Ocean Science's Rainbow?

Miriam is getting a lot of air time here at MBSL&S the past several days, and today will be no exception. Over at The Oyster's Garter, Miriam wrote a great post that continues a discussion first raised by the boys at Deep Sea News. It all began with Craig and Peter's thoughts on pursuing a career in the ocean sciences. Miriam picked up the discussion on her blog with an interesting permutation,

Now, I’m not a deep-sea researcher, but I am at an oceanographic institution with five research vessels and I do go out to sea. I agree with Peter and Kevin that it’s a lot easier to be female in the sciences these days, but I have no idea if it’s hard to be gay. That’s because I know very, very few LGBT scientists, grad students, or even undergrads. In fact, I think that I've only met three LGBT ocean scientists ever - Rick MacPherson, a former master’s student at SIO, and a friend in Boston who is just starting to get into marine resource management. (Along with Joan Roughgarden, but I’ve never met her.)

Since I bordered on haggery in college, it’s not for lack of knowing tons of LGBT people outside of science. But even at my very LGBT-friendly undergrad institution, I think there was only one gay undergrad in the ecology department. And currently at SIO, I don’t know a single LGBT person.

For the record, Miriam, you can be my hag any day.

Miriam proposed three possible explanations for the apparent lack of GLBT folks in her ocean science experiences:

1) There are GLBT folk around her, she just doesn't know them;
2) Since GLBT folk are statistically purported to be 1 in 10 of the population, and there aren't that many ocean scientists, it's probable that there just aren't that many GLBT ocean scientists; and/or
3) Ocean science is hostile to GLBT folk.

(By the way, it's only out of habit that I use the shorthand GLBT for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered folk. It is in no way meant to be a sexist diss on lesbians that I don't use LGBT.)

Sparing you all my thoughts on the purported 1 in 10 statistic for another time, I wanted to share some thoughts Miriam's interesting post generated here at queer ocean science and conservation central.

In my undergraduate, graduate, and professional career as an ocean scientist (a total of 28 years as of today) I've met exactly one other out, queer, ocean scientist (the amazing Joan Roughgarden) in my travels. Which is not to say (and as Miriam postulates) there weren't other GLBT folks in proximity (I have really shitty gaydar), but that's all who ever seemed out/open/etc.

In my day to day professional life as a queer ocean scientist/conservationist, I've not encountered any apparent hostility or cliques of homo-hatery. I do grow tired of colleagues who ASSUME I'm straight at meetings (Are you married? What does your wife do? That sort of thing). But if I got pissed all the time over that, I wouldn't get through a day. Besides, it's fun to watch people blush when I say, "No, my boyfriend and I can't get married."

Sometimes in my work in the field, I have to choose discretion over honesty because my immediate conservation work is more important than the social transformation of local people's views on queer rights. For example, I'm just another straight guy in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Indonesia, Belize, etc. because I want to be the "conservation guy," not "the gay guy." I deflect questions that get too personal (hard to do in cultures that seem to NEED to know whether you are married like Indonesia and Melanesia).

But here in the States, I don't think I have ever sensed the apparent lack of GLBT representation in the ocean sciences as being a function of ocean scientists/ocean science departments being less hospitable to GLBT folk. I've found us marine biologists to be a pretty socially liberal crowd. Our propensity for drinking and singing certainly doesn't seem to support conservative leanings.

I personally think that the apparent dearth of out/open GLBT individuals in the ocean sciences has some real connections to academic preparedness of candidate GLBT youth who might be inclined to enter ocean science programs out of high school.

The 2007 National School Climate Survey (the most comprehensive survey ever conducted on the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students) found that of 6,209 middle and high school students surveyed, nearly 9 out of 10 GLBT students (86.2%) experienced harassment at school in that year, three-fifths (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation and about a third (32.7%) skipped a day of school in the past month because of feeling unsafe.

In 2008, a new study of public school principals released by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, in collaboration with the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) found that half of principals view bullying as a serious problem at their schools, yet they appear to underestimate the extent of harassment that GLBT students experience. GLSEN studies of both students and teachers have shown that GLBT-identified students and those perceived to be GLBT are harassed at much higher rates than their non-GLBT peers.

When you are in survival mode in elementary and high school, this added stress and anxiety often results in academic performance taking a back seat.

Ocean science undergraduate programs (such as a BS in Marine Biology) typically tend to require additional science and math courses on top of those normally required for a straight (pardon the pun) Biology major. My course load as a 2nd year undergrad in Marine Bio was brutal: I had Organic Chemistry, Biometry, and Invertebrate Zoology concurrently. Both O Chem and Invertebrate Zoo had associated labs. Biometry was deep statistical biology that used the Sokal/Rohlf textbook. Those of you who know what I'm talking about will likely cringe at the thought of what that book put you through.

My point is that entering an ocean science undergrad program (assuming they even qualify for acceptance) while not being academically prepared or on par with your peers and expect to be coddled or slowly brought up to performance speed is incredibly unrealistic. O Chem is a classic "culling" course, and I remember my class size dwindled from that course alone. All students deserve to face that academic challenge being as prepared as possible. Not having to struggle because high school math and science fundamentals took a back seat to heckling or threats.

As a not fully academically prepared queer undergrad myself, I survived out of sheer will and obsessive love of the ocean. My foundations in math and studying were not where many of my apparently straight peers was, and I constantly felt like I was running to keep up. I don't know how it might have felt if the academic challenges weren't also compounded by the challenges of coming out in college as well.

It seems that racism and sexism have a seat at the table in most discussions of elementary and high-school learning. But homophobia and heterosexism are still taboo areas. It's still don't ask, don't tell. Ensuring safe learning environments for ALL students could go a long way to ensuring a true diversity of voices in ocean sciences.