LGB Engineers, You Aren't Alone

Don't worry about the black box.
You'll learn it when you're a grad student. (S)

I just read Navigating the Heteronormativity of Engineering; The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students by Cech and Waidzunas, and I really connected with what they wrote. This paper discussed the challenges that LGB individuals face in engineering school. I am sorry that I am not including transgendered or asexual people in this article. The article I just read did not mention the experiences of asexuals or transgendered people, and I have not had enough conversations with transgendered or asexual people in engineering to feel that I can write about their experiences, so that is why I have chosen to not include them in this article. I hear there are a lot of transgendered people in coding, so if anyone knows about that, I would love to hear more.

What I can say for certain, is engineering is difficult, so LGB people in engineering are already in a difficult place. But what makes this experience especially difficult at some institutions is perceived incompetency of Gays and Lesbians, the silence around queer issues, the separation of the personal life and professional life, and the need to "pass." I see all of these arising out of the lack of dialogue and perceptions of incompetence, so I will talk about these two subjects in this blog post.

Cech and Waidzunas explain in their paper why QUILTBAG inequality in engineering is not being addressed or even discussed. "Broadly, the technical/social dualism casts issues like the experiences of LGB students as “social” or “political” and thus irrelevant to serious discussions about the profession in classrooms, office hours, or study groups. The rendering of engineering as an “apolitical” and “technical” space, combined with the relegation of equality issues to the “social” may marginalize LGB students and lead them to feel as though discussions of their particular circumstances are silenced.” I think that the social and political are very much relevant when doing engineering, but I can see why some would think social and political issues do not have a place in the classroom, office hours or study groups. Unfortunately, engineering is such an intense course of study that we spend a great majority of our time studying or working on group projects, so that leaves very little room outside of technical settings.

The rigor of engineering combined with the technical/social dualism contributes to the silencing of LGBTQ experiences. All engineers know that engineering is a very difficult major and that many people drop out of engineering and change out to other majors. We take pride in our choice to stay and our ability to survive and sometimes even thrive. Because we place so much value on the technical, we tend to dismiss social and political discussions, because those are seen as the realm of the liberal arts students whom we generally look down upon. Just for clarification, I do not look down on the liberal arts, but some of my peers do, and it upsets me.

Images like this are what we're up against. (S).

The identity of engineers is also compromised by perceived incompetency. Imagine a gay man. Did the guy you think about look a bit fabulous? Maybe you thought of an artist with green hair or that funny guy on YouTube. Whomever you thought of, he probably wasn’t that machinist working the lathe. The stereotypes of gay men unfortunately come into conflict with common perceptions of engineers. 

Additionally, engineering is generally seen as a very masculine endeavor, and because gay men are stereotyped as less masculine than heterosexual men, they are seen as less competent. In contrast, but in line with the same ridiculous logic, lesbians are seen as more competent than heterosexual females because they are generally perceived as more butch, and therefore more capable of the manly engineering tasks. Unfortunately though, because females are generally perceived—very incorrectly—as less competent, lesbians are not seen as equal to heterosexual men. All this is disappointing, and we know these views are inaccurate, so we must challenge these perceptions by being open and excelling at what we do. We should also have discussions about perceived incompetency, and about the things we say and the way we delegate tasks in group projects.

I attend Olin College of Engineering, and during our first year, we discussed gender and team dynamics. One thing we were asked was to think about is what roles we imagine ourselves in. After a survey, the majority of people who saw themselves in advertising and PR roles were female, and the majority of people who saw themselves in specialized technical roles, creative roles and machining roles were men. So, think about what tasks people are doing. School is about learning, and not just making something cool, so let everyone get experience in PR, the machine shop and coding. If you find yourself consistently assigned one role, and you have curiosity about another role, do not hesitate to try it out. It is very valuable.

Check it out :)    (s)

We can also start oSTEM chapters at our schools. oSTEM stands for Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and oSTEM is a “national society dedicated to educating and fostering leadership for LGBTQA communities in the STEM fields”. Through oSTEM, you can find LGBTQA professionals in engineering, bring them to your campus for talks, and attend the Out To Innovate conference in October. This past year, they held the Out For UndergraduateTechnology conference. I am really looking forward to Out to Innovate. I’m at a small school (~340) people, and I am one of two gay males at my school. People at my school are very supportive, and I do not face the discrimination I have heard of at other schools and read about in the report, but sometimes because of the lack of gay peers, I feel isolated in my experiences. I could be at a liberal arts school right now, surrounded by gay peers, but I choose to study engineering because I really want to be able to understand the highly technical world we live in. I encourage all high school students to consider attending engineering school.

The droids are so cute! (s)

Outside of experiences in school, there is a lot of hope for LGBT professionals. The National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals published a report in 2009 stating that the top engineering companies in the country are very LGBT friendly. But to be careful, it's good to talk to people from these companies to get the truth, because sometimes reports don't fully capture the truth, and organizations aren't as strong or active as you might expect. I’ve been the Boston and RI pride, and it was very exciting to meet queer representatives from Amgen, Google(more specifically, the Gayglers) and Microsoft. It makes me happy so see that people have created their own spaces at work, and it gives me hope for the time when I get an engineering job.

Works Cited:

¹ Cheh, E. and Waidzunas, T., “Engineers Who Happen to Be Gay: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students’ Experiences in Engineering” (2009). Proceedings of the 2009 Conference of the American Society for Engineering Education.

² National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals. “Career Opportunities for LGBT Science, Engineering, and Technology Graduates: Brighter Than Ever” (2009).