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Visualizing and normalizing is crucial to ensure the permanence of LGBTQ+ people in scientific production.
This year marks a change for the pride celebration in the STEM community. The international annual celebration LGBTQ+ in STEM Day (18 November) moves from July to November to align with the date of another significant event, namely, the 60th anniversary of the judicial fight in the U.S. courts of the astronomer and activist Frank Kameny to regain his right to work, having been retired due to homophobic discrimination.
The right to a non-discriminatory workspace is something that continues to be pursued in all areas. For LGBT people working in science, there is still a long way to go. According to the charity fund Pride in STEM, 28% of LGBTQ+ people have considered abandoning their jobs in scientific production due to a hostile work environment and 20% of trans people. In the epistemic field of physics, half of the trans and non-binary students are harassed within their academic departments.
Visibility is one of the fundamental ways to raise awareness about the value of LGBTQ+ people’s work in science, humanize them, and normalize them within STEM disciplines. In commemoration of this date, we review the work and experience of non-heteronormative people who have provided historical contributions to science.
The great codebreaker: Alan Turing
The range of disciplines that Alan Turing dominated was vast and impressive. The English academician navigated the epistemic terrains of mathematics, computer science, logic, cryptoanalysis, biological theory, and philosophy. If the era in which he lived had been as diverse as the fields he studied, we would not need a date to commemorate the fight against homophobia.
Also called the father of artificial intelligence, Turing was responsible for extraordinary contributions to the effort of the Allies during World War II and the advancement of science. One of his most outstanding achievements was creating the electromechanical device Bombe, conceived and built to crack the Enigma code, a high German cipher for Nazi military communications. Thanks to this, the Allies could preempt various German strategies during the conflict, crucial to Germany’s defeat in 1945. The ingenious machine was also a precursor to the digital electronic programmable computer.
Turing was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his contribution at the end of the war. In 1952, he was arrested by the authorities for homosexual conduct. To avoid a prison sentence, the scientist opted for chemical castration, which was considered a proper medical treatment at the time. Turing died just two years later, ingesting an apple with cyanide. Queen Elizabeth granted him a royal pardon in December 2013, 60 years after his death.
The medical detective: Sara Josephine Baker
Baker’s contributions to medicine were instrumental in shaping the prevention strategies and policies we have today, invaluable in times of pandemic. She was the first director of the Bureau of Child Hygiene in New York. She worked continuously in areas inhabited by immigrant families and devoted much of her work to improving health initiatives for children and mothers in the United States.
By the end of her first year as director, infant mortality in the city dropped to just 1,200 deaths. Perhaps this number sounds alarming, but putting it in proportion, 90,000 children survived in 1908 thanks to Baker’s work. The Doctor is also known for her outstanding work against epidemics such as the first typhoid outbreak and her fierce pursuit to find patient zero: the cook, Mary Mallon.
Beyond her work as a physician, Baker was a militant feminist and suffragette when the female vote and the efforts to achieve it were outside the framework of the law. She was part of the first feminist march in the United States, in which 500 women visited President Woodrow Wilson to advocate for the right to vote.
Similarly, she sought to conceptualize, make visible, and normalize her sexual orientation at a time when the Victorian tradition, that romanticized female friendship, was just beginning to see the greys in female and fraternal attractions, as well the discourse that differentiated that kind of bonding from same sex relationships between women.
The curiosity of science: Ben Barres
One of the most outstanding neuroscience researchers, Barres is remembered primarily for his scientific curiosity, in addition to his enormous dedication and affection for the academic and student community. The professor also focused his study on the glial cells, the most numerous but less popular companions of neurons. These cells allow the communication and integration of neural networks. Barres studied their role in the development of diseases.
In collaboration with various scientists and academicians, Barres made discoveries that revolutionized the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and embolism. According to his results, what motivates these disorders is how glial cells reverse their process, switching from nourishing neurons to destroying them. This epistemic advance potentiates the development of medical care that could save millions of lives in the near future.
The computer whisperer: Lyn Conway
1968 was not a historically quiet year. It was even less so for those who discovered their sexual preferences and gender identity outside of heteronormativity. This was the case of Lyn Conway, a computer science expert, electrical engineer, inventor, and transgender woman who, after a process of transition, had a sex change operation. She was fired by IBM after they told her they would support her. Activism for transgender rights and education became second nature to her in the wake of this event.
Conway made numerous contributions that marked significant advances in computer science. One of the most fundamental was the generalized dynamic instruction handling, a vital resource for increasing the performance of computer processors. In addition to this, she developed large-scale integration chips (VLSI) and textbooks on designing them. The landscape of computer technology would not be the same without her continued contributions to computer science and transgender rights.
Have you heard of some of these pillars of science? Do you know anyone else you would like to mention and commemorate? Have you suffered discrimination in the laboratory, classroom, or workplace for being part of the LGBTQ + community? Let us know in the comments.
Translation by Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
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