The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist
The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist

Author: Ben Barres

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2018-10-30

Total Pages: 161

ISBN-13: 0262039117

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A leading scientist describes his life, his gender transition, his scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in science. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his female-to-male transition in his forties, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. Barres recounts his early life—his interest in science, first manifested as a fascination with the mad scientist in Superman; his academic successes; and his gender confusion. Barres felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. He reports he felt nothing but relief on becoming his true self. He was proud to be a role model for transgender scientists. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. Privileged white men, Barres writes, “miss the basic point that in the face of negative stereotyping, talented women will not be recognized.” At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. “The most rewarding part of his job,” however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy.

Irreversible Damage
Irreversible Damage

Author: Abigail Shrier

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-06-30

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1684510465

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NAMED A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021 BY THE TIMES AND THE SUNDAY TIMES "Irreversible Damage . . . has caused a storm. Abigail Shrier, a Wall Street Journal writer, does something simple yet devastating: she rigorously lays out the facts." —Janice Turner, The Times of London Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively. But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.” Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility. Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to “detransitioners”—young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves. Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back. She offers urgently needed advice about how parents can protect their daughters. A generation of girls is at risk. Abigail Shrier’s essential book will help you understand what the trans craze is and how you can inoculate your child against it—or how to retrieve her from this dangerous path.

Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty
Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2010-06-18

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 030915586X

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Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty presents new and surprising findings about career differences between female and male full-time, tenure-track, and tenured faculty in science, engineering, and mathematics at the nation's top research universities. Much of this congressionally mandated book is based on two unique surveys of faculty and departments at major U.S. research universities in six fields: biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics. A departmental survey collected information on departmental policies, recent tenure and promotion cases, and recent hires in almost 500 departments. A faculty survey gathered information from a stratified, random sample of about 1,800 faculty on demographic characteristics, employment experiences, the allocation of institutional resources such as laboratory space, professional activities, and scholarly productivity. This book paints a timely picture of the status of female faculty at top universities, clarifies whether male and female faculty have similar opportunities to advance and succeed in academia, challenges some commonly held views, and poses several questions still in need of answers. This book will be of special interest to university administrators and faculty, graduate students, policy makers, professional and academic societies, federal funding agencies, and others concerned with the vitality of the U.S. research base and economy.

Science Museums in Transition
Science Museums in Transition

Author: Carin Berkowitz

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2017-07-19

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0822982757

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The nineteenth century witnessed a dramatic shift in the display and dissemination of natural knowledge across Britain and America, from private collections of miscellaneous artifacts and objects to public exhibitions and state-sponsored museums. The science museum as we know it—an institution of expert knowledge built to inform a lay public—was still very much in formation during this dynamic period. Science Museums in Transition provides a nuanced, comparative study of the diverse places and spaces in which science was displayed at a time when science and spectacle were still deeply intertwined; when leading naturalists, curators, and popular showmen were debating both how to display their knowledge and how and whether they should profit from scientific work; and when ideals of nationalism, class politics, and democracy were permeating the museum's walls. Contributors examine a constellation of people, spaces, display practices, experiences, and politics that worked not only to define the museum, but to shape public science and scientific knowledge. Taken together, the chapters in this volume span the Atlantic, exploring private and public museums, short and long-term exhibitions, and museums built for entertainment, education, and research, and in turn raise a host of important questions, about expertise, and about who speaks for nature and for history.

Transitioning to Gender Equality
Transitioning to Gender Equality

Author: Christa Binswanger

Publisher: Transitioning to Sustainability

Published: 2021-11-12

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9783038978664

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Gender Equality, the fifth UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5), aims for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls. It thereby addresses all forms of violence, unpaid and unacknowledged care and domestic work, as well as the need for equal opportunities for leadership. Thus, the areas in which changes with regard to gender equality on a global scale are needed are very broad. In this volume, we focus on three main areas of inquiry, 'Sexuality', 'Politics of Difference' and 'Care, Work and Family', and raise the following transversal questions: How can gender be addressed in an intersectional perspective, linking gender to further categories of difference, which are involved in discrimination? In which ways are binary notions of gender taking part in inequality regimes and by which means can these binaries be questioned? How can we measure, control and portray progress with regard to gender equality and how do we, in doing so, define gender? Which multi-, inter- or transdisciplinary perspectives are needed for understanding the diversity of gender, in order to support a transition to 'gender equality'? Transitioning to Gender Equality is part of MDPI's new Open Access book series Transitioning to Sustainability. With this series, MDPI pursues environmentally and socially relevant research which contributes to efforts toward a sustainable world. Transitioning to Sustainability aims to add to the conversation about regional and global sustainable development according to the 17 SDGs. Set to be published in 2020/2021, the book series is intended to reach beyond disciplinary, even academic boundaries.

Life Is in the Transitions
Life Is in the Transitions

Author: Bruce Feiler

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-07-14

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1594206821

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A New York Times bestseller! A pioneering and timely study of how to navigate life's biggest transitions with meaning, purpose, and skill Bruce Feiler, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Secrets of Happy Families and Council of Dads, has long explored the stories that give our lives meaning. Galvanized by a personal crisis, he spent the last few years crisscrossing the country, collecting hundreds of life stories in all fifty states from Americans who’d been through major life changes—from losing jobs to losing loved ones; from changing careers to changing relationships; from getting sober to getting healthy to simply looking for a fresh start. He then spent a year coding these stories, identifying patterns and takeaways that can help all of us survive and thrive in times of change. What Feiler discovered was a world in which transitions are becoming more plentiful and mastering the skills to manage them is more urgent for all of us. The idea that we’ll have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated. We all feel unnerved by this upheaval. We’re concerned that our lives are not what we expected, that we’ve veered off course, living life out of order. But we’re not alone. Life Is in the Transitions introduces the fresh, illuminating vision of the nonlinear life, in which each of us faces dozens of disruptors. One in ten of those becomes what Feiler calls a lifequake, a massive change that leads to a life transition. The average length of these transitions is five years. The upshot: We all spend half our lives in this unsettled state. You or someone you know is going through one now. The most exciting thing Feiler identified is a powerful new tool kit for navigating these pivotal times. Drawing on his extraordinary trove of insights, he lays out specific strategies each of us can use to reimagine and rebuild our lives, often stronger than before. From a master storyteller with an essential message, Life Is in the Transitions can move readers of any age to think deeply about times of change and how to transform them into periods of creativity and growth.

Open Science: the Very Idea
Open Science: the Very Idea

Author: Frank Miedema

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-10-29

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9402421157

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This open access book provides a broad context for the understanding of current problems of science and of the different movements aiming to improve the societal impact of science and research. The author offers insights with regard to ideas, old and new, about science, and their historical origins in philosophy and sociology of science, which is of interest to a broad readership. The book shows that scientifically grounded knowledge is required and helpful in understanding intellectual and political positions in various discussions on the grand challenges of our time and how science makes impact on society. The book reveals why interventions that look good or even obvious, are often met with resistance and are hard to realize in practice. Based on a thorough analysis, as well as personal experiences in aids research, university administration and as a science observer, the author provides - while being totally open regarding science's limitations- a realistic narrative about how research is conducted, and how reliable ‘objective’ knowledge is produced. His idea of science, which draws heavily on American pragmatism, fits in with the global Open Science movement. It is argued that Open Science is a truly and historically unique movement in that it translates the analysis of the problems of science into major institutional actions of system change in order to improve academic culture and the impact of science, engaging all actors in the field of science and academia.

It Never Goes Away
It Never Goes Away

Author: Anne Lauren Koch

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2019-05-10

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0813598419

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If you are transgendered, the feeling of wanting your body to match the sex you feel you are never goes away. For some, though, especially those who grew up before trans people were widely out and advocating for equality, these feelings were often compartmentalized and rarely acted upon. Now that gender reassignment has become much more commonplace, many of these people may feel increasing pressure to finally undergo the procedures they have always secretly wanted. Ken Koch was one of those people. Married twice, a veteran, and a world traveler, a health scare when he was sixty-three prompted him to acknowledge the feelings that had plagued him since he was a small child. By undergoing a host of procedures, he radically changed his appearance and became Anne Koch. In the process though, Anne lost everything that Ken had accomplished. She had to remake herself from the ground up. Hoping to help other people in her age bracket who may be considering transitioning, Anne describes the step by step procedures that she underwent, and shares the cost to her personal life, in order to show seniors that although it is never too late to become the person you always knew you were, it is better to go into that new life prepared for some serious challenges. Both a fascinating memoir of a well-educated man growing up trans yet repressed in the mid-twentieth century, and a guidebook to navigating the tricky waters of gender reassignment as a senior, It Never Goes Away shows how what we see in the television world of Transparent translates in real life.

Bridges to Independence
Bridges to Independence

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-08-26

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 030909626X

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A rising median age at which PhD's receive their first research grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is among the factors forcing academic biomedical researchers to spend longer periods of time before they can set their own research directions and establish there independence. The fear that promising prospective scientists will choose other career paths has raised concerns about the future of biomedical research in the United States. At the request of NIH, the National Academies conducted a study on ways to address these issues. The report recommends that NIH make fostering independence of biomedical researchers an agencywide goal, and that it take steps to provide postdocs and early-career investigators with more financial support for their own research, improve postdoc mentoring and establish programs for new investigators and staff scientists among other mechanisms.

Transitioning in the Workplace
Transitioning in the Workplace

Author: Dana Pizzuti

Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers

Published: 2018-08-21

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1784508225

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Written from the author's own experience of transitioning within a major US corporation, this book prepares transgender people with everything they need to know to successfully transition in the workplace. The first guide of its kind, it offers all the practical advice and support trans people need to be able to balance their career ambitions with their personal needs. Many businesses lack specific trans-inclusive HR strategies - this guide fills the gap with tools, resources and an easy-to-read breakdown of all the relevant laws and policies. It covers everything from how to come out to colleagues and clients and realistic medical timetables, to introducing a new professional name and creating a workplace support system. This is a must-read guide for every trans person preparing to transition, as well as for managers and HR professionals wishing to support their employees.