LGBT & Diversity in the STEM workplace

I recently attended the LoneStar PHP conference in Texas. Right now you may be thinking, “PHP, what’s that?” I’m an application developer, and PHP is the language that I use to program web applications at work. That’s not what I’m here to share with you. I would like to highlight and recap a single relevant talk from this conference, “Programming Diversity” which was presented by Ashe Dryden.
 

She spoke about a common topic these days: “In the US, women earn 80.9% of what men do” for the same exact job positions. I was thankful though, because she showed recognition not just for how highly straight white male the STEM (Science, Technology, Education, Math) industries are, but also how very few LGBT members are in this community.

Google Is So Much Gayer Than You Thought

Some of you may remember this from last summer when
a rainbow appeared when searching for LGBT topics (S)

Google is so gay! That's why the American Family Association, or Buster Wilson in particular, along with all the other homophobic bigots, currently have their garments in a twist.

Since Google announced its 'Legalize Love' campaign a few days ago, homophobes all over the internet have been threatening to boycott Google for supporting gay rights.

But they obviously haven't been too observant over the last year or so, pictured left is a screenshot of the Google search bar from last summer for instance.

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.

The First Gay Computer Scientist

My Sketchup of a Turing Machine

Alan Turing, the father of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, created the Turing Machine in 1936. The Turing Machine was more of a concept than an actual machine. All computers run on algorithms, and Alan Turing created the idea for how a "computer" (envisioned at the time as an actual person!) could follow an algorithm.