I am not queer and a science communicator. I am a queer science communicator.

First of all,

Happy Pride 🏳️🌈

If you care about gay people you will read this.

A few weeks ago I applied for a grant for queer business owners. To start off this pride month, I’d like to share a couple of reflections from my experience applying for this grant.

It was a fairly simple process. I was asked to respond to a number of prompts that would help the decision committee understand what my business is and what makes it so gay.

The focal point of my reflections revolved not around the application process itself but around the existence of queer-specific grants. I asked myself why do they exist? Why is it important that they exist? And we can tackle this question in a couple of different ways.

Perhaps the most obvious path would be to investigate why it is important to support queer businesses. I think the answer to that lies in the same reason we have pride month in the first place. An optimist might exclaim, ‘Queer Joy!’ Now I am definitely a supporter of queer joy. However, I’ve seen one meme already this June that said, “for pride month this year can straight people focus less on “love is love” and more on “queer and trans people are in danger.”" Briefly and loudly for those in the back, queer communities around the world face higher rates of teen homelessness, economic discrimination, violence, depression and death by suicide, to name a small few. Furthermore, legislative bodies and policy makers are actively trying to intensify the effects of these burdens through an unprecedented tidal wave of anti-queer legislation. Pride month, in addition to celebrating queer joy, is an opportunity to call attention to these very real and ongoing issues and to address them. Less than one percent of businesses are queer owned and only two percent of those are trans-owned. All this considered, it makes sense why there are fewer queer business owners, why they may need extra support, and why grants for queer businesses are just one of many targeted economic intervention measures that the community needs.

This first line of reasoning speaks to why it is important to support queer people who own businesses. The next point of reflection gets to the heart of queer businesses themselves and all their chiasma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. In other words, what do queer businesses bring to the table that heteros could never?

This may just be a silly TikTok, but I really do think there is something to be said for the power of gay audacity in getting shit done. Any entrepreneur, even the straight ones, will know that one word you encounter a lot is ‘No.” You just have to press on. But us gays, we already have a built up a resilience to that word. When the world says you can’t be something and then you be it - the obvious next step is to ask yourself, "well what else can I do that the world says I can’t?” #gaymischief.

Beyond that though and bringing it back to the grant, we all carry ourselves wherever we go. One of the questions on the application was: ‘How does your identity influence your worldview and how you approach your business?’

It was quite challenging to answer that in 500 characters or less so I’m going to force you to read my own elaborated response. You’re welcome. (For context, I work in science communication).

What I said was, I am not queer and a science communicator. I am a queer science communicator.

Although I am not a scientist myself, what I have come to understand from speaking with many is that science has a general problem of exclusivity and gatekeeping at an institutional level, even if it is at times unintentional. One thing that is very important to anyone in the scientific community is to be taken seriously. This is one of the reasons why I feel a responsibility to operate in this space with as much queer authenticity as I can. Queerness and seriousness have been historically set at odds with one another. I’m here to tell you though that you can be queer and serious and silly. And anyone who doesn’t think so is cordially invited to chill out a bit.

Entering this space with my gay authenticity alone combats exclusivity, but I also believe it enables me to widen the reach of scientific output. When accessible-izing technical concepts for a larger audience, I have a different, queer set of references in my head that I can use to relate to the public and bring more people into the conversation who were previously told that science isn’t for them.

For example, if we’re having a conversation about polymer chemistry and you mention something that makes me think of Erika Jayne, I’m going to say so. With my chest. Another reason why it’s important that I do that is because I don’t know if I would have had the confidence to enter the scientific space myself if it hadn’t been for my queer role models working authentically in science communication. #JVN

Without trying to sound harsh, gay authenticity allows us to break down some of the gates surrounding the ivory towers.

Lastly, if I was to smoosh these two points together, I think my queer understanding of the types of power systems that result in the burdens on my community as outlined in the beginning of this article enhances my ability to understand the social-interdisciplinary nature of science. Science doesn’t exist in a vacuum and broad-based understanding of the principles and current debates in the scientific community have wide ranging implications for democracy, justice, governance, and our literal earth.

I will continue to use my queer voice to call attention to these intersections and I know I will be joined by many of my peers who use their queer businesses for interdisciplinary activism of all shapes and sizes.

And keep in mind that while we’re busy changing the world, there are straights out there writing and enforcing laws that say we can’t have butt sex. If you’re scandalized by the fact that I just said butt sex on LinkedIn, you might check out this article from the New York Times about the Supreme Court and the future of anti-sodomy laws in a post-Roe world because this is the stuff we have to deal with from July through May.

You can also find a full and current list of anti-LGBT bills as tracked by the ACLU here.

To close out and in honor of Pride 2024, I would like to say a big queer thank you to all of my queer friends, my queer colleagues, my queer family, my queer ancestors, and all the queer kids to come.

You’re doing amazing sweetie! 🌈🌈🌈