I reported and wrote this story as a class assignment in fall 2022.
STEM Queer Students Struggle with Acceptance
By Aislyn Gaddis
Galina Bouyer felt accepted as a queer student at the University of Texas. Then, she found a hateful message attached to a pride flag in the undergraduate physics lounge.
Bouyer, a physics and astronomy junior, was among the group of students who discovered and reported the incident last month. She said it was awful to see that somebody had put something intentionally hateful in a shared space for students, but declined to say what the message was.
“I feel like repeating those words and spreading them gives the person who did this more reach and power, which is the exact opposite of what the goal should be,” she said. She also added that other pride-themed items in the room were moved.
Bouyer is the co-president of Gender Minorities in Physics, a student organization with around 40 members that strives to provide a safe space in a male-dominated field. The group has been working with the physics department to improve inclusivity following the incident.
“It really makes a nice environment for people to sort of trust each other and understand that we have either shared experiences or shared interest promoting inclusivity,” Bouyer said, adding that it can be easy to feel isolated.
She said the only negative experience she’s had at UT as a queer student was finding the message, but she added she does consciously seek positive environments. She also said she tends to not be “super overt” about her identity and doesn’t talk about it with many people.
The incident came five months after the Queer and Trans Student Alliance released a report on the state of LGBTQIA+ affairs at UT. The report found that “despite decades of student organizing, The University of Texas at Austin does not offer the inclusivity that LGBTQIA+ students and other historically-oppressed groups demand.” The extensive study also found that LGBTQIA+ students on average feel less safe than non-LGBTQIA+ identifying students.
On Sept. 15, the physics, math and astronomy departments sent out an email to students informing them a pride flag had been vandalized twice in the Physics Math and Astronomy building (PMA). The email condemned the actions but did not provide details about the incident such as what the vandalism consisted of or where in the building it occurred.
“Allow us to state clearly: there is no place in this building or on our campus for discrimination and hate directed towards anyone, including members of our LGBTQA+ community. What happened is unacceptable,” the email stated.
The departments said they are working on ally training and inviting speakers to discuss inclusivity within the STEM community. They also provided a list of campus support resources.
According to Stephanie Jacksis, UT police director of communications and strategic marketing, the incidents at the PMA consisted of an organization taping a flyer to the pride flag, and then someone else changing one of the words in the initial flyer to something inappropriate. She declined to identify the organization or what the changed word was.
She added that UT police are not treating the case as vandalism, despite it being initially reported as such, because nothing was permanently damaged. UT police are still looking for the person who violated university rules.
Amelie Perez, a biology junior who identifies as queer, said she still thinks it’s vandalism.
“Even if it wasn’t like the burning of the flag and things like that, it was still vandalism of a pride flag in a public place, and that’s not okay,” she said. “It’s just one more step to making things feel unsafe for queer students here.”
Perez also expressed disapproval that the only students who were made aware by the university were physics, math and astronomy students.
Despite the incident happening in the PMA building, students outside of those majors have classes there.
Perez said that while her STEM professors and classmates don’t seem to have negative views about the queer community, liberal arts professors she’s taken classes with have been more vocal with their support.
“It’s not that I’ve had negative, explicitly antagonistic experiences within STEM; it’s that I haven’t had positive experiences,” she said.
Perez said she questions whether the STEM community at UT doesn’t talk more about queerness because it doesn’t think it needs to, or if it just has a “quiet tolerance.”
“Maybe the opinions are not as good as we think, as we hoped they would be,” she said emotionally, her voice shaking.
Bouyer, on the other hand, said she’s felt supported by the physics, math and astronomy departments following the incident, and that she’s seen clear efforts to condemn what happened and promote future community and inclusivity.
“Whenever something like this happens, you want to make sure that you’re doing the best to make sure it doesn’t happen again, but also to make people feel supported,” she said. “I hope that is something that we can provide to people and that people will feel going forward.”
Aislyn Gaddis 