Que(e)rying How Professional STEM Societies’ Serve Queer and Trans Engineering and Science Undergraduates

Abstract

The STEM climate is overall less welcoming for queer students, and is especially harrowing for transgender, nonbinary, and students with additional gender non-conforming identities (TNBGNC+). Professional STEM societies provide students with a range of resources that help them persist in STEM, though qualitative research shows that such societies geared toward queer and trans students may offer less professional and academic resources and prioritize identity management. The objective of our research is to identify, among queer and trans students, whether there are differences between how TNBGNC+ students and gender majoritized students access resources important in STEM persistence across professional society types, including those societies organized to serve women, racial/ethnic minoritized groups, queer and trans groups, as well as those science societies and chapters without a stated group focus. The society resources we focus on include: sense of community, social networking, professional resources, leadership skills, academic resources, reduced isolation related to identities, and perceptions that societies in which they may participate are helpful to them in their degree progress. This study offers an analysis of survey data from 477 queer and trans STEM undergraduates relating to their participation in STEM professional societies. To conduct this research, we embraced and enacted recommendations by scholars on strategies and frameworks to queer our methodology, survey, and analysis. We found that at oSTEM, TNBGNC+ students may not be benefitting to the same extent as gender majoritized students when it comes to feeling in community with other members and having opportunities for social networking. However, TNBGNC+ students may benefit more from a reduction in isolation related to their identities. Differences in how SWE served TNBGNC+ students echoes previous work, and may speak to the society’s organization around the cisgender, patriarchal framework. SHPE’s relative success with TNBGNC+ students also reproduces existing work, suggesting the society may be more largely scaffolded for more affirming environments writ large. As well, that science in comparison to industry chapters were more beneficial to TNBGNC+ students brings forward possible differences between science and industry chapters, in which the former may be influenced more by the scholarship and science of gender, while the latter, with its more business and public focus, could be more influenced by dominant narratives in STEM. This work has implications for societies when it comes to enacting policies to cultivate more inclusive community environments and buttress potentially unequal access to social networking as well as professional and academic resources. At the same time, there is room for oSTEM to augment how it supports TNBGNC+ students with academic and professional resources and benefit students’ progress in their degree programs.