RESISTANCE AND COMMUNITY-BUILDING IN LGBTQ+ ENGINEERING STUDENTS

Recent efforts to promote equity in science and engineering fields have exposed various ways that racial and gender minoritized groups are also marginalized in STEM. One key group that has been overlooked by many such programs is lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, and gender-nonconforming (LGBTQ+) engineering students. Given their consistently negative experiences in engineering, such as homophobia and heteronormativity, there is a dearth of research on how LGBTQ+ engineering students may resist these challenges and create spaces in engineering in which they can thrive. We report a qualitative study of LGBTQ+ electrical and computer engineering students at a large public university in the southern United States. Four semi-structured focus groups (n = 9 participants) were conducted to capture the experiences of LGBTQ+ engineering students at the institution as well as explore the ways in which the participants navigated and created space for themselves in engineering. Our findings illuminate ways in which LGBTQ+ students resist dominant heteronormative engineering cultures within their personal contexts by creating space for themselves and building communities of marginalized students. We propose that engineering researchers, faculty, and staff listen to and amplify the grassroots solutions that LGBTQ+ students are already creating as they design new policies and programs toward equity.