2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

"But something's off": Belonging Experiences with Peers for Transgender & Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) Undergraduate Engineering Students

Presented at ERM: Examining Identity

This research brief describes an empirical study examining belonging from an identity perspective for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming (TGNC) undergraduate engineering students. Documented gender disparities in engineering often rely on the gender binary to describe differences. TGNC students break the molds of binary gender expression and identity, which requires new approaches to understanding these students’ experiences. Existing research on the LGBTQIA+ community in engineering focuses on sexuality as separate from gender identity. However, both contribute to belonging differences, particularly for TGNC students who are queer in both their gender identity and sexual orientation.

At a Large Public Midwestern primarily white institution (PWI), we conducted a 40-minute belonging intervention. Three TGNC students participated in the optional interviews that followed. We conducted two coding passes of transcribed interviews: 1) descriptive codes and 2) pattern coding based on the first pass codes and the theoretical frameworks: Identity Negotiation Theory (INT) and LGBTQIA+ Identity Development Models (IDM). INT details the negotiation of personal and membership identity, while IDM contextualizes the participant experiences with the other developmental steps they experience in college as TGNC individuals, such as feeling comfortable in their gender expression.

Based on INT and IDM we propose individual queer engineering identity is developed within three distinct layers of the engineering system—their peers, their educational experiences (classes, internships, co-ops, seminars, etc.), and their beliefs about their future in the field. We found that TGNC students feel constrained in their genderqueer identities and have no models of what agency would be for them in engineering. Therefore, they feel decreased hope for their futures despite interest and ability in engineering. Peers are the first step of this negotiation for belonging, yet TGNC students struggle to feel seen as both engineers and genderqueer individuals. The lack of validation and acceptance both disrupts and expedites certain identity development steps, such as disclosing their identity to their peers and experiencing resistance on account of their identities. While this research brief only concerns the negotiation of TGNC students with their peers, the results indicate that students feel both a lack of belonging and an active deterrence in persisting in engineering because of their queer identities.

Keywords: Transgender and gender non-conforming, sexual orientation, persistence

Authors

Katharine Sarah Getz Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Katharine Getz is an incoming PhD student at Cornell University in Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering. Her research interests include supporting LGBTQIA+ individuals in engineering and how to use queer and feminist theory to reimagine what is possible in engineering education.
Dr. Allison Godwin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0741-3356 Cornell University [biography]

Allison Godwin, Ph.D. is the Dr. G. Stephen Irwin '67, '68 Professor in Engineering Education Research (Associate Professor) in the Robert Frederick Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University. She is also the Associate Director of the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility and a McCormick Teaching Excellence Institute Research Fellow. Her research focuses on how identity, among other affective factors, influences diverse groups of students to choose engineering and persist in engineering. She also studies how different experiences within the practice and culture of engineering foster or hinder belonging, motivation, and identity development. Dr. Godwin graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Engineering and Science Education. Her research earned her a National Science Foundation CAREER Award focused on characterizing latent diversity, which includes diverse attitudes, mindsets, and approaches to learning to understand engineering students’ identity development. She has won several awards for her research including the 2021 Chemical Engineering Education William H. Corcoran Award, 2022 American Educational Research Association Education in the Professions (Division I) 2021-2022 Outstanding Research Publication Award, and the 2023 AIChE Excellence in Engineering Education Research Award.
Mr. Matthew Bahnson http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-0134-0125 Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Matthew Bahnson completed his Ph.D. in the Applied Social and Community Psychology program in at North Carolina State University. His previous training includes a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Northern Iowa and an M.A. in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. Matthew’s research focuses on sociocultural inequality in engineering graduate education with the intention of increasing diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in STEM graduate education. He is completed a postdoctoral appointment in engineering education with the Engineering Cognitive Research Laboratory with Dr. Catherin Berdanier at Pennsylvania State University. He is currently a Research Scientist at Purdue University with the STRIDE research group directed by Dr. Allison Godwin at Cornell University.
Dr. Danielle V. Lewis http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7266-6328 University at Buffalo [biography]

Dr. Danielle Vegas Lewis is currently the Postdoctoral Associate in Dr. Courtney Faber's ENLITE lab in the Department of Engineering Education at the University at Buffalo. Her research agenda aims to understand and disrupt the ways in which socially constructed identities allow for the reproduction of social inequality, with a focus on understanding the ways institutions of higher education and other social structures challenge or uphold hegemonic environments in which majority populations accumulate power that harms students underrepresented in certain contexts.
Dr. Linda DeAngelo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8508-5909 University of Pittsburgh [biography]

Linda DeAngelo is Associate Professor of Higher Education in the School of Education and Director of Graduate Studies with a secondary faculty appointment in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. DeAngelo studies social stratification, investigating how social inequities are produced, maintained, and interrupted. Currently her scholarship focuses on access to and engagement in faculty mentorship, the pathway into and through graduate education, and gender and race in engineering.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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