’t be expected to do. That’s a common experience for all sorts of groups that have been excluded from science historically.
Q: Any final thoughts?
B.R.: This new generation of students is so much more trans-inclusive and open to a whole host of possibilities, and I think it’s important to open their eyes in ways that aren’t just limited to understanding transness. We want them to critically question what they’re told.J.M.: Early on, people told me that focusing on equity and inclusion would interfere with my academic career, that nobody would take me seriously as an evolutionary biologist, and that being nonbinary would stop me from getting a tenure-track job. And that’s just not true. There are a lot of people out there who actually do want to support trans scientists.
F.S.: We see you, we’re here, come find us. Because honestly, we can’t do this without each other.
Archive.
Notes (from me):
JM, AKA Jess McLaughlin, studies birds, not humans. She has published multiple articles on how sex isn't binary because reptiles can change sex via temperature changes.
Simone looks like this:
They all pretty much look exactly how I thought they'd look.
