Intersectional Introspection

This week we were asked to write about why we deserve to be doing a PhD. I’m not great at self-confidence even in the best of times, but this particular question also tugs at a nagging thread that has dangled uncomfortably off of me for a decade now. So before talking about why I’m here now, in the present, I thought I’d share some of that thread, some thoughts on how my perception of where I fit in this whole academic representational hierarchy has evolved over time. Hopefully it’ll provide some context for when I loop back around to actually answering the damn prompt at the end of this post.

I’ve opined before about the woes of transitioning early in my scientific career, but a part I’ve often avoided talking about is how I got to that stage in the first place. Unlike many (probably the vast majority) of young people, I was one of those kids who knew exactly what they wanted to do with their lives from their first conscious memories: I wanted to be a scientist. And not just any scientist, but specifically one studying and exploring the solar system. I had a book called Space At Your Fingertips that I’m pretty sure I made my mom read to me even before I knew how to read—I was that ready to get going on this “exploring the cosmos” shit.

The hottest commodity of 1997

So it was not much of a struggle for me (or my parents) when I also got into robotics, palaeontology, programming, and other nerdy activities as I got older. These were stereotypically boy things, and well, as far as anyone knew then, I was a boy, so they were more than happy to support me. The same was true of teachers and friends and other mentors; although, as I’ve written about previously, I struggled somewhat academically starting fairly early in elementary school, no one really believed I was incapable of doing or achieving anything, just that I had trouble focusing or was too much of a perfectionist.

The actually discouraged interests in my life came somewhat later: namely, art, theater, video production, and fashion. Of course, these are all frivolous pursuits that would never lead to a job[1]🙄, so it’s no wonder my parents were more supportive of my scientific and technological proclivities.[2]Jokes on them!! Now I’m a broke grad student! 😂😭 In what I’m sure was a great relief to all the adults involved, by the time I was staring down university applications I had come back around to the idea that science was the pursuit that still mattered to me the most, and so it was the only thing I applied for. And, well, you know the rest now.

All of this is to say that—despite being kinda femme, getting bullied for being a wimp on the playground, and disliking traditionally “masculine” things—growing up there was still a kind of scientific/technological masculinity that people were perfectly happy to place on me, one that I didn’t seem out of place within. So when I finally transitioned in college, I knew from the outset that my experience as a woman in science was not going to be very similar to that of my other female colleagues; whatever assumptions people had about my sexuality, most had still supported my interest in and love of science unconditionally, without the sexist notions that I wouldn’t be smart enough, or that it “wasn’t a girl thing”, or that I’d be undermining my ability to find a man and get married and have babies if I pursued this long journey through academia. I knew that I was incredibly lucky to have gotten encouragement throughout my childhood and adolescence, and yet still had the opportunity to live my truth as an adult.[3]Although let’s not get into my particular feelings about having just missed transitioning before puberty fucked up my body on here… And, although there were many areas where being a woman did pretty immediately affect my life in all of the typical misogynist ways[4]Namely, sexual harassment and assault 🙃, at school I was still treated pretty much the same as I was before. Nobody thought I’d immediately become stupid and incapable, or second-guessed me, or even interrupted me in conversation all that much. Ultimately, transitioning was a pretty unremarkable event as far as my academic life was considered.

So now we come back to the original topic of this post: why do I deserve to be doing a PhD? The “easy” and “correct” answer would be that I’m a bisexual trans woman in science, and as an “oppressed minority” I’m contributing to the justice of overturning the old white boys’ club of academia just by being here and being myself. On the other hand, recent surveys have indicated that LGBTQ+ people, especially white LGBTQ+ people, are actually significantly over-represented in planetary science compared to their national averages. And as I’ve talked about above, in my specific case being either bisexual or a trans woman hasn’t really directly impacted my participation in academia. Sure, it was more of a problem when I was in a public-facing role, where I often had to artfully dodge questions from 8-year-olds about whether I was a boy or a girl, or be wary of people clocking me and accusing me of being a predator and/or “taking over” opportunities or awareness campaigns meant for “real” women—although even then, most people are oblivious enough that I needn’t have put so much pressure on myself:

love 2 be a double x x wombyn

— Cailin 🌸🛰🌙 (@europamilkshake) March 8, 2020

If anything, the major obstacle holding me back from pursuing this dream has been myself: my lack of self-confidence, my disorganization, and my terrible time management[4]She says, writing this blog post for her lab meeting 30 minutes before it’s supposed to begin…, among other things. This is not to dismiss my own struggles with transphobia, mental illness, trauma, and harassment, but rather to acknowledge that these did not have a direct bearing on getting to where I am today; I don’t fit the classic sympathetic underdog story of the struggling minority, facing barriers placed in their way by society and their superiors, and finally triumphantly overcoming them to prove their greatness. People always believed in me and supported me where it mattered.

So why do I belong in this PhD program? Honestly, I’m really not sure. I’m terrible at work-life balance, I have such intense anxiety I can barely bring myself to check my email, and I’m slow at learning and take too long with unnecessary perfectionism in my actual research and writing work. I’m neither doing ground-breaking studies, nor actively supporting my colleagues in our fight for social and economic justice, nor using my privilege to participate in outreach and support, so that either people like me, or those in even more under-represented communities, can have these same opportunities. There is so much I wish I were doing, but I’m so consistently behind on the most basic and critical tasks involved in this endeavour that I feel like I’m barely treading water, let alone being able to have a meaningful influence (or even a life) outside of that.

Anyways… this ended up more depressing than I thought it would be. But it’s where I’m at right now. I don’t even have the time to present this to my group at our lab meeting, since I need to finish marking and giving feedback on essays I was supposed to have returned to my students two days ago. A day may come when I’ll find my way through this tunnel, into the light of competence, confidence, and the capacity to give back in a truly meaningful way, but, to perhaps misconstrue a famously fallen leader… it is not this day.

-xoxo gossip grad