'Physics is always evolving, and gender is, too. When we understand that things are more complex than they appear, we learn. When scientists embrace the complexity of the universe, our science can only improve.' ScienceWorkingLife
Growing up, I asked a lot of questions. Many of them foretold my future in astronomy: Why is the Sun yellow? Why do the constellations look like that? Why does Jupiter have a spot? My parents answered what they could, and bought me books to answer the rest. But my most frequent question, starting when I was about 5 years old, was why am I a girl? And for that, my parents had no answer. In fact, in the 1990s, in the foothills of the Appalachians, no one did.
On the academic front, things weren’t much better. In high school, I particularly hated freshman physics and its inflexible rules, which seemed to mirror the society I lived in. The same way we learned to expect a pendulum to swing, a block to slide down a slope, a ball to fall off a cliff, I felt I was expected to go to church, meet a man, marry young, and have kids. This seemingly inescapable trajectory left me depressed and numb to the world.
In college, I would also hear the word “transgender” for the first time. I would meet queer folks in loving relationships. It was drastically different from my first brush with queerness—an encounter with a slur on a sign wielded by members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who came to my hometown to demonstrate when I was 13.
It hasn’t always been easy. I lived a bit of a double life for a while, authentic in my internet presence and closeted while I finished my Ph.D. But when I was ready, embracing my identity brought me into an incredible community.
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