It was clear a long time ago that I wanted to become research faculty at some point. The path went along what was intended as a two year post-doc stint in a Medieval village, and I saw this as a necessary sacrifice. I wasn’t sure quite which ways I was queer at the time, but knew on some level all of me could never fit except in the few places large and liberal enough to hold serious LGBTQ++ community. So my stay in the village was a price I needed to pay, but which I could only make myself pay by promising myself later I could go live somewhere where I could actually make myself a home. Back then, the steps to becoming an independent scientist were also not at all evident. But two years grew on six as opportunities and networking kept me engaged and eventually it began to be clearer what would be the next step professionally: applying for starting grants and positions, with projects evolving out of my postdoc work but closer still to my solidifying own interests. My host institute offered much, but not opportunities to gather academic leadership or independent funding merits, and while I published substantially, I realized I could never outcompete someone running their own lab and leading a team who helps them. So the time window for independence was slowly closing finally, and I set out to start to achieve it. This was in 2016 or so.
2016 was also the year my decades-old defences against how I was truly feeling were beginning to fail; the sense of alienation and nothingness and the panic by which I kept that away by clinging to certain thoughts and ideas and habits, was eating more and more of my life and at some point I realized, mournfully, that I had accepted that I would not be able to reach my full potential scientifically, or as a partner or friend, or as in simply enjoying experiences, because I saw no way out of that sense of constant fear or despair. Though I touched its edges in therapy, I sensed none of the solutions then credible to me would help. It was, as yet, the darkest period I ever experienced. Finally, in late 2016, my defences failed and I finally was desperate enough to ask the question I had not before: what if I was not merely agender, as I had thought, but actually a transgender woman? What if these emotions were linked to that? Would it change how I felt, if that was something I knew? I had spent all of that day inside, watching by reflection the sun rise, fall and set, feverish panic and loathing within me. Upon asking that question and intuiting for the answer, it was as though the darkness outside lightened, the pressure relented, a sense as of the sun rising again outside blackout curtains. While within my previous conception of myself and the world this thought should not have mattered, clearly it did. I had no more answers than before that moment, but finally at long last, I had again a hope of finding them. I rose from my self-pity and started searching for the experiences of others, wondering if perhaps there were ones who had felt like me. I had discounted the thought of being “truly” (by which, by then, I meant, binary) trans because I had been told all such people match a particular narrative from which my life diverged, and I now questioned that assumption.
Thus two factors converged to shape my year 2017, the topic of this post: I was seeking to find a way to let myself transition from post-doc to primary investigator, and to transition from whatever-I-had-been to whatever-I-could-be in terms of sex and gender (the interrelationship between which I have Thoughts About but which belong to another post). In both of these matters I have been incredibly privileged and lucky for how helpful my starting points and networks have been, and I need to underscore this fact; I can make few generalizable claims. This however is my story, and it may form a small piece of the puzzle even from the lens of a (probably?) abled white woman in Europe.
I began to inspect how I had censored my body language in those ways that male-assigned and male-interpreted people must so as to not be singled out as targets for homophobia, growing up
In regards to finding my path on sex/gender transition, the initial step was that of questioning, or more accurately, ensuring I had done due diligence in ensuring what I emotionally knew as true was also defensible from all data available to me. I needed to learn more, compare my story to others, and take as many steps I dared so that I could see if provisionally reforging my dissolute self as a trans woman would bring a stable sense of being alive and emotionally available and present. This experimentation was only possible within social contexts, so in more and more such, with partners and different friend groups, I went by my chosen name – Sofia – and such pronouns people usually apply to women in the societies I inhabited. When starting PhD studies all those years ago, I had gone from wearing makeup daily to doing so only outside work, and now I started – fearfully at first – to do so again. Similarly, while I had worn mostly clothing ostensibly designed and sold for women for several years by that time (never quite asking myself what it might mean that this made me feel less out of place), I let myself slowly move from the fully androgynous through the effeminate into the subtly feminine. I started doing my brows, pierced my ears at last. I began to inspect how I had censored my body language in those ways that male-assigned and male-interpreted people must so as to not be singled out as targets for homophobia, growing up. I further began to inspect how I communicated, how I let myself feel, how I let myself react and relate and interact. None of this, of course, constitutes any sort of essence of womanhood. But it all formed strands in that weave of associations which is human gendered culture, and I knew on some level that by invoking that weave, I could affect whether I felt myself being de facto grouped with women or with men, both in my own perception and that of others, and it was my own emotional response to that grouping that, fundamentally, I needed to test.
This experiment was successful. I concluded during 2017 that any systematic difference (in body, life experience, reactivity, behaviour or role) between me and those I see as women causes me to experience that sense of unreality and disconnect that I had been running from so long, whereas a sameness (again, in all of these things) helped ward it off. I have no proof, but I believe this to be a near-universal mechanism present equally in cis people, and underlying our human inclinations to form homosocial groups for comradeship and shared identity, as adolescents and adults alike. Womanhood is wonderfully diverse and I happily challenge some of its stereotypes, but I need for those stereotypes to be challenged from a starting point of a fundamental identification of myself as no less valid a member of the group as any other woman. Conversely, the thought of being (or being seen as) a man, even a wonderfully queer, nurturing, kind and elegant one, free from toxic masculinity, still causes me to feel that sense of dysphoric disconnect. It is only by understanding myself as a woman (as unique as any other) that I can understand myself as a person. I also found myself realizing that some of my dislike of men in the decades prior had been the fear of being one; as I have moved away from that thought, I find I can face and respect each man as an individual as well, and recognize and support each where he is in the struggle against the norms of manhood imposed upon him; I have gained brothers to whom I can be a sister.
These various insights took substantial time and brooding (and blogging, elsewhere, ask me if interested) during the year. Therapy as well, though it took a few tries to find a provider with whom I was able to work. When I had previously engaged within our lab’s Equality and Diversity Committee to help look into whether or not our workplace health insurance scheme covered transition care, I had not expected I would be the first to test drive the system; yet in 2017 I did, starting psychotherapy, voice therapy and facial hair removal using lasers. The latter I knew already I would never regret; but I felt initially little urgency in starting the hormone treatments that would scale back what testosterone puberty did and instead initiate estrogen driven puberty. Gradually, however, I realized how much I wanted and needed these things, and urgency became highly salient in the course jumping through the many hoops needed for formal and recognized diagnosis. I finally started hormone treatment on February 10, 2018, coincidentally the Day of Women and Girls in Science. Throughout 2017 I increasingly found it jarring and disorienting to use my old name – my deadname, now – and I moved through stages of switching to initials only wherever I could, as well as carrying out a formal name change to ensure at least my documents were as Sofia. Perhaps my greatest help during this year was making good cis woman friends who accepted me as their equal and whom I could look up to as role models. Teenage girls find out who they are together with their friends, whether they are 17 or 37.
…If I kept career building without showing the world who I was (which I was only partially cognizant of, at the time), I would wake up at age 50 dependent on a network of collaborators all continuing to believe I was a straight cis man like them. I knew I could not let that happen
But I digress. These steps all took place during a 2017 where I increasingly needed to manage who knew what about me in what context. It was not until 2018 I changed my name at work, but I no longer looked the same, and I was with each step worried I would be shunned or called out or finally the target of discrimination (though on some level, my silly brain had always feared this anyway, had always somehow expected everyone could see how queer I was, even before there was any way for them to, throughout all these years, so this fear was not new). Each time I pushed a little further, waited for the reaction which never came, and continued. People realized something but I have no idea what. On some level, I realized I had prepared for this. Since a life-changing meeting and forging of siblinghood in 2013, I had known that if I kept career building without showing the world who I was (which I was only partially cognizant of, at the time), I would wake up at age 50 dependent on a network of collaborators all continuing to believe I was a straight cis man like them. I knew I could not let that happen, so I had attempted to at least underscore my unconventionality as much as I dared for the last few years. Probably people thought I was an effeminate gay goth guy, or something like it. In hindsight, I see this as preparing for a transition that I could not let myself want until it was safe to. Even so, I was fearful at every step of the way. My choices became more limited. Any performative acceptance of a reading of myself as male felt like a self-betrayal and left me worn for long afterwards, so I stopped at least using he/him pronouns, and spent much of 2017 trying to find the rare gender-neutral restrooms on edges of campus rather than either be called out or thrown into dysphoric pits.
It also was not quite clear what I intended. I roughly expected to conclude to proceed with medical binary transition, but to stay in a nonbinary liminal state socially where anyone could call me what they liked, until I could pass for a cis woman bodily, if ever (I did not expect to, given my age). But I realized how this was largely also a matter of fear, and not sustainable – I transitioned, after all, to be free from constantly having to expend most of my energies defending against a personal existential threat. Maintaining such a threat would never let me thrive as a scientist. These questions were much on my mind during 2017 due to the other transition I was attempting, the professional one, having the two very relevantly intersect, and this intersection, perhaps, is the experience I most want to share writing this.
Academia is a realm of dependencies. We depend on recommendation letters for PI positions, and then on allies to include us on grants and collaboration. Tenure hinges on having enough allies and not too many enemies. While we pride ourselves on having flat hierarchies, in practice, it is a highly social, highly alliance- and reputation-driven context. One cannot effectively be a lone scientist, it is necessary to nurture an anchoring. I knew this well from my postdoc work acting as liaison and coordinator for various tasks in a large consortium. I feared tremendously to lose the support of that consortium, but also, I feared taking up a junior PI offer somewhere where I would be denied advancement or resources for revealing my transition. Academia is also up or out until the professor stage – so to have the option stay, there are still substantial milestones I must reach. True, there are provincial universities where I probably could get a position anyway. But I knew I would live my life as a (likely non-passing) trans woman, and I do not want to be lonely. I want friendship and love and family and community. I need these things due to being human. So immediately, any location for my next career step was restricted to those where I could conceivably build such community. Realistically, this ruled out most destinations. Additionally, my specific research had become important enough for me – what I actually worked on had become to blend with what I wanted to do, I was beginning to start to be able to make progress on my life goal – that only opportunities within my specialty made sense. So I knew from early on, that I had an extremely small labor market to navigate, extremely skilled competitors, and the need to move within this market while being on the verge of coming out as a trans woman, and knowing I would have to come out within a year at most. This caused 2017 to feel like I was balancing on a tightrope above an abyss, to put it metaphorically.
The process of applying ended up converging in many ways to this one thing: come up with a Heartfelt Vision. Come up with a programme of scientific research that one feels passionate about, that is timely, that is realistic, that has a well-defined budget, that is fundable, and that is relevant. Write that up. The same project proposal, the same talks, in different forms, then ends up forming the core for the job applications for group leader or assistant professor positions, and for career development fellowship or startup grants. The road is long but most of what one generates is reusable. I sought lots and lots of help, asked all I knew for feedback and ended up revising my ideas substantially. All in all, I think perhaps I seriously applied 9-10 times, almost all to institutes in Berlin and London, which cities I had mostly narrowed the search down to. I was relying on existing collaborators in either sphere to help me identify local needs and synergies. I was called for interview and symposium about half the time, likely due to strength of reference letters and having high-impact papers; when there were symposia, my competitors each also had at least one Cell/Nature/Science paper. Throughout these steps, I noted my pronouns as they/them if asked (no-one did), looked queer and androgynous, but was not actively offering up the information that I was trans. Until I had to; one site changed the they/them pronouns in my provided biosketch for announcing my talk (I still am unsure why) and I called them out on it. This place did offer me a position. The deal was not great in terms of funding though, so I nudged my current employer to make up their minds (or rather, asked my now-mentor and supportive collaborator to nudge them), and then finally in very early 2018, while in the process of negotiating with the first site, received a much better informal offer from the second. Together with Brexit looming, I knew I would go to Berlin.
He asked what I was worried about. I wrote back that I was trans, and in the process of transitioning – one of my scariest coming out moments, next to the gradual ones with my parents. After some time he reassured me it should not be a problem, and encouraged me to sign my contract in my new name
This put me in the position of having to make a choice and face my fears. The thought of starting a lab, then trying to convince everyone to accept a new name and pronouns, and spending the time before then hiding something from people I worked with, being closeted, being worried – it would never work. I contacted my mentor very nervously, and mentioned I was worried perhaps something about me might be a problem re: fitting into the institute (which is anchored, after all, in a conservative medical environment). He asked what I was worried about. I wrote back that I was trans, and in the process of transitioning – one of my scariest coming out moments, next to the gradual ones with my parents. After some time he reassured me it should not be a problem, and encouraged me to sign my contract in my new name. So I contacted the recruitment committee and HR, mention this largely as a formality. And in a sense, that encouraged me to do the same in every subsequent coming out; to present it as fact, not as anything worthy of worry or excuse. This is fact, this is me. Every time has emboldened me to expect, simply, acceptance. This is but one of many things I am enormously thankful to that mentor for.
So I signed, and accepted, and moved from 2017 as a year fully in limbo and transition preparation, into 2018 as a year of transition implementation. The worst was solved – I knew I was given an offer, even with the closet door fully open. I finally had at least a five-year frame of security. The process had started. It also made more coming outs inevitable, because I knew I would be a public figure as a PI. My collaborators and my family would all see my lab webpage. I came out fully to the latter, the third step in a gradual process of assuaging their fears and anchoring what I was doing with them. With the former, it mostly happened in the course of other communication, and I outed both my professional and sex/gender transition at the same time. For those consortium collaborators, I told them of both these matters after the conclusion of a planning meeting at the Hilton Schiphol, trying to have my voice not shake and underscoring that I was hoping to continue and enhance my collaboration with them in my new position and under a new name. One dry old biochemist noted how he “really admired my efforts to ensure gender equal representation in the sciences”, and another became an ardent supporter, apparently protecting me in discussion with the others. I feel accepted fully in this context. I sent emails to the same effect to other networks, and to all the people at my old institute I had been in contact with, while announcing my going away party.
Once I was out everywhere, I ceased to hold back
All of this felt like standing on a calving iceberg. Once set in motion, the process was inevitable and with such inertia it would crush anything in its path. I have been met solely with either silence or support. None have challenged me. Few expressed surprise, though this says little. Once I was out everywhere, I ceased to hold back and started dressing as femme as I felt, realizing it is an expression I feel happy with, as well as one which made fewer strangers use the wrong pronouns for me. As I said, I started hormone treatment around this time and felt my body and some of my nervous system pathways begin to change. Then on May 1st I moved to the city I had wanted to live in and started my lab there. Just as before, as a PI whom they first met presenting as a woman, people have not challenged me. I have no idea ever if people I meet are aware I am trans, though I assume that in most cases they must. I try to make sure they know, also, because it feels safer this way. Within a few years comes the next challenge, which is to see if I can make them offer me tenure. No guarantees, so I feel convinced that I must become productive, networked, strategic and essential so far beyond the norm for my career level that it becomes ridiculous to ask me to leave. This is, of course, a source of stress. Still, it stresses me less than the job search of 2017 did. And perhaps the reason that it does is, I am now fully, 100% out. In no area of my life am I other than a woman, or seen or considered as other than a woman. I feel like a real person, so there is nothing that stops me from using all my capacities to the fullest in pursuit of this success. And so, despite feeling tired and worn and stressed, and recognizing I have mental and physical illnesses I must take seriously the management of, I feel happier and more fulfilled than ever before in my life, more proud of myself than ever, more secure in myself than ever, with regards to whom I am publicly and what I attempt and achieve as a scientist.
As I said, I have no way of knowing if any of this generalizes. My experience is that of a white Scandinavian, mostly-abled, with many many allies and friends I built connections to over time, who prepared subconsciously for transition by trying to build that network as queerly as possible, who works in a buzzwordy and fundable field, and who made most choices to make this combined path of dual transitions as synergistic and easy as she could. Had any of these factors not been in place, I have no idea how it would have gone. Nor do I know if I would have had the same professional options open to me if I had transitioned earlier. I cannot tell either way. I can only say I feel blessed, and tired, and thankful to so many. Including you who read this. Go be awesome, reader. And be my friend, if you want.
LGBTQ+ STEM 
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