Research Seminar: ‘Heavier than Air’ premiere and discussion
‘Heavier than Air’ is a stage-to-screen film based on interview data from research conducted with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer teachers working in different educational settings in Australia. Since 2015, this play, devised by Anne Harris (RMIT University) and Stacy Holman Jones (Monash University) has been staged in Australia, Singapore, USA, and Scotland. This is a film adaptation directed by Edgar Rodríguez-Dorans.
With this event, the Staff Pride Network for LGBT+ Colleagues & Allies launched its Research Seminar Series. Heavier than Air helps to educate non-LGBTQIA+ audiences, along with education administrators, students, and staff about the experiences of social inclusion and mental health needs of LGBTQIA+ people, providing LGBTQIA+ teachers with an opportunity to see their sometimes welcoming, sometimes violently exclusionary experiences at their workplace depicted on film. The film was followed by a discussion on how qualitative research and performing arts converge to rethink research methodologies and research communication in humanities and social sciences.
While many students may never venture south of the Meadows to the King’s Buildings, some might say that the same inequalities in academia persist or are even greater on Edinburgh University’s second biggest campus. In this interview with Rosalyn Pearson, a 3rd year PhD student in the School of Physics and Astronomy, I discuss what it’s like to be a non-binary woman in a department comprised of (almost) solely cisgender heterosexual white men.
By Justin White
Justin: Hi Rosalyn! Thanks so much for meeting with me. Please introduce yourself.
Rosalyn: Yea of course! I’m a 3rd year PhD student in Particle Theory, and the Postgrad Rep on the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion panel, I’ve been a tutor for Gauge Theory, Quantum Field Theory, and Problem Solving in Theoretical Physics, which are all master’s courses. I enjoy doing dancing and performing with the Edinburgh Bhangra Crew, which is an Indian folk dance, and I’ve also taken up Olympic weightlifting but that isn’t happening much in lockdown of course.
R: It’s work in progress: you start very bad and you get a little bit better. I also like going for walks and climbing trees and stuff, I’m trying to do a bit more of that now.
J: As a child I always climbed trees, my parents would always have to get me down. *laughs*
R: My parents got upset at me because I would climb trees with a broken arm!
J: All that aside, when did you become postgrad rep for the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) committee?
R: Only about a year ago, so I had a friend in the group, Izzy, who was the previous postgrad rep, so when she left, she sent an email asking people to take over, and Andres and I were both interested so we both became postgrad rep.
J: What could you suggest the EDI committee should do to encourage EDI across the School?
R: EDI has a lot of aspects to it. I’ve noticed there’s a lot of focus on the Athena Swan Award, which is a good thing, but that is only one facet of a lot of stuff that could be done, and it’s not something that people see the results of that easily when they’re students in the school.
For those that don’t know, the Athena Swan is an award established and managed by Advance HE (previously the Equality Challenge Unit) that recognises and celebrates good practices in higher education and research institutions towards the advancement of gender equality: representation, progression and success for all staff.
“On a basic level we need to have more frequent social events across non-academic and academic staff and students to try and build a sense of community and inclusion and have a better communal space for that.”
J: I was asking this because if you If you could change one thing about the James Clerk Maxwell Building (JCMB), would it be something along these lines?
R: If I were to change one thing, the JCMB has a problem architecturally. It should have a big canteen or communal space where the food is cheap and people want to go there, and everyone would go there. There’s this problem that there’re these little floors and corridors and little nooks and crannies and there’s no communal area. We have the Magnet Café inside but it’s crap because there isn’t enough space for everyone. There’s no diverse and cheap food option. We just need a space where people have the ability to meet each other and talk.
But then again where are you going to put a canteen in JCMB?
Above: The James Clerk Maxwell Building on the King’s Building Campus
Rosalyn and I then changed topics to talk about her research in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and what it’s like to be a non-binary woman in a department full of cis-men.
J: Would it be alright if we talked about your research a bit? Could you explain your research so a fresher could understand it?
R: Basically, I am looking at the internal structure of protons. We use quantum field theory to try and explain particle physics, but the internal structure of a proton is something we can’t explain using current perturbative techniques because the dynamics are just so complicated.
When you collide protons, like at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), you don’t know what parton (part of the proton) in one is interacting with what parton in the other and we bridge the gulf between the parton level and proton level using parton distribution functions which tell you, ‘what’s the probability in this collision that there will be a certain parton with a certain momentum that will do the interacting in each proton’.
J: In essence, this goes along with the idea of creating a new form of physics that goes past the standard model, is that what the future holds for your research?
The weird thing about particle physics is that you have the standard model that holds up to extremely high levels of precision in a lot of ways but there are many indications that it isn’t quite complete. There’s neutrinos and dark matter and dark energy and all this messed up stuff that doesn’t fit!
“I would describe it as the black swan analogy. In European science in the Middle Ages they only thought there were white swans because every time they looked at a swan it was a white swan. But then they went to Australia and found a black swan. So, there are black swans, they just don’t live in Europe. The black swans are what the new physics is trying to find [without the colonisation].”
J: This is all well and good and you seem to be enjoying your research…
R: …well a PhD has been a bit of mental struggle because of the imposter syndrome which makes it hard day to day.
J: I’m sorry to hear that. You talk about imposter syndrome now but before your PhD, were there any barriers to your entry into the School?
R: There haven’t been any formal barriers that I’ve experienced, but I did a [UG] degree that was in natural sciences not just physics.
I told my director of studies that I wanted to do Physics in the second year, and he was like ‘no, you should definitely do geology, that’s your path’.
I think that was a barrier because a lot of the time throughout my UG degree I just felt like dropping physics and feeling like I couldn’t do it, and a lot of that was perpetuated by me being a woman. I didn’t want to be the only woman that was really, really, bad.
“I wanted to be bad because I was bad, not bad because I was a woman, and that’s something I still have a problem with.”
J: Do you feel like there was a pressure that if you were a woman in physics you couldn’t just be okay, you had to be this role model for all women?
R: A lot of people feel like that – you have to prove yourself a bit more because you don’t want to let other people down. That was a barrier because I felt like dropping physics on and off for a long time. I have experienced this issue in my PhD as well because it’s very male dominated [and]…you just feel like everyone is viewing you in this context of being a minority.
J: The fact that you pass as a woman is always attached to the things you say, and people are always going to interpret you differently…
Rosalyn then goes into a personal experience in relation to this statement, which she wished to be redacted from the final interview.
J: Would you say then the School has a bias against women that still needs to be broken down? How could the School better answer to the needs of women scientists?
R: I think it’s difficult because my department has a particular issue with there not being many women. I don’t think I’ve really experienced any direct sexism from male academics, but rather it comes from an environment that is not diverse, and it’s not just in terms of men/women ratio. There are few visible LGBT+ members or ethnic minorities. People [just] want a sense of community.
Rosalyn and I switched conversation here to recognise our privilege in being in such a position.
R: I would like to emphasise here that I am non-male, but I fit in perfectly with the demographic of particle physics students, I’m white, come from an affluent background, I did my UG at Cambridge were half the department came from, and yet I have had a such an intense feeling of alienation. And I don’t know what it must be like if you come from other backgrounds – it must be horrendous.
“To feel like a minority here as a white non-male really demonstrates how un-diverse the School is.”
J: I couldn’t agree more. As a final comment on this, would you have any advice you might give a first year, or someone that wants to onto a PhD who could experience the same things you did?
R: Realise that if you are doubting yourself and thinking you’re too stupid and not good enough to do a PhD then that is a really normal thing to think. You are often around a lot of people who try and sound like they’re confident and know loads of stuff and they’ll try and put you down with these mind games.
A lot of these people are just flouting their long words to sound clever. They are just trying to appear brash and confident, and it’s really easy for someone to do that if they feel entitled to do that and come from a history of privilege.
The whole way through when I have met PhD interview candidates that are worried, as soon as you start saying ‘don’t worry, I have no idea what I’m doing, I feel like a complete moron’ they’ll be like ‘oh my god thank goodness it’s not just me’, and there are so many people out there that think that. I barely believe in myself, but I’ve gotten a lot better at just trusting myself, if they’ve taken you onto the PhD programme then you deserve to be there. We need to feel more honest and have a change in attitude about what you do or don’t know.
J: I think that’s really important, because I’ve definitely been there as an UG student and I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time *laughs*.
R: The other thing is make sure you have a good life outside your PhD. It’s not worth sacrificing being happy to do PhD work. At the end of the day you need to work to earn the money to live so it’s good to do work that you enjoy, but your life is the most important thing to focus on.
J: That’s really important for everyone, not just PhD students but academic and non-academic staff and even students.
In our final part of the interview, we switched topics to talk about Rosalyn’s identity and belonging in the LGBT+ community.
J: You said you self-identified as non-binary, do you feel like you have anything to say about LGBT+ issues?
R: I’ve always been on the fringe of LGBT+ because I’ve never felt that confident.
“At the start of my UG, I would say I was genderfluid and in a more masculine time than I was now. I felt the trans community was a bit ostracised in the LGBT+ group there. They didn’t really fit in, and I was massively questioning everything, so I didn’t even really feel like I fitted in.”
I’ve always felt reluctant to engage with that community so much. I identify with it still even though I haven’t been that involved, if I feel if there was somewhere really encouraged, I would have gone to that.
But I have noticed people wearing these rainbow lanyards, that got introduced at some point, I thought that was really nice. That gives you a little boost, like ‘oh that’s nice, that’s friendly.’ It creates a nice atmosphere that is accepting.
It’s nothing big and promotes the idea of an accepting atmosphere, in contradiction to the department which is kind of strait-laced and where people wouldn’t talk about emotional matters, which I struggled with big time.
J: Change is slow moving and it can be disheartening at times. Small things can make a big difference, like staff wearing the lanyards as you said. Although there is a fine line between performative activism and actual change, is there something else you’d like to see?
R: Pronouns! When people do that that’s really nice. If we could encourage more people to do it that would be good.
J: And I mean it’s so simple… That brings us to the end of our interview, if you have anything else to add you can always email it over to me!
R: Thanks for having me, see you at our next meeting!
About this interview
This interview was conducted by Justin White as part of an initiative by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee in the School of Physics and Astronomy to highlight the research and experiences of staff and students of underrepresented communities, and was published with the written permission of the School, Interviewee, and Interviewer. Check out all the EDI interviews.
Bi Visibility Day 2020: Solidarity Across The Distance
Co-hosted by the University of Edinburgh Staff Pride Network and OurStory Scotland.
We marked Bi Visibility Day on Wednesday 23 September 2020 with an online event where members of the Staff Pride Network and the Pridesoc student network, as well as LGBT+ community members and allies, learned more about the Bi+* experience through shared stories. We particularly welcomed BAME/PoC Bi+ people and Bi+ people with disabilities.
During the event, the co-chairs prompted discussions with a number of active participants, using questions from OurStory Scotland’s Queer Distance questionnaire as prompts. All attendees were encouraged to consider the participants’ personal responses alongside their own – what were the differences and similarities, and how does the Bi+ experience uniquely affect the context?
Attendees were encouraged to add to the discussions using text chat and raise-hand functions if they wished to do so.
Co-chairs: Cathy Naughton (she/her, Bi+ Rep, UoE Staff Pride Network) and Lindsay Horsham (she/her, Volunteer Researcher, OurStory Scotland).
*The term ‘Bi+’ in this context relates to an umbrella definition of bisexuality that includes people who are attracted to more than one gender, and may self-identify as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, bi-romantic, questioning or bi-curious, to name but a few identities. We recognise that identities are unique and sometimes cannot be easily defined with labels. The Bi+ community is inclusive of trans and non-binary people. (UNISON, 2020)
Welcome new LGBT+ students: wave for 10 secs
Did you bring home your Rainbow Lanyard? Can you wave to your phone camera for 10 seconds? Could there be anything more important in welcoming new LGBT+ students than seeing LGBT+ people in the new students welcome video?
Vicki.bell@ed.ac.uk via www.wetransfer.com if possible or just share from OneDrive.
Final date for delivery: 24th August
How did this come about? We have people everywhere, as you know, including in University Communications & Marketing. The lovely Vicki had an idea to have some rainbow lanyards on display and include some SPN faces, as part of the multiple videos on screen (a grid) of smiling people waving hi to the new students – mix of students/staff/alumni – and we love it!
It’s not just us. The staff BAME networks and Disabled Staff Network have also been invited to take part. IF they receive more than they need, it won’t go to waste, we can use ours as a backdrop at online Staff Pride Network events to welcome community members and University students.
Do it NOW before you forget!
Best wishes,
Jonathan & Katie
Jonathan MacBride (he/him) & Katie Nicoll Baines (she/her)
Co-Chairs, Staff Pride Network for LGBT+ Colleagues & Allies
bulletin-magazine: Reflecting on an unusual Pride month
The past few months have seen us have to wave goodbye to a number of events, instead finding ways to celebrate them separately and behind closed doors. Despite this, our Staff Pride Network still gathered (virtually) to mark Pride month, and to support each other during this strange time. Here, Jonathan MacBride, Co-Convenor of the Network, chats to bulletin about adapting their Pride plans to a digital environment.
What has it been like organising the celebration of Pride during lockdown?
We’ve been glad to have the resources to host a virtual, Prideful, event to bring community members together to reflect, commemorate and celebrate.
Have you managed to take everything online successfully? Has it felt the same hosting events virtually?
There have certainly been varying levels of success and hiccups but we have continued our regular social events and increased our online offering with alternating weekly yoga and Qi Gong (Body Clock Flow). Weekly Wednesday online lunchtime catch-ups for all members have replaced monthly lunchtime events held at different campuses on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Wednesdays. Our monthly Evening Social on the 1st Friday has moved online and drinks are much cheaper! Where conversations would have bounced around in person at these social events, people online want to contribute to the conversation but will often find themselves starting to talk just as someone else does. It’s different, it’s learning how to make it work, and that’s ok. Rather than fight it, we’ve embraced it and even organised an Animal Crossing event for IDAHOBT (International day against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia) where some members joined in on their Nintendo Switch and others watched on Twitch.
How has the Network managed to successfully connect and support each other when they’re unable to meet face to face?
Everyone on the committee and the entire volunteer team have continued to work together to deliver fantastic events, maintain an active social media presence and create interesting communications, while members have responded with generous event feedback, and liking, sharing and retweeting our communications. It motivates us to keep working with the University, attending strategy meetings and organising ever more for our LGBT+ colleagues and allies.
Can you expand a bit more of some of the events you had to alter to fit these lockdown circumstances?
Our Diversifying Wikipedia event on the 25th anniversary of Pride marches in Scotland changed from face-to-face training in a WRB University room to Collaborate for the training, Collaborate side rooms for extra help, and a Discord for other support and questions for our special guests. I’d never heard of Discord before this and now I organise activism on one Discord and chat to friends while experimenting with acrylic paint on another! Event participants created new Wikipedia pages for LGBT+ authors, publishers, and historic and current Scottish LGBT+ bookshops (Lavender Menace Bookshop and Category Is Books, if you want to look up their handiwork!). The AGM in August (date TBC) will be online for the first time too!
Will you be continuing with any of these once things are back to normal?
What’s normal? I expect we’ll maintain a fully inclusive approach, making events accessible in-person and online. We’ll adapt and do our best.
Anything else you’d like to mention?
Pride Month is a time where our community comes together to celebrate the progress we have made towards being included and accepted and ending discrimination. We must acknowledge that the Pride movement is built on the shoulders of Black trans women activists like Marsha P Johnson and we are still fighting today to end racist, homophobic, biphobic and transphobic oppression.
How have you been celebrating Pride month this year? Let bulletin-magazine know in their comments here: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/bulletin-magazine/2020/06/30/reflecting-on-an-unusual-pride-month/
Article from bulletin-magazine: https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/bulletin-magazine/2020/06/30/reflecting-on-an-unusual-pride-month/
New! LGBT Magazine Archive
I’m happy to let you know that the Library now has access to the LGBT Magazine Archive from ProQuest until 31st December 2021. This primary source database is a searchable archive of major periodicals devoted to LGBT+ interests, dating from the 1950s through to recent years.
The archives of magazines serving LGBT+ communities are of central importance for research into LGBT history, often being the principal sources for the documentation of gay cultures, lives, and events. Researchers consulting these publications may trace the history and evolution of myriad aspects of LGBT history and culture, including legal contexts, health, lifestyle, politics, social attitudes, activism, gay rights, and arts/literature. Despite the value of these publications for research, however, locating the backfiles in print format has been difficult for researchers as they have not typically been collected by libraries.
The archives of leading but previously hard-to-find magazines are included in LGBT Magazine Archive, including many of the longest-running, most influential publications of this type. This includes the pre-eminent US and UK titles – The Advocate and Gay News and its successor publication Gay Times, respectively. As well as titles such as The Pink Paper,Just for Us and Transgender Tapestry.
LGBT Magazine Archive provides indispensable material for dedicated LGBT studies and broader gender/sexuality research, while also catering to interests in many related fields, such as 20th-century history, sociology, health studies, political science, and psychology.
You can find more databases and other resources related to LGBT+ and gender studies on the Gender Studies guide.
We have access to LGBT Magazine Archive via a larger subscription deal with ProQuest that is active until 31st December 2021. More information about the huge range of resources that will become available through this deal is coming soon!
Access is only available to current students and staff at the University of Edinburgh.
Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for School of Social and Political Science
Welcome to the May 2020 edition of the
Staff Pride Network newsletter
Dear Members,
Welcome to newsletter 9, packed with diverse articles and links to LGBT+ History Month event (subtitled) videos on our new Youtube channel. In these turbulent times, we hope you have found comfort and enjoyment in our virtual social events, emails, Twitter and Facebook. Katie and I are pleased to have been included in virtual meetings of the new University Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Committee. In February, the 2020 Stonewall Workplace Equality Index placed UoE at 132 out of 500 organisations: a rise of 200 places in 4 years, in large part thanks to SPN volunteers. If you’d like to help make this a better place for LGBT+ people to work and study, we’d love you to contribute your skills and experience.
Best wishes,
Jonathan (he/him) & Katie (she/her)
Co-Chairs, Staff Pride Network for LGBT+ colleagues & allies
Virtual Socials
This is a regular weekly Wednesday lunchtime coffee meetup 1-2 pm & also the first Friday of the month our evening social event (BYOB) 6:30 pm – late. Find out more…
Body Clock Flow (Online Yoga Class)
Mon, 25 May 2020 13:00–14:00
The Body Clock Flow is a sequence of Qi Kung movements and is a practice using the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine in an easy to learn form. We hope you enjoy this introductory session and we hope to run more opportunities to practice Yoga and Qi Kung with Allison in future. More Details…
LGBTQ+ Resources During COVID-19
We have compiled a shortlist of other groups also providing support and events during this difficult time. Find Out More…
A welcome message from our new Events Officer David
Meet David, SPN’s new Events Officer. Find out about his background and interests, then join the Events Team! Read More…
Lesbian Visibility
In lieu of any formal events to celebrate Lesbian Visibility Week, one of our Co-Chairs and Bi Rep, Katie, and our Book Group Coordinator, Anna have had a [online] discussion about what it means to Anna to be visible as a lesbian. Read it here…
Anna also compiled a list of books that she recommends either by lesbian authors, with lesbian characters, or both: Shining a Light on Lesbian Authors
LGBT+ History Month
Our first event in Feb was a panel discussion marking 20 years since the repeal of Section 28/Clause 2a and how experiences have changed in education with a particular focus on young trans students’ experiences.
We were delighted to host a workshop and discussion with Bob & Sigrid. Lavender Menace Returns hopes to create an archive and database of the classic LGBT+ literature we knew best. They want to also include LGBT+ writing of today to form one body of work telling the story of our community – and our demand for equality and honesty. Watch the full event here…
Since it was founded in 2009, International Transgender Day of Visibility has been dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of the discrimination faced by trans people worldwide as well as their contributions to society.
In light of the current covid-19 pandemic we wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the ways in which the trans community are being specifically impacted by this crisis. Read more…
We also recommend this moving blog post by SPN’s Gina:
Great news from Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at HR
We are delighted to let you know that we have developed new, simplified HR processes for changes of name and gender details in staff records. The new processes remove the need for staff to produce documentary evidence and ensure that important information is provided to staff when requesting changes to their HR record.
We believe we are the only HEI to take this bold approach to support staff who cannot, or are not yet ready to make formal changes to their personal details. This work will be used to inform a future review of the Trans Equality policy, and we will continue to review our processes to ensure we are a good employer for trans people.
Very many thanks to trans colleagues who provided input to this!
#NetworksGotTalent
The LGBT+ Network of Networks in Higher Education (@LGBTNoNHE) have an initiative to showcase the talents and skills of members, and to bring joy to LGBT+ communities during the current testing time.
Enjoy the talents of Staff Pride Network Meeting Secretary Derek Williams and his improvisation on piano of The Village People’s YMCA and Macho Man.
The University’s Mackenzie Medical Centre has been awarded a gold accreditation by the LGBT Foundation’s Pride in Practice. Read more…
The Staff Pride Network is creating a subject specialist database bringing together scholars – PhD students, early career researchers, and established academics – working on LGBTQIA+ topics, reflecting the combined strength of the University of Edinburgh expertise in the field.
New online equality, diversity and inclusion training modules
The four new modules are self-enrollment courses and sit on the University’s LEARN platform and can be carried out at your own pace.
All staff are strongly encouraged to complete the training and for all those involved in recruitment and promotion, completion of the Challenging Unconscious Bias training is mandatory.
Staff Pride Network [ONLINE] events: Body Clock Flow (Yoga)
Allison came to yoga and then Qi Kung (Chi Gong) after 3 decades as a nurse and midwife. She describes them as “something which keeps me sane(ish)!” She is motivated to provide accessible and inclusive practices to enhance wellbeing for all people and loves teaching and practicing them. You can read more about Allison on her website.
The Body Clock Flow is a sequence of Qi Kung movements and is a practice using the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine in an easy to learn form.
We hope you enjoy this introductory session and we hope to run more opportunities to practice Yoga and Qi Kung with Allison in future.
The first session is: Mon, 25 May 2020 13:00 – 14:00 BST
I joined QMU last year, but was disappointed that there was no LGBT+ Staff Network. I learned that the previous network fizzled out several years ago, but after speaking with colleagues, we decided to revive it.
We have around 10 members, including one person who is not queer themselves, but is the parent of a queer person. We’ve only met once in person, but have been holding monthly lunchtime videocalls since March.
We’ve now got an email address- LGBTStaff@qmu.ac.uk, Twitter @QMULGBTStaff and an Instagram @QMULGBTStaff of which you are most welcome to follow/contact us through, though these are very bare-bones at the moment. We are working on getting a rainbow logo and webpage set up.
Looking forward to meeting you at some point in the future!
Kitty Flynn
Co-Chair
QMU LGBT+ Staff Network
The Book of Queer Prophets
The Book of Queer Prophets, 24 short stories on sexuality and religion curated by former Stonewall CEO Ruth Hunt, will be published on 28th May.
The publisher Harper Collins advertised on Twitter if anyone would like a proof copy and we were lucky to receive one.
