A group of Democratic U.S. senators is calling for better data about the number of LGBTQ people employed among the country's scientific workforce. It is the latest effort at the federal level to improve the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity demographic data in a host of realms.
In a letter dated February 1 to Charles Barber, Ph.D., the newly appointed chief diversity and inclusion officer for the National Science Foundation, the lawmakers called on the Army veteran to add SOGI questions to his agency's national workforce surveys. Without such data, argued the senators, the federal agency won't be able to "accurately assess the needs of the LGBTQI+ scientific workforce."
According to the letter, while the National Science Foundation had piloted SOGI questions, it recently decided to move ahead "with a very limited question on gender identity alone." The decision prompted 1,700 scientists to sign on to a letter sent in January to the foundation's director, Sethuraman Panchanathan, urging the agency to include all of the SOGI questions.
The science, technology, engineering, and math professionals expressed in it their "grave concerns over NSF's National Center for Science & Engineering Statistics' refusal to support LGBTQ+ scientists by making necessary changes to its data practices and its significant misrepresentations of its own pilot data made to the U.S. Office of Management & Budget."
Julia Milton, a spokesperson for the center based in Alexandria, Virginia, told Nature last month that the decision to exclude the sexual orientation question was made due to data-quality and privacy issues. The pilot survey using such questions resulted in more respondents quitting and not responding to the query than did other queries, she had told the journal.
Yet the scientists in their letter had called into question that reasoning, pointing to the pilot data the federal agency had submitted to the budget office showing people were as comfortable, if not more so, answering questions about their sexual orientation as they were about their race and salary. The STEM professionals surmised the issue over the question could have more to do with the foundation leadership's "disturbing" responses to complaints about "sexual orientation-based harassment and significant deficiencies in ensuring a safe and inclusive workplace for sexual minorities," as documented in a 2019 letter from congressional leaders.
In recent years organizations representing LGBTQ people in STEM fields, such as Out to Innovate and oSTEM, have pushed the foundation to add SOGI questions to its surveys. While research into the LGBTQ scientific workforce is sparse, it is estimated that LGBTQI+ people are underrepresented in the STEM fields by approximately 20%.
Issue has gained greater notice
The issue has gained greater notice in recent years, with the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park mounting a groundbreaking exhibit about queer scientists in 2021. As the Bay Area Reporter noted at the time, it was believed to be the first such display in a museum setting to showcase LGBTQ+ women and gender minorities of color working in STEMM professions, with the extra "M" standing for medicine.
Each November 18 is now marked as the International Day of LGBTQIA+ People in STEM to further raise awareness about the career possibilities in such fields. In their letter the senators pointed to a 2014 study that found a higher proportion of LGBTQI+ students end up not pursuing STEM academic pathways compared to their straight and cisgender counterparts.
"The reasons for this are unsurprising: LGBTQI+ scientists consistently and systematically report more negative workplace experiences than their colleagues," wrote the senators. "The first step to addressing these shortfalls is collecting quality data on the LGBTQI+ population in STEM fields by adding voluntary questions about sexual orientation and gender identity to NSF's workforce surveys, as well as adopting robust privacy and confidentiality standards to ensure the data are adequately protected."
Among the 18 signatories to the letter addressed to Barber, who started in his position January 16, were both of California's senators — Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla — and lesbian Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin. Bisexual Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema, now an independent, did not sign on to it.
"You have an opportunity as the first chief diversity and inclusion officer at NSF to lay the groundwork for a more equitable future in STEM, and we urge you to include questions on both sexual orientation and gender identity in NSF's workforce surveys," wrote the senators.
Their letter follows a similar call by lawmakers in Congress last year for census bureau officials to add SOGI questions to the 2030 census form. The Biden administration in 2022 did secure $10 million in the bipartisan government funding bill for research into adding questions about LGBTQI+ Americans to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, a vital statistical tool used by countless researchers and policymakers.
The Biden administration last month also released the first-ever "Federal Evidence Agenda on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex (LGBTQI+) Equity" aimed at increasing SOGI data collection across the federal government. The 49-page document was authored by the National Science and Technology Council's subcommittees on SOGI and variations in sex characteristics data and equitable data.
Considered a roadmap for how federal agencies can collect SOGI data and other information about LGBTQI+ Americans, the new report adds to a 15-page set of recommendations released last June by the Office of the Chief Statistician of the United States for how federal agencies could gather self-reported SOGI data on their statistical surveys.
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