LGBTQIA+ and Disabled People in Astronomy

Be who you are, and reach for the stars:

LGBTQIA+ and Disabled People in Astronomy

Science is a field that requires the inclusion of many diverse points of view and arguments. It requires us not to accept the norm as the only truth out there and always challenge it in new ways. If we stopped at Newton’s definition of gravity as a force, we never would have accepted Einstein’s theory of gravity being a curvature in the space-time fabric. Challenging the existing and expanding upon new and different points of view has always been what science is all about. And to do that, all science fields must always include all kinds of people- not just the able-bodied, neurotypical, cis-heterosexual majority. So on the occasion of June being LGBTQ+ Pride month and July being Disability Pride Month, we decided to honor some great scientists, teachers, and activists in Astronomy and Astrophysics who inspire us to challenge the norms and be who we are.

Frank Kameny

Frank Kameny was an American gay astrophysicist. He earned his Ph.D. in 1956 from the University of Harvard. He was involved with the photometric study of variable stars, taking around 500 observations of RV Tauri stars and yellow semiregular variables. He was appointed as an astronomer in the US Army Map Service in 1957 after his stint teaching astronomy at Georgetown. However, he was forced to leave his job because he was gay. This provoked him to turn into a gay rights activist. He appealed against his firing by the US Civil Services Commission, and this became the first civil rights case that was heard in a US court that was concerned with issues of sexual orientation. Since then, he appealed multiple times to the Supreme Court, fought against the concept of homosexuality as a mental illness, and continued being an activist till his final weeks before he passed away at 86 in 2011.

Sally Ride

Source: Wikipedia

Dr. Sally Ride is the first queer astronaut to be known to the public. However, she was better known earlier as the first-ever American woman to go to space. She remains the youngest American astronaut to have been to space. She had been a crew member on the shuttle Challenger for NASA’s seventh space shuttle mission. Completing her Ph.D. at Stanford University with a thesis on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium, she got selected for NASA Astronaut Group 8 just a few months before her defense. She also served on many other commissions, and after her career as an astronaut, she continued her research career as a professor of physics at UC San Diego. However, she died at the age of 61 in 2012. Only after her death was it revealed to the world that Tam O’Shaughnessy, professor emerita of psychology at San Diego University, was her long-time partner. Ride wrote many children’s books and co-founded Sally Ride Science(a non-profit organization for promoting STEM fields among young people) with O’Shaughnessy.

Neil Divine

Neil Divine was an American gay astrophysicist of the 20th century. He is known to make significant contributions to the formation of stars and interplanetary bodies. He was the first to build the numerical model on the evolution of helium starts for his Ph.D. thesis at Caltech in 1965. This was later used for programming in large computers in the 1960s. Spending most of his career in the Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), he has done his research on the dust surrounding Halley’s Comet, radiation belts in our solar system, and so on. However, he died at the early age of 55 due to AIDS-related complications.

Source: Peoplepill

James Pollack

Source: Astrobites

Dr. James Pollack was a gay researcher of the 20th century. He was a prominent figure in the field of atmospheric science but also the first graduate student of the popular astronomer Carl Sagan. Sagan was a strong supporter of Pollack being open about his sexuality and also helped Pollack and his partner get health services in need. Pollack played an active role in many NASA missions and was involved in the study of Venus and Mars, which Sagan was working on after he finished his graduation. There is a crater on Mars named after him. He died at the early age of 55 in 1994 due to spinal cancer.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is a queer theoretical astrophysicist. She is the Assistant Professor of Physics and a Core Faculty Member in Women’s Studies at the University of New Hampshire. Her work revolves around the intersection of particle physics and astrophysics. She has strong ties to astronomy though she is mainly a theoretical researcher. Her deep understanding of physics and astronomy led her to answer mysteries concerning the Universe. She was a topical convenor for Dark Matter: Cosmic Probes in the Snowmass 2021 process. Not just this, she has several achievements, even being one of the ten members who contributed to shaping science in 2020. Dr. Chanda is still actively working in the field of astronomy and feminist theories.

Source: University of New Hampshire

Jessica Mink

Source- Smithsonian Profiles

Jessica Mink is an astronomical software designer who publicly came out as transgender in 2011. She was a part of the team that discovered the rings of the planet Uranus when working at Cornell University. After that, her work also helped in the discovery of the rings of Neptune. She has designed several software packages that are well used in astrophysics. She is a member of the American Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union and currently lives in Massachusetts, USA, and works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. She has also spoken about her experience transitioning- here.

Rachael Padman

Rachael Padman is a lecturer of physics at the University of Cambridge. She was born in Australia and has specialized in Radio Astronomy. She has made research contributions to stellar evolution. She is a trans woman and had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 1982 while doing her PhD at the University of Cambridge. She did research work in radio astronomy at CSIRO in Sydney. She did work as the Deputy Project Scientist for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. In 1996, she was offered a fellowship at Newnham College, an all-women college under the University of Cambridge. A lot of people protested this because she was assigned male at birth. However, students, staff, and fellows at Cambridge supported her, and she got the fellowship. She spoke about her gender identity as a female in the autobiographical essay- “Rachael’s Story.” Currently, she teaches physics as well as holds an administrative position at Newnham.

Source- Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge

JJ Eldridge

Credit: Peter Kretschmar

JJ Eldridge is a theoretical astrophysicist and associate professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Eldridge is non-binary and an active supporter of LGBTQ+ inclusion. They finished their PhD at the University of Cambridge on core-collapse supernovae. They study binary stars and co-developed the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis models to study stellar evolution. They used this model to determine the correct age of globular clusters. They are a part of the Equity Committee of the Faculty of Science at the University of Auckland and the Trans on Campus and Rainbow Science Groups. Eldridge was also shortlisted for the New Zealand LGBTI Hero of the Year award.

The idea of Disability Pride is that disabled individuals be proud of this part of their identity and have their disabilities not be seen only as a weakness. As such, July is celebrated as Disability Pride Month. It is a relatively newer concept and has not yet achieved the impact or awareness that LGBTQ+ pride has achieved. However, it is a very important step in the right direction. So this being the month of July, here we highlight some astronomers with disabilities that we admire (throughout the year, for sure!)-

Stephen Hawking

Theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and writer of several science books, Stephen Hawking, is a true inspiration to the world. He gave the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems along with Roger Penrose, theoretically predicted the emission of radiation by black holes (Hawking Radiation), and set out to explain cosmology combining the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. In 1963, at the age of 21, he was diagnosed with a slow-progressing form of motor neuron disease. In a few years, he was restricted to a wheelchair, his speech and movement began to deteriorate. After he lost his voice, he communicated with a software program that allowed him to choose words and phrases using a switch. In 2005, he began communicating with the movement of his cheek muscles. Hawking had a disease that vastly reduces the life expectancy of the people who suffer from it, but Hawking did not give up. With his indomitable spirit and determination, he lived a complete life. He was a professor in mathematics and director of research at the University of Cambridge for many years, and his most famous book- “A Brief History of Time” has been on the Sunday Times bestseller list for 237 weeks. Finally, in 2018, he passed away at the age of seventy-six.

Source- NASA

Wanda Diaz Merced

Source- TED

When we think of astronomy, some of us think of looking at the sky through a telescope. In contrast, others think of analyzing lots of data on a computer screen to find out the Universe's secrets. What doesn’t immediately occur to many people, especially those who are privileged enough, is that a lot of astronomy is visual. It involves seeing things with your own eyes. So how is someone who is visually impaired supposed to enjoy or pursue a career in this interesting field? This was the question that drove Wanda Diaz Merced. Merced was born in Puerto Rico and, as a child, was very interested in astronomy and learning about galaxies far away. However, in her 20’s she lost her eyesight. She used to study stellar radiation, and after she went blind, she realized that she did not need to see the data to study it. She and some colleagues developed a process called sonification, where a computer converts large datasets into sound. The different data points can be heard at different pitches and volumes. This process allowed her to study gamma-ray bursts and sense nuances in the data that are often lost in graphical or visual representation. She has since worked at the Office of Astronomy for Development in Cape Town, South Africa, and is currently employed at the European Gravitational Observatory in Pisa, Italy.

Listen to Wanda Diaz Merced’s TED Talk here.

Albert Einstein

Who doesn’t know world-famous theoretical physicist Albert Einstein? For his work on the photoelectric effect, the Nobel Prize winner and lauded across the world for the mass-energy equivalence equation (e=mc^2), his theories on general relativity and quantum mechanics, and other work in many aspects of physics. Undoubtedly he was one of the true geniuses of the world. However, many people don’t know that he had a learning disability at a young age and reportedly could not speak until he was three. Even then, speaking was difficult for him, which lasted till the age of seven. From his conversations with other people, some believe that he might have also experienced symptoms of dyslexia.

By Unknown author - Official 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics photograph

This list of people is nowhere near exhaustive, and there are so many more brilliant people from different minority communities working in this field to achieve great things. Their lives are very different from the typical ‘majority,’ and they bring in a lot of new perspectives to the field, which need to be accepted and cherished. So if you identify yourself as a part of any of the communities highlighted above, or any other minority community, shine on and never give up. Your opinions and experiences are valid and irreplaceable.

However, the situation is not all hunky-dory. People who are disabled or in the sexual or gender minority still face a lot of discrimination and other issues when entering a STEM field like Astronomy. So if you don’t identify as any of these minorities but consider yourself an ally, know that there is still a lot to be done to make Astronomy equally accessible to everyone. It is your responsibility to make sure no one is left behind.

Sources:

Written by Mekhala Ganguly and Kingkini Roychoudhury

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