Queer in STEM - Pride Month 2025 Reflections
6/17/2025 8:13 am
The first person I ever came out to is a proud lesbian engineer. For me, being queer and being in STEM go hand-in-hand. I know that is a privileged view to have in the very cisgender and male-dominated STEM fields, and I’ve been very lucky to have the people I work with who care about me and my identity.
For me, there aren't many major moments that characterize being queer in STEM. The only big one is coming out to the great Jenni Buckley at the University of Delaware and being met with love, acceptance, and a resounding feeling of support. My experience being queer in STEM is really characterized by the small, everyday moments that could easily go unnoticed. However, I'm trying to notice them and let them fill me with positivity, because there's not enough of that to go around.
It's the Pride stickers on the doors of probably half the offices in the engineering buildings.
In the middle of a very red state, I didn’t expect to feel so seen or supported by my colleagues. But at my institution, there are more queer people and more allies than I ever hoped for. My office neighbor is trans. I’ve joined a book club where many members are queer and the others are staunch allies. And there’s a queer faculty/staff organization that hosts monthly happy hours. It’s not perfect, obviously, it’s still central Pennsylvania, but the people that I see every day and the people that matter have my back. And they tell me that – verbally and nonverbally.
It's the students who tell me they like the rainbow stickers on my own door.
I have multiple stickers and similar things on my door. Some of them, I placed on the outer surface of the window for the best visibility. But the rainbow ones, stuck there in early August of my first academic year, I put on the inside of the window, fearing vandalism. Luckily, and happily, that fear appears completely unfounded. Instead of hatred, the people who see those stickers seem to enjoy them, like I do.
It's hearing students use a trans student's mixed pronouns without a second thought. And then hearing them use mine correctly too.
Of course, people still mess up sometimes, but it happens so much less frequently than I expected. And again, the people who actually matter are the people who get it right all the time. And a surprising number of people I don’t know also get it right.
I guess I need to be better about not assuming the worst of people, because reality has been so much better than my expectations. I know that’s not the case for everyone, but maybe as more and more people have similar small positive experiences, experiencing hatred for being queer will no longer be the expectation.
I don't usually think I make much of an impact as a queer person. I came out about 3 years ago in grad school to the most accepting group of people in the world, so I never had most of the typical queer coming-of-age moments. I've only been to one Pride celebration. I'm not particularly visibly queer on social media, or particularly outspoken in general. I'm a fairly quiet person who likes a fairly quiet life who is also queer (but no less proud of it).
But when I see various Pride stickers on students' personal belongings and know they feel safe enough to share that with me, I start to think that maybe just existing as I am is visible enough.
When I was asked to write this, I initially thought that I didn’t have any significant experiences worth sharing about being queer in STEM. But after actually reflecting on it, I realized that sometimes the small experiences are the most meaningful. Because added together, they are worth more than the sum of their parts—they are worth friendship and support and a sense of belonging that I wasn’t expecting but am so glad I have.
Author
Margo Donlin, Ph.D. (they/them) (Bucknell University)
