Quote:
Originally Posted by Kimmeh
Tangentially related: In addition to all that above, I'm queer. And I'm out. More than seeing more girls in STEM, I'd love to see more support for LGBTQ FIRST students. The STEM field is harder than most to come out in because it is so polarized by gender binaries and expectations. I've talked to a few teams about starting to get involved with supporting LGBTQ students in some of their outreach efforts and each of them has been worried about backlash from their school and parents. This is a topic I haven't seen brought up at all on CD. Regardless of your feelings on homosexuality or gender binaries and expectations, all of our students should feel supported and included.
If anyone, student or mentor, wants to talk to someone about identifying on the LGBTQ spectrum, my inbox is always open. Or heck, just pm me and let me know that I'm not the only queer CD'er on here.
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This is an interesting topic, and I am actually surprised by your experience, I would strongly recommend you start a thread discussing these types of issues. As an observation, the HS team I was on at least 50% of students were LGBTQ, I also attended an old very traditional engineering school that had a very active and well respected LGBTQ community, and now am working as an engineer and know many LGBTQ co-workers, I always believed the STEM community tended to be pretty accepting as there isn't much stress put on your personal life, but rather on your technical abilities, perhaps I am completely wrong about that, either way I think it warrants its own thread and discussion.