Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Coming out at work: transgender scientists share their stories

To mark Pride month, transgender scientists recount transition experiences as political landscapes turn increasingly hostile in many places.
  1. Sophia Chen

    1. Sophia Chen is a freelance science journalist in Columbus, Ohio.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Find a new job

Before coming out as transgender at work, Lisa procured the ultimate academic protection: tenure. A geochemist in her thirties, she found a faculty job at a university in the southwest of the United States. It was 2002, and she knew of many transgender people who had lost their jobs after transitioning. At the time, media depictions cast transgender people largely as freaks, the butt of jokes or hate-crime victims. With job security assured, she told her colleagues she was transitioning — but she did not anticipate their reaction. “The department chair wanted to have a meeting with all the students and announce it,” she says. “I was like, ‘Do we have to do this?’”

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 618, 871-873 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01908-y

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 19 June 2023: An earlier version of this Career feature misspelt the name of Brianna Ghey.

  • Correction 22 June 2023: An earlier version of this feature used the wrong pronouns for Jasmine Thomson-Cooke.

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links