PUBLICATIONS
BookS
Out Doing Science: LGBTQ STEM Professionals and Inclusion in Neoliberal Times, with co-authors Ethan Czuy Levine and Brandon Fairchild
University of Massachusetts Press, 2025 (Press webpage)
Over the past 50 years, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer professionals have organized to achieve greater inclusion into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This inclusion, however, has come at a cost. In the 1970s, these professionals sought to radically transform STEM fields by confronting the homophobia and sexism embedded within them. Instead, these fields became more corporatized and privatized, and STEM institutions and workspaces—particularly in the spheres of government and business—became dominated by a focus on individualism, self-improvement/advancement, and meritocracy, which are hallmarks of neoliberalism. For many LGBTQ STEM professionals, inclusion now required becoming more apolitical, pro-capital, and focused on professional development.
In Out Doing Science, Tom Waidzunas, Ethan Czuy Levine, and Brandon Fairchild explore this transformation of LGBTQ STEM professionals from oppositional outsiders to assimilationist insiders. Drawing on historical archives, oral interviews, and participant observation of professional societies and workspaces, the authors interrogate the meanings of “inclusion” and why some LGBTQ STEM professionals have benefited from it more than others. They also advocate for a “queer STEM” that challenges and transforms the racism, classism, sexism, cisheterosexism, and imperialism of these fields, institutions, and workspaces. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Out Doing Science will appeal to readers interested in LGBTQ studies, and science and technology studies, as well as anyone who wants to create a more diverse and inclusive work environment.
The Straight Line: How the Fringe Science of Ex-Gay Therapy Reoriented Sexuality
University of Minnesota Press, 2015 (Press webpage)
Intervening in the politics of sexuality and science, The Straight Line argues that scientific definitions of sexual orientation do not merely reflect the results of investigations into human nature, but rather emerge through a process of social negotiation between opposing groups. The demedicalization of homosexuality and the discrediting of reparative therapies, ex-gay ministries, and reorientation research have, Waidzunas contends, required scientists to enforce key boundaries around scientific expertise and research methods. Drawing on extensive participant observation at conferences for ex-gays, reorientation therapists, mainstream psychologists, and survivors of ex-gay therapy, as well as interviews with experts and activists, The Straight Line traces reorientation debates in the United States from the 1950s to the present, following homosexuality therapies from the mainstream to the margins. As the ex-gay movement has become increasingly transnational in recent years, Waidzunas turns to Uganda, where ideas about the scientific nature of homosexuality influenced the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2014.
Articles and Book chapters
“Suicide is Only Part of the Story: Telling Wounded Truths about LGBTQ Youth.” pp. 71-80 in Introducing the New Sexuality Studies: Original Essays, 4th Edition. Edited by Nancy Fischer, Laurel Westbrook, and Steven Seidman (Routledge/Taylor & Francis 2022).
“LGBTQ@NASA: Work Structure and Workplace Inequality among LGBTQ STEM Professionals.” with Erin Cech. Work and Occupations. 49, no. 2 (May 2022): 187-228.
“Systemic inequalities for LGBTQ professionals in STEM.” with Erin Cech. Science Advances. vol 7, no 3 (15 Jan 2021): abe0933.
"'For Men Arousal is Orientation': Bodily Truthing, Technosexual Scripts, and the Materialization of Sexualities through the Phallometric Test." with Steven Epstein. Social Studies of Science 45, no. 2 (April 2015): 187-213.
"Standards as ‘Weapons of Exclusion’: Ex-Gays and the Materialization of the Male Body." pp. 33-48 in Routledge Handbook of Science, Technology, and Society. Edited by Daniel Lee Kleinman and Kelly Moore. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014).
"Intellectual Opportunity Structures and Science-Targeted Activism: Influence of the Ex-Gay Movement on the Science of Sexual Orientation." Mobilization: An International Journal. 18, no. 1 (March 2013): 1-18.
"Young, Gay, and Suicidal: Dynamic Nominalism and the Process of Defining a Social Problem with Statistics." Science, Technology and Human Values. 37, no. 2 (March 2012): 199-225.
"Navigating the Heteronormativity of Engineering: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students." co-authored by Erin Cech and Tom Waidzunas, Engineering Studies. 3, no. 1 (April 2011): 1-24.
"Measuring Desire: The Science of Phallometric Testing" Cabinet Magazine. 34 (Summer 2009): 80-81.
Conference Proceedings
Cech, Erin A., Tom Waidzunas, and Stephanie Farrell. 2017. “The Inequality of LGBTQ Students in U.S. Engineering Education: Report on a Study of Eight Engineering Programs.” Proceedings of the 2017 American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) National Conference. June 2017. ***Winner, Best Diversity Paper Award, 2017 ASEE National Conference
Cech, Erin A., Tom Waidzunas, and Stephanie Farrell. 2016. “Engineering Deans’ Support For LGBTQ Inclusion.” Proceedings of the 2016. American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) National Conference. June 2016.