It’s time for some real talk, dear readers.

I was recently asked a question by a student that I’ll admit threw me. I was surprised that it threw me, because this is a question that I’ve been waiting to be asked. It’s something I like to think is essential to my career and my relatively new role as a mentor, and it’s one that I’ve occasionally addressed in some fairly public fora: 

How has it been to be queer in our field?

(Our field being biological anthropology in general; primatology in particular; field primatology in the very particular)

This question threw me because, at this point in my career, there are a lot of answers…

First off, I am very happy to say that our academic field - in my experience of it - is exceptionally open to and even celebratory of LGBTQIA folks. For which I’m constantly grateful. The American Association of Physical Anthropologists Committee on Diversity supported the formation of the gAyAPA a few years ago (come to lunch with us in Atlanta this year!), which has helped to make queer folks in biological anthropology wonderfully visible. Although there’s no LGBTQIA dedicated group for the American Society of Primatologists or the International Primatological Society, there are many prominent and vocal representatives and allies in those groups (which will be getting together to discuss diversity in ASP/IPS at a round-table discussion at this year’s conference in Chicago!).

I also served recently on a panel for the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program during which I was told, unequivocally, that being LGBTQIA in STEM and working to promote LGBTQIA inclusion in STEM fields counts as Broader Impacts to the NSF. This is huge. Queer undergrads planning on going to grad school in a STEM field: keep this in mind when applying for your NSF GRFP (and by Darwin’s hoary beard: work with your undergrad advisor and APPLY FOR ONE!).

On top of that, there are now numerous groups that support folks that are LGBTQIA and in STEM fields at all levels of academia, including OSTEM for undergrads and NOGLSTP at all levels, the capstone of which is the biennial Out to Innovate summit. There are even several LGBT scholarships available, some of which are specifically for STEM fields. Also, just this week there was a seminar for LGBT in STEM folks across the UK at the University of Sheffield (see #LGBTSTEMinar on Twitter, or, more generally, #QueerSTEM and #LGBTSTEM).

So progress: it’s been made!

Still, things have not been all roses and light. 

This is primarily because we don’t spend all our time nestled safely in the increasingly celebratory bosoms of our professional societies. There are times when being queer in our field can be difficult (yes, even in our own departments or universities) and, at times, even dangerous. Perhaps the best way to understand this, especially in the context of this blog, is to relay some stories from my own experience as a queer guy in the field. I’d like to note that I’m not relaying these experiences to complain, nor am I interested in specifically calling these folks/institutions out in this context. What I AM interested in is making folks aware that such things happen, and to think about the impact occurrences like these might have on your colleagues, assistants, employees, and students. I’d also like to note that many of these stories occurred because I’m a male-presenting cis queer guy, and may be unique to that presentation. There will be a lot of LGBTQIA folks in my field with different experiences, especially those that are female-presenting and trans, which I’m not in a position to address directly (although I hope others with those experiences might). On that note…

Here are some times when it’s less than stellar to be a queer guy in my field (and how I’ve dealt with them):

When you go to your national academic society’s Committee on Diversity meeting as a graduate student and are told that the COD has no interest in recruiting or retaining or promoting visibility for LGBTQIA students or scientists. 

(Thankfully, this was in 2006 and the stance of the COD membership has obviously changed. At the time, though, I was pretty humiliated. I’d outed myself at the meeting to highlight my interest and why it was important (namely that I didn’t know of any LGBTQIA colleagues or mentors at the time), and then felt pretty exposed when I was rebuffed. As a graduate student hoping to make a career for myself while also being out, that was not a great feeling.)

When you’re a field assistant and your PI discovers you’re gay and immediately tells you that you cannot tell anyone because it would damage the image of the long-term project you’re working on.

(At the time this happened, I was gutted. It both made me feel like I was a dirty secret - flashbacks of the middle/high school closet - and that I’d put the project at risk because I had already told someone local who had become a close friend of mine (fortunately, he’d actually been quite supportive). With time, though, I’ve become a lot more charitable concerning my then-PI’s logic (PI = Principal Investigator). That particular project, and many like it, has a number of rules for field assistants that were essential for keeping the project in good standing with the local community’s sense of morality. These rules were often at odds with the personal values of the field assistants, but they were in place to keep locals supportive of the work we were doing in their communities. This can be a hard line to toe, but it can be essential for long-term work. Although I think my PI could have presented the request a bit more sensitively, I struggle to think of a better way to make the request had I been in their position.)

When your local friends can’t understand why you’re single and grill you about how beautiful the local women are and what you’re looking for and/or set you up with a local woman.

(This has happened at every field site where I’ve worked. I suspect this is a situation unique to being a male-presenting individual in field sites where there’s any amount of machismo in the local culture. As I mentioned above, being female-presenting comes with very different issues I won’t address here, but see any of these as a stepping off point. As for this situation: it’s awkward, and typically requires lying to make it stop. I’ve tried the ‘I’m too busy to date’ excuse, which nobody buys. I’ve also tried the ‘I’ve got a girlfriend at home’ excuse, which either leads to a well-meaning ‘where’s her picture? tell us more about her’ (more lies needed) or ‘well, she’s at home, you need someone here because you’re a man’. In many ways, this scenario is a minefield, because there’s the outing element (which can be dangerous, see below) and also the fact that having your masculinity challenged as a male-presenting guy and failing that challenge can lead to long-term problems, including losing friends and losing respect and/or authority that may be necessary to your work.)

When you out yourself to your field manager at a remote biological station, after which he decides that he can’t house you with the women at the station (because you’re a man) and he can’t house you with the men at the station (because you’re gay) and so he houses you alone in a building that is both separate from the rest of the researchers and in the process of being torn down.

(This was a tough one. I usually keep a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy when working in the field, because I don’t like to directly lie but I also typically work closely with local folks who may not be familiar with or accepting of anything queer. This particular field manager, however, had expressed a lot of gay-friendly sentiments, so I thought it was ok. Not so much, in this case. Eventually, another male researcher insisted that I just move my stuff in with him, which was really wonderful. After that, the issue was never brought up by the field manager, and I was permitted to be housed with men again.)

When two local members of a five-member research team that lives/works/eats together and for which you’re responsible decide that the best way to express their disdain for their rival sport team is to repeatedly and loudly call them ‘faggots’ and make fun of all the stereotypical ways in which they perceive them to be ‘faggots’.

(This was a tough one, too. I’d already had some trouble maintaining authority with these guys, and I was afraid that asking them to stop would make an already tenuous group dynamic worse - in my experience with homophobia, speaking against it often brings it down squarely onto you. Thankfully, I had my most esteemed #2 Favorite Lesbian Field Assistant (#2 in chronology and not in awesomeness) on the same team (see what I did there?). We were able to commiserate about it (I cannot stress enough the importance of having someone you can be open with in the field), and she took it upon herself to tell them that the talk was making her uncomfortable. This allowed me to maintain my distance from the issue and also made it stop.)

When you are working for several months in a country where being discovered to be LGBTQ is punishable by 16 years in prison (and are also, essentially, being dumped by your boyfriend back home and can’t talk about it with anyone because maybe prison).

(This just sucked, and there was no solution but to stay closeted and keep to myself. This was the only time I went home from the field much earlier than I was meant to. I fully support folks who refuse to work in a country that poses a real risk because of their anti-LGBTQ laws, social mores, or policies. Especially considering that even writing about gay issues in media outlets, like this post, can be used as evidence against you and lead to deportation or worse. However, there are a lot of very interesting primates that can only be studied in such countries.)

When you’re an extraordinarily handsome man and so have to wear a wedding ring and make up a wife (which is the picture of a close female friend of yours) for several years because it would NOT be ok to be queer where you’re living/working and it’s the only way to keep folks from asking/suspecting why you’re not married because just look at you.

(Ok, this is admittedly a friend of mine. There are many contexts where a ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy simply is not tenable, most notably when you’ll be living long-term in a place where the stakes are very high regarding discovery. I respect his choice, because safety comes before everything else. On a related note, I once was in a field situation where the local folks suspected that my female best friend was my girlfriend. This was primarily because I had pictures of her. When I told them that she was married to someone else, they were very confused regarding a) why I was single and b) why I should have her picture at all when she was married to another man. Working with and training local folks in the field is something we all should be doing; making friends with these folks is natural and good. When you’re queer, though, you often have to play the ‘pronoun game’ or overtly lie to keep yourself safe. What that means for those friendships, and about you as a person, is something I always ask myself. People who are otherwise very good friends may no longer see you the same way if they discover you’re queer, and you may feel deceitful keeping large aspects of your life a secret. In many contexts, though, gossip could quite literally cost you your safety in that field site. Some folks may think I’m catastrophizing, but taking a look at recent headlines, for example in Uganda and The Gambia, convince me that I’m not. In many ways, simply wearing a ring may be safer and cause less of a need to lie because folks will stop asking you why you’re not married yet.)

When you apply for a field job in a possibly not-safe-to-be-out context and ask your employers for an honest assessment of how safe it will be for you if you’re discovered, and they don’t know because they’ve never thought about it before.

(I suspect that this is probably the status quo for many field opportunities. To the credit of this research group, they absolutely took the time to think about this and got back to me with a very thoughtful response. I mainly include this anecdote because it highlights that even with all the strides our field has made, LGBTQIA issues are still not necessarily on everyone’s minds. With the increased visibility of folks in our field - and as small one-on-one situations like this become more common, I’m pretty hopeful this will change. Incidentally, I chose to withdraw my application for this job before finding out if I’d have gotten it… largely for reasons I won’t discuss here, but in part because being closeted for a few years in my 30′s did not sound like a nice way to live (in my 20s I definitely would have, and did, but I just can’t do that long-term anymore)… which was unfortunate because the folks were awesome and the work itself would have been AMAZING. But: priorities.)

SO, long story short…

When that student asked me what it was like, and if I had any advice, all of this came burbling out. Given the student’s fieldwork context, I recommended staying closeted in the field, while perhaps following my handsome friend’s example and getting a ring and a picture of a female friend (believe me, I’m very torn about this advice but if another student asked me I’d say it again: safety before everything else). I also recommended finding a good therapist for after the field season was over. I’m one of those folks who think that a good therapist is always good to have, but staying closeted for long periods of time WILL bring up a lot of feelings, and working through those feelings may go a lot better with the help of a steady professional guide.

I’ve been very fortunate to have made it this far in my own field (yes, I’ve worked hard too, but I’ve also been very lucky), and to have had so many extraordinary experiences as a field primatologist. As more queer folks come out in our field, I hope we can have more of these discussions, and come up with more solutions - and especially support - for the next generation of field researchers.

If you have some experiences of your own you’d like to share, or comments on what’s written that you think would be helpful, please let me know!  I’ll be happy to reblog/repost.

**UPDATE**

Since posting this, and after the huge discussion it’s generated (thanks to everyone for the reposts/reblogs/tweets/emails!), I’ve had a couple of thoughts that might go well with the above.

First off, a few folks have mentioned that acknowledging the intersectionality of these traits and those differences alter how they’re received in the field is critical. I totally agree. I hope I took a step towards that by including links to research and stories from female-presenting folks in the field, but I recognize that a lot more can be done here that I hope others with more personal knowledge would be willing to share, either here or elsewhere. One identity that I didn’t address above, and which is crucial to this discussion, is that I’m also white and from the US. The privilege these signifiers carry with them ensure that the consequences of my being out or outed in the field are buffered, to an extent; I have no doubt that I would face less harsh penalties as a foreigner from the US than if I were outed in the field as a citizen of a primate host country. Having said that, I should also acknowledge that the perceptions that go along with being from a socially privileged class (be it an ethnic/racial class or citizenship) can also bring with it some specific situational challenges for queer folks in the field who present those identities (many of which overlap with those faced by queer aid workers, who have started a very illuminating blog on the topic).

Second off, and I think this is implied above but I’d like to make it clear: I don’t want to present a homogenous image of my primate host country friends, coworkers, and colleagues being universally anti-LGBT. This is most definitely not the case. Even in countries whose governments actively punish queer folks, there will always be folks who are ok with or even overjoyed to have their queer friends and family in their lives. I’ve met these folks, and many who wrote to me also found understanding and friendship in places they fully expected to have to stay closeted. I think there’s a larger discussion to be had here regarding perceived risk and thresholds of danger that are deemed acceptable when entering a relatively unknown social sphere as a (perhaps) conspicuous outsider.

*Rainbow monkey image by xD-san at Deviant Art.