<scp>ESA</scp> 2024 Inspire Session: Experiences and Recommendations from Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students and Professionals in Field Ecology

Transgender and gender nonconforming (TGnC) scientists face many unique barriers to careers in field ecology. While traveling to field sites, body scanners at airports can trigger invasive pat-downs or harassment, and driving through states with restrictive laws may mean facing limited access to public restrooms or increased risks of harassment based on appearance. Even at field sites, the local laws targeting TGnC individuals can increase anxiety and risk, especially if medical emergencies arise. Humans can easily become one of the greatest field hazards. To address these barriers, we organized a series of presentations for a TGnC-focused session at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Long Beach, California. We explored the experiences of TGnC field ecologists and highlighted their resilience, challenges, and triumphs. Centering on three key themes—overcoming barriers, finding gender euphoria in fieldwork, and fostering allyship—we aimed to shed light on what it takes to create safer, more inclusive spaces in the field. Here, we summarize those presentations to continue amplifying the voices of TGnC ecologists across various career tracks and stages to inspire meaningful changes in the field ecology community. Over the past 6 years, I have worked numerous seasonal field jobs in different states with the goal of advancing my career in biology. For most of us, this is the reality of biology; we often travel to seek the best professional opportunities. About 3 years into this journey, I began transitioning from male to female and living as a woman. From then on, I had to make a particular effort to seek workplaces where I could do my best work untroubled by transphobia. I would like to share the process I used, with the hope it could be helpful to aspiring transgender scientists or allies who might want to know what it is like from our perspective. For transgender and other gender-nonconforming people, job-hunting is a minefield with many layers. The highest level we must consider is the country in which a job posting is located, then the state/province, the city, the institution or company, and finally, at the lowest level, is the actual people we will encounter at work. Each of these levels must be assessed on its own. It is important to note that transgender rights are eroding rapidly. As part of a broader anti-LGBT movement, hundreds of harmful bills are being introduced at the US state level each year. The decline that has occurred is stark. My transition began in 2021 while I worked for the Utah Department of Wildlife Resources. At the time, it was one of the few examples of “red states” that protected transgender state employees from discrimination. Now, it has one of the most extreme anti-trans laws of all, a “bathroom bill” that presents an extreme risk of danger to people like me. For the national level, I use websites like Equaldex that monitor the legal situation for the LGBT community in different countries. I check public opinion surveys and examine laws and news. For examining US states, I use the Movement Advancement Project and the Anti-Trans Legislative Risk Map. Data for individual cities can be found on City-Data. I assess LGBT-friendliness by looking at the city's electoral voting data as well as the overall LGBT population. I also search for local nonprofits and other community-based organizations that support the queer community, as these can provide important resources such as financial support, mental health counseling, and human connection. I judge the queer-friendliness of institutions by looking at the mission statements on their website. Does it specifically say they are committed to supporting transgender and/or gender-nonconforming people? Or is there just a vague commitment to “equality?” Any kind of LGBT symbols, or any overt statement of support for the queer community, can be considered a green flag. These days, saying nothing is not the same as neutrality, as our community is under attack. It is also worth looking to see if the institution has donated to queer organizations, or antiqueer organizations, as well as if it has any policies listed about trans healthcare for employees. Individual people such as supervisors can be assessed during the job interview. Some of the questions I frequently ask include: “What do you do to make this a good place for someone like me to work?” Believing your workplace to be fine for queer people is one thing. Being confident you have taken concrete actions about it is much better. “Do any trans people work here?” If yes, consider reaching out to them. “What would you do if a supervisor/another employee called me a ****?” In the event of serious transphobia such as calling you a slur, what procedure does your employer have in place to address it? “Will I be required to travel?” Do they seem aware that some places are dangerous for queer people? Were they expecting you to travel to one of those places? I like to essentially out myself as transgender on my job application by stating my involvement with the “Trans and Gender-nonconforming Fieldwork Alliance” on my CV. I would rather weed out the transphobes ahead of time. But it is important to note that not everyone can live like this. Some queer people must be discreet about their identities. Please remember that the decision to be out should be yours alone. It is important then to ask yourself if the workplace itself might out you. For example, in my previous work at the Smithsonian, I was required to have an ID card on me at all times, which also acted as a key to the shared housing I lived in. They forced me to use my deadname, so at all times I was at risk of being outed. I ask that my fellow queer biologists stay safe, and may we find prosperity. I hope my process has been useful. One of the greatest advantages of a career in field ecology is the opportunities it creates to live and work in incredible places. I have counted aphids in agricultural fields in Denmark, collected Daphnia in arctic lakes in Norway, surveyed seaweeds on California's Channel Islands, and even tracked snail mucus trails in Israel's Negev Desert. However, as a queer person, chasing these opportunities can often come with an added layer of anxiety and risk. For me, the trade-off between career and safety really came into view when I received an offer for a postdoctoral position at the University of Alabama (UA). The position at UA was ideal in almost every way: (1) the principal investigator (PI) had a great reputation, (2) the projects would expand my skill set in wetland ecosystem ecology and restoration science, (3) the collaborations would expand my network in the Gulf region, and (4) the position would allow me considerable freedom to build my own research program with undergraduate students. However, Alabama is one of the worst states in the United States for sexual and gender identity equality. In fact, Alabama's hostility toward the LGBT+ community almost deterred me from taking the position at UA, but I can honestly say I am happy that it did not! I ended up staying in my postdoctoral position at UA for over 2 years, until I got my first faculty position. While Alabama never changed, and I struggled to access medical care, I also found some of the most incredible allies there. My PI was a champion of equity and inclusion and was an outspoken supporter of LGBT+ initiatives on campus. She also took the time to learn from my experience and understand my perspective as a queer early career academic. My labmates, including the lab's PhD student Jake Dybiec, were also thoughtful and caring allies. When we were out doing fieldwork in rural Alabama and Mississippi, Jake would stand outside the bathroom until I was done and remain close when we encountered strangers to ensure that I was safe. These simple acts are still some of the greatest forms of allyship that I have experienced in my career as a field ecologist. I would never encourage LGBT+ folks to jeopardize their safety, but I do encourage LGBT+ folks to keep an open mind, because sometimes you will find the most supportive people in the places you would never expect. I would like to dedicate this work to my friend, colleague, and partner in mud Dr. Jake Dybiec, who passed away in July 2023 while doing the field work that he loved. I wish that every queer human could have an ally half as loving and supportive as he was. In recent decades, queer has been used as a verb to name the way we can disrupt and destabilize systems of power, most often, cis-heteronormativity. However, we could also use queer to interrogate our understanding of stable identities. Recently—particularly in an era of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the university/college level—there has been newfound rigidity in identity politics. Many disciplines, but especially STEM fields, are making moves to increase the inclusion of diverse voices and experiences. While this is clearly an important and worthwhile endeavor, it has led to a narrow and rigid understanding of DEI and identities. For queer students, researchers, and teachers, who find their sense of self is defined by queer fluidity, this poses a problem. Traditional queer political rhetoric suggests that LGBTQ+ people were “born this way” as a justification for our access to rights. While queerness is an innate sense of self that clearly justifies access to rights, this has pigeonholed the community and individuals within fixed, constructed identities. Navigating STEM, and especially field ecology, when you are navigating your own evolving queerness can be challenging. This is mainly due to fixed notions of DEI restricting people from claiming different identities (some of which are potentially more or less marginalized in STEM) and gaining access to corresponding support. As a queer field ecologist, I have identified in many different queer ways, but my inclusion in the discipline has been limited due to the development of fixed mindsets around queer identities in field ecology. Many people may take for granted that they will have ready access to a bathroom when they are at their place of work, but to quote a song from the Broadway musical Urinetown, “It's a privilege to pee.” Public bathroom access strongly impacts a person's ability to exist in the world and be gainfully employed. From segregated bathrooms impacting the work of the women scientists whose stories were fictionalized in Hidden Figures, to disability activists whose work led to the adoption of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bathroom access has always been an equity issue for many marginalized groups. Since that data were collected, the situation has worsened for trans bathroom access with the rise in so-called “bathroom” bills that seek to prevent transgender people from using a bathroom corresponding to their gender. According to the Movement Advancement Project, as of January 22, 2025, 18 states have enacted laws or policies that impact transgender people's access to bathrooms or facilities based on their gender identity. Many of these ban transgender people from using bathrooms and facilities consistent with their gender identity in government-owned buildings and spaces and/or K-12 schools. Additionally, two states—Florida and Utah—make it a criminal offense for a trans person to use a bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. For safety reasons, many trans people choose to be discreet about their gender identity and conform to binary gender norms while traveling and working in unfamiliar or potentially hostile locations they may visit in the course of doing field research. This can be challenging and exhausting. However, with field crew mutual agreements of courtesy and respect for privacy, doing field research in remote natural areas without access to bathrooms can actually be less stressful for trans people than everyday bathroom use. This is because if everyone, men and women, has the same practice of using the restroom behind some bushes or another privacy shield, it is less gendered than most public bathrooms, and a trans person doesn't have to navigate scrutiny of their gender presentation to complete a basic and necessary bodily function. University campus environments can actually present more challenges to trans people's access to bathrooms than some fieldwork settings. Many buildings still do not include gender-neutral bathrooms, which are safer and more accessible for trans and gender nonconforming people. Even if gender-neutral bathrooms are included in newer buildings, they are often single-use and double as ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. With limited numbers of these accessible bathrooms, some trans people who are not disabled, or who have an invisible disability, can feel reticent to use them, fearing they may be perceived as delaying access for disabled people, even though it could be a safer option for them than gendered multi-stall alternatives. Here are some best practices for making bathrooms more accessible for trans scientists in the field and at their home institutions. In the context of home institutions, allies can and should advocate for the conversion of gendered bathrooms to gender-neutral bathrooms. In general, it is easiest to start by converting single-stall bathrooms to gender-neutral ones. Having multi-stall gender-neutral bathrooms significantly increases bathroom access for trans people, but can be challenging in some states due to legislation regulating the physical infrastructure of gender-neutral multi-use bathrooms (e.g., requiring floor-to-ceiling walls between stalls). Where differential infrastructure exists and cannot be renovated, changing signage can still make a difference. If local laws permit, you can change signage from gendered/sexed language (e.g., men's and women's restroom, male and female toilets) to language that describes the facilities contained (e.g., restroom with urinals and stalls, restroom with changing table). Twenty-five years ago, in a paper titled “Are There General Laws in Ecology?”, John Lawton published a provocative idea: “Community ecology is a mess… the time has come to move on” (Lawton 1999). Lawton presented the idea that due to the contingencies and idiosyncratic nature of community ecology studies, often results hold true only to the specific communities from which the results came, and thus we should instead focus research efforts on other ecological subfields that can provide more useful generalizations. However, in the decades since, each year has seen increases in the number of publications about community ecology, suggesting a refusal by ecologists to abandon the field in spite of the complexity. I propose that a potential reason community ecology has thrived all of these years could be because of the messiness, complexity, and contingencies involved, which provide unlimited opportunities for exploration. Despite a lack of universal laws, community ecology remains useful for interrogating the endless the with each other and their For me, navigating the that is community ecology me to my gender identity. like in ecology, there are universal laws of gender. While there are that allow to each experience with gender can be is an that under the broader identity of It any gender that exists outside of the binary of or woman. However, there are endless identities that are by the The between these identities are not always well and they can between individuals and over time. As our with to be allies to the trans community. the time, we the of with and an understanding of our are to advocate for the of the communities we we can to gender and access to medical care, even though as an you may not have a understanding of all the of gender identity. To my I want to a quote by the of of of and then claiming that only this or that is a of is a human of and and natural world is and and just like the incredible in gender that the human the with the that make and still doing the work to understand and for the that As a transgender undergraduate student with involvement in a of fieldwork I have had and experiences with research in to my gender identity. As a I feel to the that have and have not worked for me as a transgender I hope that my experience can about supporting TGnC and in field research experiences. experience occurred when I research in I had the faculty about my gender identity and safety and was that as as I did not have to or to the I would be I did up to to the for being by a of and it a that my identity would be in a country where it is to be I ended up However, with a understanding of the risks I would I could have been for this or it could have been There was in place for to a serious to this situation as a trans I clearly had not been for it would be to do dangerous work in a place where my identity was by was to be a field experience that I had all the ecologists about into a experience that me my to continue in research because of for my There is a to the field of ecology, but not the safety and support in place to TGnC people will to experiences that people from the field. Having a and not it is significantly than not a and to find on the TGnC individuals may be present but may not know that you have a TGnC student or ask the for this person on my and then for what can you do to field experiences for trans or can be from my I these (1) privacy, (2) for and laws, (3) inclusive and (4) for physical privacy is for a lack of privacy can to in shared spaces for but this is especially true for TGnC Having the option of housing and bathrooms can be At the gender-neutral or people to choose they wish to be in will this gender-neutral bathrooms can be and for TGnC you must and to your the for the in which research will be about laws, and a TGnC person be If their identity is what are the can you take to there to field work in this ready to say have that this may not be safe, so are the that we will do inclusive spaces are in any but it is especially important when you are of time doing with a of people. The you can do is yourself with your that so simple is actually an that you are an ally and the for to share their own your a be to respect it is important to risk to the for medical for TGnC people. Fieldwork is due to its physical so can you prevent or for yourself on the physical risks with being or can be dangerous in extreme and when and places to are also These are just some of the you should about when TGnC people in your field research and safety all work for every but you should about what is and what is The experiences shared the barriers that TGnC scientists face in field ecology. Despite navigating these barriers, TGnC scientists in finding and in their work. However, should not be a for ecology on understanding and complexity. The same should our to supporting TGnC change that institutions, and up to create safer, more inclusive This such as fostering inclusive support, and the voices of TGnC individuals in these We would like to the of the and Gender-nonconforming for their support in doing this work, which is more important than We would like to and for their to the Additionally, we Jake and allies like for supporting TGnC and inclusive spaces in field ecology.

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