AASWomen Newsletter for June 21, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 21, 2019
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

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Sally Ride, from item 2

This week's issues:

1. Crosspost: Symposium in Honor of the Legacy of Vera Rubin

2. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space 36 years ago today

3. A Push For More Inclusivity In Science

4. US science agencies report ‘shockingly low’ rates of harassment complaints

5. NIH should ask both institutions and investigators to report sexual harassment findings, advisory group says

6. Unintended consequences of gender-equality plans

7. Psychology Today: It’s Not You, It’s Them

8. Where Are All the Working Mothers in STEM?

9. Making space for female scientists' voices online, in the media and in person

10. Why women in tech are being Photoshopped in instead of hired

11. What it's like to be a trans scientist with imposter syndrome - Lady Science

12. An interview with the CLEAR Lab’s Queer Science Reading Group

13. Job Opportunities

14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

16. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

On Being a Transgender Astronomer

Today's guest post is by Jessica Mink, a positional astronomer and software developer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, who has written the commonly used software packages WCSTools and RVSAO and worked on a variety of astronomical projects over 40 years. Much of her story is told in this interview with the American Astronomical Society's Working Group on LGBTIQ Equality (WGLE). 

While I consider myself to be a woman astronomer, I have not always been one. Since I made much of my reputation with a different gender expression and remain in the field, I have to accept the fact that I am also a transgender astronomer, and as a representative of that small group, serve as an ambassador to the rest of the astronomical world.

While gradually (over 40 years!) transitioning from male to female, I have thought a lot about gender and its various facets, but when I volunteered to write a blog entry representing my gender minority for the Women in Astronomy blog, I realized that I hadn't been very systematic about it. It is likely that most readers don't have any trans* friends (that they know about), but this far into the 21st century, most thinking people are aware of our existence and might even know of one of us.