Here’s a thing that turned up in my tumblr feed:
This is my would-be response:
Another point is that public engagement of STEM is very much a thing that is happening. Dissemination is important to the continuation of research, especially if you are state-funded, because you have to prove what your work can do for society. One way that this has been done with a decent amount of success (judging from feedback) is introducing scientists and their lives alongside the science, as this makes them and their work seem more relatable to non-scientists. Research and researchers already exist in something akin to a bubble without the need for any help to remove them further from the consumers of science.
If sexuality didn’t matter in the first place – i.e. there was no discrimination based on orientation to begin with – then we can question why people suddenly cared. The matter of fact is that sexuality and gender are both factors that affect a person’s standpoint and potential for advancement in science as well as academia (and LIFE). Even if we were to place such importance on “quantifiable repeatable cold hard science”, there are people behind the science who work very hard and deserve a bit of sympathy for their hardships. No scientists, no new science (explained for human consumption; if science was a sentient being, who knows if it would care about us puny humans).
There’s also the possibility that I’m responding to somebody who simply is an unsympathetic killjoy, but never mind.
(I feel I should also add that my response is purposefully placing science on the pedestal used by the tumblr-user ibringyoulove… what irony. Even those of us with all the privileges afforded us by social norms have down days in the lab. Let’s just all care a bit more about each other, okay?)
Anybody else wish to take up the thread?
The Real World for Young People 