Standing Up for Science Must Include Standing Up for Trans Lives
an open letter to my science colleagues
Last Friday, I found myself at the corner of Wilshire and Veteran in Los Angeles. Conveniently, the location is less than a mile from my workplace, so I arrived on foot. As cars and buses whooshed by on Wilshire, I joined the large group that had gathered for a protest, about 100 feet from Wilshire Federal Building.
The protest was confined to the tight street corner, so I had to patiently navigate the dense crowd in order to avoid getting accidentally pushed into oncoming traffic. At least one person sneered at the sight of me, so instead I glanced up at the signage being waved in the air, the tiny letters getting big honks from speeding trucks: “Save the earth!” “Trust science!” “Vaccines save lives!” “Stand up for science!”
As I made my way through the crowd at the Los Angeles edition of the nationwide Stand Up for Science protests, a woman in her mid-sixties and dressed in red, white, and blue stopped me and asked if I wanted the small American flag she was waving. I politely declined. Then, she leaned in and whispered, “I support you.” Confused, I thanked her and then hightailed it deeper into the crowd.
In the week since, I have admittedly thought about her way too much. Her vague statement has been captivating. Did she mean that she supports inclusive policies toward trans people like me? If so, why did she whisper? Is her support for queer people supposed to be a secret?
Or maybe there’s a perfectly predictable, alternate explanation for her remark? If there is, I haven’t been able to pinpoint it quite yet - unless she was telling every person there that she supports their work as scientists.
“Vague” is the word that best describes the messaging at LA’s Stand Up for Science protest.1 The speakers (all academic scientists) generally lacked energy and, frankly, a thesis. I was reminded of bell hooks’ dichotomy between “the practice of being an intellectual/teacher and one’s role as a member of the academic profession.”
It was only when researching for this post that I discovered that the national Stand Up for Science movement has enumerated policy goals - summarized by three general themes where the Trump administration must reverse course if the American science infrastructure is to survive:
“End Censorship and Political Interference in Science”
“Secure and Expand Scientific Funding”
“Defend Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in Science”
Themes two and three have concrete policy objectives attached to them. Funding should be secured by reinstating fired federal science employees and by ditching the 15% cap on indirect funds on NIH grants that will bankrupt research institutions. DEI initiatives, including diversity supplements which promote the careers of scientists from minoritized backgrounds, should be reinstated.
Stand Up for Science’s call to end censorship in science is more opaque. The specific requests are the protection of scientists’ intellectual rights and the restoration of public access to critical scientific data. These are necessary, but the specific acts of censorship demanded by the Trump regime are noticeably absent (unlike the other policy goals). What type of information is getting censored? A naïve reader is left to wonder.
However, I’m sure folx in the QSL community are not naïve readers and can immediately identify the correct answer: so-called “gender ideology.”
Censorship of science is a major front in the administration’s push to erase trans people. Within days of the inauguration, public health datasets on queer health disappeared from government websites. When a federal judge ordered the administration to restore the data, the webpages returned with warnings claiming the data was inaccurate because they contained “gender ideology.” The data is certainly accurate. The administration just wants it erased.
Not satisfied by the erasure of published data, the administration has also sought to halt the release of new data. CDC researchers were told to retract any unpublished work that contains one of 12 “forbidden terms.” All 12 terms are queer inclusive.
Even seemingly mundane references to gender are being censored by the regime. An AI bot deployed by Musk has systematically removed pronouns from all federal employees’ email signatures. It’s worth noting that one’s pronouns give relatively little insight into their full gender identity.
The administration is clearly taking seriously Trump’s order that it is “the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.” In a systematic fashion, every federal agency has taken action to implement this policy. At its very core, Trump’s order and the subsequent push to erase trans people are not just anti-trans but also anti-science:
Sex is not binary. That’s a scientific fact.
Queer people are not confused about their identities. That’s a scientific fact.
Gender affirming care is safe and effective. That’s a scientific fact.
So, why isn’t trans existence talked about as a scientific fact like climate change or vaccine efficacy? Why can’t Stand Up for Science name anti-trans hate as a major driver of the administration’s censorship of science? Why did that lady feel the need to whisper her support to me?
I don’t have all the answers, but I do know that many of my scientific peers deny the basic facts of trans existence. Since coming out, I’ve been harassed on the job and at conferences, including by cis men who question the need to use my preferred pronouns because to them I “look like a man.”2
I’ve publicly sparred with researchers who think that sex is a binary, immutable trait. Just a few weeks ago, I emailed the editorial board of The Journal of Sexual Medicine after the release of a poorly designed and poorly executed study falsely claiming that gender affirming surgeries worsen trans people’s mental health. As the editors apathetically refused to engage with my concerns, right-wing propagandists used the bogus study to stir up transphobic sentiments.
The March 7 Stand Up for Science protests were the beginning of a resistance movement within science professions. I’ve noticed enthusiasm among my colleagues to continue “standing up for science.” Already, my local union representatives have declared April 8 as a day of action on this front.
There is still time for movement leaders to recognize the ways in which the affronts on research science and anti-trans discrimination are indelibly intertwined under this regime. Unlike the first Trump administration, the second has a cohesive totalitarian worldview that it is seeking to enforce, and we are all tied up in it.
So far, broad recognition of these realities is lacking. On March 9, Stand Up for Science co-authored an Instagram post decrying censorship of the word “trans” in government science - not because doing so erases the existence of trans people but because it precludes usage of an esoteric definition of “trans” used in genetics research.
To be clear, some individual scientists are not so mealy-mouthed. On March 12, two academic physicians at Harvard Medical School filed a lawsuit over government censorship of terms like “transgender” and “LGBTQ” from the Patient Safety Network (PSNet). This online database collects information from medical practitioners to provide the field with up-to-date resources on best practices. According to the lawsuit, this anti-trans censorship “contradicts—and undermines—PSNet’s stated mission of improving patient safety.”
It is my sincere hope that more allies in scientific professions muster the courage to name the anti-trans biases that motivate the Trump administration’s censorship of science. This is what allyship can look like in 2025.
As I’ve noted many times at QSL, the practice of science and medicine has historically caused severe harm to queer people (and folx of other marginalized identities). Therefore, this moment marks an opportunity to begin making sincere amends for these harms. We can work together to resist our common ill - the totalitarian takeover of American society.
Now isn’t the time for my colleagues to whisper their support for trans folx. It’s time to shout it from wherever you happen to find yourself - your favorite social media site, the corner of Wilshire and Veteran, or the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
from the archive
I cannot vouch for protests at other locations around the country, but you can peruse videos and images from other sites at the Stand Up for Science Instagram page.
Narrator: She looks like a woman because she is a woman.
Absolutely!!!
Thank you for saying this!