About the author. Jessica Lodwick is an instructor of Botany and Plant Pathology and Integrative Biology at Oregon State University. Her teaching interests are grounded in the ecology and the evolutionary basis of life on earth. Jessica has previously taught courses on animal behavior and scientific writing, with a focus on fundamental ecological principles and biological concepts. She is currently teaching Introductory Biology (BI 204-206) to Ecampus students and Ecology (BI 370) on the Corvallis campus.
In terms of her research background, Jessica is trained as a behavioral ecologist and primatologist. Jessica’s dissertation research focused on the links between foraging strategies, feeding competition, and female dominance relationships in wild western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla). Her fieldwork was conducted at the Mondika Research Center in the Republic of Congo over a 19-month period. Please see Jessica’s personal website for a list of her publications and conference presentations.
This past week, I attended a Tuesday Teaching + Tech Talk aimed at best practices for supporting LGBTQQIAA+ (QTI+: Queer, Trans, Intersex+ ) students. Our dynamic presenter, Dharma Mirza (OSU graduate student in Public Health and advocate for the QTI+ community), kicked off the talk by focusing on three types of discrimination that QTI+ students may experience in higher ed– interpersonal, curricular, and institutional. These non-mutually-exclusive pathways of discrimination can interact and create barriers to academic success.
Interpersonal discrimination may manifest in small group/ class discussions or in events on campus. As instructors, we may inadvertently be engaging in interpersonal discrimination if, for example, we misgender students in a class discussion or fail to acknowledge the use of preferred names and/or personal pronouns. Dharma stressed that educators have a responsibility to acknowledge and model accountability when instances of gender discrimination (or e.g., homophobic/transphobic comments) crop up in class. This practice of acknowledgement is aimed at ensuring that QTI+ students are treated equitably and feel that they are valued members of the classroom community.
Curricular discrimination is another pervasive issue for QTI+ students, particularly in biology content that presents research on humans and animals based on an outdated, binary view of biological sex. As a new biology instructor at OSU, I’ve become acutely aware that a few of my QTI+ students have expressed frustration with how the textbook treats discussions of biological sex, sex determination, and sexual selection. As a result, they may feel invisible/excluded from course material. Research on intersex animals and human individuals have, in recent years, shed light on the beautiful diversity of sex chromosome arrangements, sexuality, and gender identity in the natural world and exposed the problematic nature of this binary construct (e.g., reviewed in Monro et al. 2021) for QTI+ students. It’s my goal to incorporate and discuss examples/data collected on intersex and gender-diverse populations to help my QTI+ students feel included and seen in the biology curriculum that I am teaching. I recommend the resources and examples aimed at humanizing and diversifying biology curricula that have been compiled on Gender Inclusive Biology and Project Biodiversify.
I also learned from Dharma’s presentation that QTI+ students may face institutional discrimination, which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic, such as reduced access to housing, reliable internet, and financial aid (Williams Institute 2021). Furthermore, QTI+ students may not be aware of campus and community resources available to them, such as the Pride Center, Hattie Redmon Women and Gender Center, OSU oSTEM, CAPS LGBTQQIAA+, and SHS Gender Affirming Care. As educators, we can be allies and advocates while supporting the needs of our QTI+ students by connecting them to campus resources like these.
Finally, I am coming to the understanding that as an instructor wishing to cultivate an inclusive learning environment for my students, it’s important to acknowledge, address, and create a framework of inclusivity. With a spirit of inclusivity and by implementing a working framework to support QTI+ student populations, we can co-opt the framework for extending similar policies and practices to our DAS students, students of color, first- generation, neuro-atypical, and other underrepresented student populations in the higher ed landscape of today’s changing world.
References Cited
Monro, S.; Carpenter, M.; Crocetti, D.; Davis, G.; Garland, F.; Griffiths, D.; Hegarty, P.; Travis, M.; Cabral Grinspan, M.; Aggleton, P. (2021) Intersex: cultural and social perspectives. Culture, Health, and Sexuality 23: 431-440. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2021.1899529
Williams Institute (2021). One-third of LGBTQ college students experienced housing disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic. University of California Los Angeles. Retrieved from https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/one-third-of-lgbtq-college-students-experienced-houseing-disruption-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/
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