Where are the Gays? A Systematized Literature Review of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) STEM Practitioners

Kevin Kaufman-Ortiz; Hector Rodriguez-Simmonds

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: Social Identities and STEM Experiences: Equity, Culture & Social Justice in Education Division Technical Session 6
Page Count: 22
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41785
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41785
Download Count: 993

Paper Authors

biography

Kevin Kaufman-Ortiz Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE)

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Kevin Jay Kaufman-Ortiz is from Hormigueros, Puerto Rico. He is an identical triplet, was raised with his brothers in the small town of Hormigueros. He picked up on interests in origami, music, engineering, and education throughout his life. With a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and a certification to teach high school mathematics in Puerto Rico, Kevin has shaped his path to empower others in his learning process. He is currently a Ph.D. student at Purdue University studying Engineering Education. Social causes Kevin cares about are bringing more awareness about the diversity within the LGBTQ+ community in engineering, Belonging and deconstructing what Latinx actually means for communities like Puerto Rico.

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biography

Hector Rodriguez-Simmonds Purdue Engineering Education

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Héctor is committed to fostering a culture of support and empowerment for LGBTQ+ students in STEM by using asset-based frameworks to investigate their experiences at the intersection of their identities.

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Abstract

STEM practitioners work with individuals from different backgrounds and identities. Understanding and respecting differences can help foster more inclusive and warmer climates for traditionally minoritized individuals. Stereotypes and closed-minded views of LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and engineers tend to create hostile environments. Furthermore, the minoritization of LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM spaces interweaves with other identity categories. Therefore, it’s valuable to create more inclusive STEM and engineering spaces, especially while paying attention to the experiences of LGBTQ+ practitioners and their interwoven identities.

Motivated to understand our engineering education experiences through the literature, the authors individually conducted unpublished systematized literature reviews in 2017 and 2021. These reviews queried engineering learners' needs, experiences, and lives at the intersection of their LGBTQ+, engineering, and Latinx identities. Unfortunately, we did not find any literature at this intersection. As a result, we separately decided to focus on LGBTQ+ students in STEM and collaborate to create this systematized literature review as a springboard for further research.

The authors of this paper both identify as gay engineers and Latinx. We use "Latinx/a/o/e" reluctantly because these words feel externally imposed and used to "bin" individuals. Most often, they feel unnatural because the terms are imprecise and ignore our cultural lineages. As gay Latinx engineers, we have seemingly similar ethnicities and cultures, and different relationships with the United States.

We created a reproducible search string for this study that we used to find peer-reviewed journal articles discussing LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM. We found articles across several databases and qualitatively coded them based on their titles and abstracts. In our findings, we synthesize the final papers into themes: 1. Cultural attributes of STEM and how they affect LGBTQ+ practitioners 2. Institutional policies and systems affect LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and help produce positive changes These two themes point to aspects of STEM to consider when fostering inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ students of minoritized backgrounds. STEM practitioners should not feel the need to pass as straight or white, eliminate or cover their ethnic culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other part of themselves, or manifest prescriptive notions of masculinity to succeed in engineering. Future work should include examining more unique perspectives of LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and engineers at their racial, ethnic, cultural, gendered, and neurodivergent intersecting identities.

Keywords: LGBTQ+, diversity, inclusion, STEM, intersectionality, climate, sexual orientation, passing, covering, dualism, meritocracy, depoliticization

Citation
Format

Kaufman-Ortiz, K., & Rodriguez-Simmonds, H. (2022, August), Where are the Gays? A Systematized Literature Review of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) STEM Practitioners Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41785

TY - CPAPER
AB - STEM practitioners work with individuals from different backgrounds and identities. Understanding and respecting differences can help foster more inclusive and warmer climates for traditionally minoritized individuals. Stereotypes and closed-minded views of LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and engineers tend to create hostile environments. Furthermore, the minoritization of LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM spaces interweaves with other identity categories. Therefore, it’s valuable to create more inclusive STEM and engineering spaces, especially while paying attention to the experiences of LGBTQ+ practitioners and their interwoven identities.

Motivated to understand our engineering education experiences through the literature, the authors individually conducted unpublished systematized literature reviews in 2017 and 2021. These reviews queried engineering learners' needs, experiences, and lives at the intersection of their LGBTQ+, engineering, and Latinx identities. Unfortunately, we did not find any literature at this intersection. As a result, we separately decided to focus on LGBTQ+ students in STEM and collaborate to create this systematized literature review as a springboard for further research.

The authors of this paper both identify as gay engineers and Latinx. We use "Latinx/a/o/e" reluctantly because these words feel externally imposed and used to "bin" individuals. Most often, they feel unnatural because the terms are imprecise and ignore our cultural lineages. As gay Latinx engineers, we have seemingly similar ethnicities and cultures, and different relationships with the United States.

We created a reproducible search string for this study that we used to find peer-reviewed journal articles discussing LGBTQ+ individuals in STEM. We found articles across several databases and qualitatively coded them based on their titles and abstracts. In our findings, we synthesize the final papers into themes:
1. Cultural attributes of STEM and how they affect LGBTQ+ practitioners
2. Institutional policies and systems affect LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and help produce positive changes
These two themes point to aspects of STEM to consider when fostering inclusive spaces for LGBTQ+ students of minoritized backgrounds. STEM practitioners should not feel the need to pass as straight or white, eliminate or cover their ethnic culture, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other part of themselves, or manifest prescriptive notions of masculinity to succeed in engineering. Future work should include examining more unique perspectives of LGBTQ+ STEM practitioners and engineers at their racial, ethnic, cultural, gendered, and neurodivergent intersecting identities.

Keywords: LGBTQ+, diversity, inclusion, STEM, intersectionality, climate, sexual orientation, passing, covering, dualism, meritocracy, depoliticization
AU - Kevin Kaufman-Ortiz
AU - Hector Rodriguez-Simmonds
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Where are the Gays? A Systematized Literature Review of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) STEM Practitioners
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41785
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41785
ER -