Wednesday November 18th is LBGTQ+ in STEM day, a day to celebrate the diversity of people who contribute to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The date represents American astronomer and gay activist Frank Kameny’s Supreme Court fight against workplace discrimination. For more information see https://prideinstem.org/lgbtstemday/ .

Here at Newcastle, this falls in our undergraduate “buffer week”, a short breather between classes. We would therefore like to invite students (PGR and undergraduate, LGBTQ+ and allies) to an online social get-together at 12:00; the zoom details were sent by email, contact us if you’d like to be included. We will suggest a few topics for discussion and/or a few social games, but please feel free to have lunch or a snack handy, and we will break into smaller groups for conversation.

A few topics I’d be happy to hear discussion on:

• What can Newcastle and our School do to better support LGBTQ+ people?
• How is the pandemic difficult for LGBTQ+ people in particular?
• How can we build supportive communities under these conditions?

I would also like to draw your attention to a few resources that may be of interest:

• The Astronomy OutList is a list of LGBTQ+ astronomers and allies who have chosen to publicly identify ourselves in case this is of help to colleagues or students who want to get in touch: https://astro-outlist.github.io/
• The American Physical Society carried out a detailed survey on the climate for LGBT+ people in physics: https://www.aps.org/programs/lgbt/
• The American Astronomical Society assembled a guide on best practices for LGBT+ people in astronomy: https://aas.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/LGBTInclusivityPhysicsAstronomy-BestPracticesGuide2ndEdn_small.pdf
• A group of non-binary astronomers have put together a best practices guide for including people of non-binary gender: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.04893
• A survey of transgender experiences of Newcastle University (from 2018): https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/327365883.pdf
• Newcastle University Student Union has a policy guide for supporting the transitions of transgender students:

I know that this list is somewhat US-centric, and also centred around physics and astronomy; I welcome suggestions to broaden its scope.

Anne Archibald (she/her) and Danielle Leonard (she/her)