INTERNATIONAL BUISNESS TIMES



Queer Science, From Alan Turing To Sally Ride


By Roxanne Palmer | July 29, 2012 3:25 AM EST


http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/367868/20120729/sally-ride-turing-lgbt-science-scientists.htm#.UBZBEYd5vzY


The late astronaut Sally Ride came out of the closet this week with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a quiet, matter-of-fact phrase released after her death that identified Tam O'Shaughnessy, a former science teacher and science writer, as her partner of 27 years.

Ride's sister, Bear, told the Seattle Times that Sally "never hid her relationship with Tam" but cited the pioneering astronaut's sense of privacy as the reason she never came out with fanfare while she was alive.

But Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan criticized the first American woman in space for not coming out sooner.

As a working, busy and career orientated scientist with 70 plus peer reviewed journal papers including Nature and Blood I find Andrew Sullivan's discussion to be meaningless twaddle. I live my life openly and freely. I have many local, national and international colleagues who have Gay or Lesbian lifestyles. I presume their are several TG's as well. I know of four medics in South Australia and one scientist in NSW but I don't actually go looking.

That we should for some reason declare ourselves as figure heads is, to put it bluntly, crap. Why should we? I have nothing to hide and I do not hide it, but my science record is judged by my peers on my academic record.  I don't want any recognition either positively or in the negative for being TG. What has that got to do with anything?

I do get shocked when a 'scientist' says that they believe in "Creationism" or even worse 'intelligent design' because that surely shows an uneducated person and a pretence to a rigorous scientific method. If a scientist tells me they are Gay etc, so what?

Just gets me a little peed off (nothing to do with you SJ honey)

Cindy

If AS had been a woman astronaut back then, would he have come out? Who knows. Different times, different contexts, different challenges, different people. Taking someone else to task for not coming out when you think they should have is offensive.

Quote from: Cindy James on July 30, 2012, 04:10:34 AM

Just gets me a little peed off (nothing to do with you SJ honey)

Cindy

...Thank You Cindy! I'm just the poor ol' gal posting this stuff

SJ