2024 Collaborative Network for Engineering & Computing Diversity (CoNECD)

On the Importance of Spatiality and Intersectionality: Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Undergraduate Engineering Experiences Through Critical Collaborative Ethnographic Site Visits

Keywords: LGBTQIA+, Engineering, Gender.
Engineering as a field is dominated by toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, whiteness, and cisnormativity, as well as the promotion of objectiveness and depoliticization of identity. There is a dearth of knowledge surrounding transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) student experiences in engineering, and much of the [limited] available research on TGNC STEM student lives assumes a universalized trans experience, not taking into account intersecting marginal identities that can affect a student’s performance and sense of belonging in engineering or STEM environments. STEM-related research into marginalized populations’ experiences is often done without the use of feminist, queer, trans, and anti-racist research methodologies that take into consideration power imbalances between the researcher and participant and the implications of conducting research on and with subordinated population groups. This study addresses these research gaps. We used critical collaborative ethnographic site visits to center TGNC positionality and community-centered research ethics. Critical ethnographic methods put critical theories into action by rooting the participant’s experiences and study observations in larger global justice frameworks at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, culture, and disability. This framing places the researcher with the subjects to co-create results from the fieldwork, allowing students to retain power in the relationship with the researcher and exert some control over their portrayal in the research products. Further, marginalized population group research is best conducted by members of that population group so as to upset inherent power imbalances between the researcher and the participant. So, as a critical part of our methodology, our research team consists of transgender, gender nonconforming, and cisgender interdisciplinary researchers in engineering and women, gender, and sexuality studies (WGSS), with a transgender and queer WGSS researcher as the only point of contact with the TGNC research participants.
This paper details the results from a 4-day critical collaborative ethnographic site visit involving two mechanical engineering students at a prestigious private university in the Northeastern United States. The activities of the visit included formal semi-structured interviews as well as less formal interactions with each participant, such as attending classes, visiting important campus and community spaces, or hanging out with the participant’s friend/peer groups. The visiting researcher also explored the college campus and the broader community on his own, noting the location's unique specificity. As predicted by previous literature and theoretical grounding and significant findings from previous phases of this research, the results pointed to the uniqueness of each student’s identity, location, political worldview, and support system. The two TGNC student participants, both with multiple intersecting marginal identities, had incredibly different experiences in the same mechanical engineering program, leading to one participant experiencing resounding success and the other leaving STEM altogether. The findings from this critical collaborative ethnographic site visit suggest that barriers to success or finding belonging for TGNC students in engineering must be considered through the use of intersectionality theory.