-: Good evening, everyone.
We are so glad that you could join us today
for this wonderful webinar to help us celebrate
the National Marine Sanctuary's 50th anniversary,
Ocean Month, and of course, Pride Month.
My name is Mark Losavio reporting to you live
from the ancestral lands of the Piscataway People
at Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary,
and it's my pleasure to introduce Anne-Marie Runfola,
who will start us off with a few words.
[Anne-Marie Runfola] Hello everyone.
I'm Anne-Marie Runfola, senior advisor to the directors
of the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries.
I'm so happy to be here today with you all
to celebrate Pride Month, our LGBTQ plus community,
and to highlight marine related careers within NOAA
and the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
affectionately known as ONMS.
Thank you to our host and presenters tonight
and to the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
and the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation
for the Diversity and Inclusion Mini Grant
that is funding this program,
and thanks to all of you for joining us.
I'm looking forward to hearing our presenter stories
and to hearing all of your questions.
We have a couple logistics.
During the presentations, you will be in listen only mode.
You are welcome to type questions for the panelists
into the question box,
which is at the bottom of the control panel
on the right hand side of your screen.
This is the same area where you can let us know
if you're having any technical issues
and we'll monitor that and help you
and respond as soon as we can.
We're recording this session
and we'll share the recording with registered participants
through the webinar archive page,
and we'll share a URL for that page
will be provided at the end of the presentation.
Next slide please Mark.
So the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries,
National Marine Sanctuary System is a nationwide network
of 15, so far, National Marine Sanctuaries
and two Marine National Monuments
that can serve more than 620,000 square miles
of spectacular ocean and Great Lakes waters.
That's an area nearly the size of Alaska and growing.
These underwater national parks are designated
as special places by NOAA
through local and regional community proposals
for a variety of reasons, including the rich biodiversity,
cultural and maritime heritage resources,
and areas that are havens for wildlife,
such as marine mammals, seabirds, fish, and other wildlife.
We protect these special places for the benefit
of all communities across the nation.
To be effective stewards of these significant and diverse
natural and cultural resources,
we must ensure that our workforce reflects
the communities in which we live, work, and play.
The longevity and success of our system depends on
creating a culture that's welcome and inclusive.
It also depends on ensuring
the places we can serve are accessible, relevant to,
and can serve for current and future generations.
Being truly accessible includes
addressing physical access to our sites.
There's some that are really remote,
but goes far beyond that to include
an examination of access to our management processes,
hiring actions, educational offerings,
research and volunteer programs and more.
We're committed to ensuring our workplace
is free of discrimination, harassment, and reprisal
where integrity, fairness, teamwork, and equity
are the norm, not the exception.
Our director sent this statement out recently to all staff
as a promise to do everything in his power
and to call us to join him,
to ensure ONMS is welcoming, diverse,
and a resilient workplace where everyone
can be their authentic selves and do their best work.
This also extends to our communities
that we provide equitable access to resources,
programs, and opportunities.
We still have a long way to go,
but I'd like to highlight a few of the many accomplishments.
NOAA offers employee resource groups, such as NOAA Pride.
ERGs as they're called are voluntary employee led groups
whose aim is to foster a diverse, inclusive workplace
aligned with the organizations they serve
and to develop allies to support all employees, contractors,
affiliates, volunteers, and interns at NOAA.
We have an ONMS Diversity Inclusion Committee.
Several on the team here on this webinar tonight have been
very involved in creating and sustaining this committee.
Our goal is to help transform our workplace culture;
to require and celebrate diversity, equity, inclusion,
accessibility, and justice; to foster a safe, welcoming,
and respectful environment for all team members;
and to provide a space where anyone could share
feedback and ideas to strengthen the ONMS program.
We've sourced funds for more paid internships
to provide more equitable access to these experiences.
We require diverse hiring panels and updated practices
to anonymize applicant identities during the review process.
We use more diverse recruiting practices
and these mini grants,
the diversity inclusion mini grants,
to provide for programs for our community,
such as this one tonight,
and in process we're obtaining permission right now
to fly pride flags on government owned and leased buildings.
It's coming soon, and boy, are we gonna celebrate it,
and you'll see pictures everywhere so stay tuned for that.
So now I'd like to turn over the program
to Anna and Kennedy, two colleagues and friends
from Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
to introduce themselves and then our panel.
Thank you so much.
-: Hi everybody, my name is Anna Marchand.
I use she/her pronouns and I am an AmeriCorps service member
at Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary,
and we are just so excited to be with you here tonight.
-: My name's Kennedy and I use they/them pronouns
and I am also an AmeriCorps service member
at Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary.
So before we introduce our panelists,
Anna and I would like to acknowledge
that the waters of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
lie within the usual and accustomed
hunting and fishing areas of four coastal treaty tribes.
Those are the Ho tribe, the Makah tribe,
the Quileute tribe, and the Quinault Indian Nation.
We recognize and respect
the vibrant contemporary communities
of these sovereign coastal treaty nations
and the longstanding, since time immemorial, relationship
that the tribes have with the marine environment,
and while those are our waters,
the offices of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary
in Port Angeles, Washington actually sit on the lands
of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe.
The vibrant and contemporary communities
of the S'Klallam Coast Salish people
represented by the Lower Elwha Klallam,
the Port Gamble S'Klallam,
and the Jamestown S'Klallam tribes continue to be leaders
in environmental stewardship for the lands
that they have always cared for and depended on.
-: We would also like to acknowledge this evening
that this virtual presentation is taking place
throughout the territories of many indigenous communities,
and so with that in mind,
we are going to use the chat option here
to send you a website called NativeLand-CA
so that you all can take a moment
to recognize the land that you currently reside on.
Right, and with that in mind, let's go to our next slide
and start introducing our panelists.
Brilliant, okay,
so I have the absolute pleasure of introducing Liz Weinberg
if she could come on screen
and tell us a little bit about herself.
Liz: I can try.
Yes, can you see me now?
-: Not really.
Liz: Oh, no.
-: We see a black screen,
so it looks like maybe your webcam is covered or turned off.
Liz: Do you want to come back to me
while I figure out what just broke with my camera?
-: Yes, why don't we go ahead and skip.
-: Yeah, so we'll go ahead and have Leon come on
and introduce themselves.
-: Cool, we're good on my end.
Sorry, was not expecting the sudden change.
-: Yeah, we can see and hear you.
-: Cool, thanks all.
(person speaking in foreign language)
Hi everyone, thanks for having me, my name is Leon Wang.
I go by they/them or ki/kin pronouns.
I am typically based on the unseated ancestral lands
of the Tongva tribes,
colloquially known as Riverside in Southern California,
but because I am quite nomadic or side note,
I often say that my sexuality is geo-flexible,
I'm currently tuning in from the lands of the Wahpekute land
of Dakota tribe, also known as Minneapolis in Minnesota.
I come with many different titles
being an extreme generalist,
and so you can definitely read about it in the PDF
or on my LinkedIn, but would just say
the way that I've come to job into the ocean
and into this career has really just been about
carving my own space and following my own passions,
and much of that has been lately
and very much inspired by indigenous leaders,
hence why it's so important to connect with our ancestors
and also recognizing we are living ancestors,
and so I'm gonna stop there and leave it short and sweet
so we can dive in and pass it on the next panelist.
-: Right, now Liz, if you'd like to take it away again.
-: My camera works now, thanks for your patience.
So hi everyone, yeah.
My name is Liz Weinberg, my pronouns are she and her,
and I'm really excited to be joining today
from the unseated and traditional homelands
of the Chinook peoples also known as Portland, Oregon,
which is my home for another about a week
before I relocate down the coast,
and I wear a lot of different hats,
I think sort of like Leon,
but at the core I tell stories about science
and I help connect researchers and communities.
I don't have a traditional science background,
but I did get to spend five years working with
NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
as the digital outreach coordinator and writer
helping tell stories about sanctuaries,
and now I work with an interagency group
to connect Arctic researchers and communities,
and that's sort of one part of what I do,
but then I also have a background in creative writing
and that's sort of my passion
and a lot of what I spend my time on,
and I have a book of essays about climate change
and queerness coming out this fall.
So I like to balance
the sort of more technical science communication
with the more creative side, thank you.
-: Fantastic.
-: And we'll go ahead and have Dylan
introduce themselves next.
-: Hi everyone, my name's Dylan.
I'm joining from the traditional and unseated lands
of the Wampanoag people in Woodshole, Massachusetts.
I also do a smattering of different things,
but the theme that kind ties
my different research directions
and science directions together is
looking at variation in populations
and the ways that geography can make a difference,
and I'm currently here working at
Woodshole Oceanographic Institution,
but I also also do work with a seabird breeding colony
up in Maine, and I've been various other places as well.
I'll pass it on to Matt.
-: Thank you very much, and last but not least, Matt,
if you could please share a little bit about yourself.
-: Hi everyone, Matt Stout.
I'm he/him,
I'm currently in the DC area from rural Arizona.
I like Liz don't have
a science background, but rather communications.
I came to Washington in 1990 and
went to work for a senator and then a congresswoman
before coming to NOAA in '95,
and so I had seen a lot of changes in the work environment
and the acceptance of the LGBTQ plus community,
and I am just moved.
I was just at the DC pride recently
and just moved by how far we've come from the march in '92
where we were literally fighting to be recognized
to have basic rights to where we are now.
I'm just so proud of how far we've come.
Thank you.
-: Great, and so now I will start with our first question.
Just a quick reminder,
while you guys are typing questions
on the right hand side of your screen,
there should be a question or chat option
for you to type in any questions you have
for any of our panelists at any time.
But while you guys are typing that,
I would like to pose one question
to all four of our panelists, and we can start with Liz.
How did you carve your own space
as a member of the LGBTQ in your career field?
-: That's a great question, and I think for me,
it's been a little bit of doing it on multiple paths
in multiple contexts.
So in my creative work,
my queerness is really central to the writing that I do,
and I want to always be thinking about
how I can understand the world around me
and nature and the ocean and climate change
through a queer lens,
because that's the way that I understand the world.
Through a professional lens,
particularly working in the government,
it's been sometimes
a lot of adjusting to other folks
and how they're perceiving me and perceiving our community,
and I found that
it's really about being consistent
and just speaking up and speaking with people,
and so whether it's doing something like
launching Pride in the Ocean,
which I helped do four years ago within sanctuaries,
because we wanted to start a way to give LGBTQ folks
a voice within ocean science and ocean conservation,
so I helped found that with Pride Outside or just
speaking to people and making sure
that they were thinking about creating
gender neutral bathrooms, just being a consistent voice
for things that we can do to be more inclusive.
-: Sorry, everybody, I muted myself.
Matt, if you could follow up and tell us
how did you carve your space in your career?
-: Well, I think
when I first started my career,
I worked for a senator from Arizona
who
wanted to promote
a good friend of mine to the staff
on the intelligence committee, but because he was gay,
back then you couldn't get a security clearance,
and I learned from the senator and from my friend
that there are great role models out there,
and so from that day on, when I came to NOAA,
I got involved in Federal Globe, which was a precursor to,
I guess the closest thing would be NOAA Pride,
where
we
learned how to be ourselves in our work environment
and represent who we were,
but also represent the broader community the best we could.
-: Great, thank you.
Dylan, if you could follow up and tell us,
how did you carve your space?
-: I think for me, a really fundamental piece has been
trying to make space for people around me to learn,
because I think something I've definitely experienced
in various different places I've worked is that
I might be the first person someone's ever met
who uses they/them pronouns or the first person
who ever describes themselves as non-binary that they've
interacted with,
and I think the vast majority of
middling to borderline negative experiences I've had
have not been out of any sort of malice or opposition,
it's truly just out of a lack of familiarity,
and so I think trying to make space for questions
and to give people space to be unsure about things
and to learn so that they can become better allies
and so that they can become more comfortable
supporting people how they need to be supported,
and I think that's taken a few different forms.
Sometimes it's simple as
developing close enough relationships with individuals
that they feel comfortable asking me questions.
Sometimes it's working with others in a department
or in a community to develop formal trainings or workshops,
but I think those are some really valuable ways
that I feel like I've both been able to
contribute positively to a space
and then also by extension to build a community
in which I'm more comfortable as well.
-: Awesome, thank you.
Last but not least Leon, if you could please,
how did you carve your own space in your career field?
-: Thanks Mark.
I think I talked a little about this,
but I think it would be remiss for me
not to also quote Bell Hooks.
I identify as queer and I love her words,
speaking to queer not as being about who you have sex with,
and that could be a dimension of it,
but as queer being about the self that is at odds
with everything around it and has to invent and create
and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live,
and I sense a lot of that into the different threads
that everyone has brought up here, and especially for me,
I think going through my undergrad in bioengineering
and then diving into biomimicry,
I always felt like I wasn't in a particular box
in any kind of degree, in any kind of label,
and what it was really about searching and figuring out
how I wanna show myself in different spaces
and who I wanna engage with
and grow relations and connections with
in the projects and works that I do.
So I feel like a piece of me has always felt this draw
to really learn by doing and learn
through that inner journey.
-: Great, thank you.
Now this next question I'd like to ask to Dylan.
Can you talk about your experience with mentorship
as you kind of advanced through your career?
How do you maybe find a good mentor
and how important was that for you in your career?
-: Yeah, absolutely.
I think mentorship has been incredibly valuable for me
and I think sometimes that's taken slightly different forms
than I perhaps expected at the beginning.
My closest mentors haven't always been,
haven't often been my direct supervisors,
but finding more of a network and finding
kind of the people around in a space
who can be someone to lean on, someone who has
so much valuable wisdom to share,
I think has been incredibly valuable for me,
both in finding my own place
and in developing my confidence as I move forward,
and I think a lot of that has come from organic interactions
with people where
I interact with someone enough times that
we develop a relationship like that
and I feel comfortable with them,
they feel comfortable with me,
and I think learning to be open as well
has been incredibly valuable and trying
to share the things I'm comfortable sharing
have made it really possible to experience
some very valuable mentoring from folks around me,
but I think looking beyond my immediate circle,
I think has been the most important part of that for me.
-: Wow, thank you.
Just a quick reminder,
if any of the panelists would like to add anything
to an answer, please just jump right on in.
But this next question I will pose to whoever wishes
to answer it first or however many of you want to answer it.
This question, I'll just read it to you verbatim.
I'd love to point out the statement,
carving out a space can be potentially competitive language.
I'd love to hear
about how they, you all, created collaborative spaces
for themselves and others or
how you collaborated to create spaces
for yourselves and others.
-: Yeah, I can start us off.
First off, thank you, John for bringing up this question
and speaking about language,
'cause I feel like we always have to be mindful
of how language gets co-opted or gets used and utilized,
especially when in American culture
it's often very violent language,
and so I appreciate you noting this.
I will say coming from a nature and inspired background,
I feel like nature definitely has both red tooth and claw
as well as the collaborative space, and so
there are just points where you kind of have
to put up a defense and also would admit this,
not to mention that pride is what it is today
because Marsha P. Johnson threw a brick, and so
I would also love to call in some words
from one of my favorite queer Vietnamese poets,
Ocean Vuong who said,
"We often tell our students future's in your hands,
but I think the future's actually in your mouth.
You have to articulate the world
that you wanna live in first,"
and so we're often participants in language
and shaping language and how we use it,
just like how queer has been co-opted
and utilized very different contexts,
so just wanted to say, appreciate the language
and a note of language, it's always something
to consider and think about,
especially when we talk about
we refer to natural world as like resources,
as different pronouns, as it,
and why we might wanna move beyond that
and why we recognize pronouns here.
-: I can add to that I think.
Oh Matt, go ahead.
-: No, go ahead Liz.
-: I mean, I don't know that I can say it
any better than Leon just said it, but
I do truly think that it's both and situation here
where there absolutely are times where as
a person working in ocean science
I have truly had to carve out space for myself and others
because that space did not exist,
whether it's making sure that
there's a bathroom people can use safely
or making sure that people can bunk safely on a boat.
Like that's carving out space, but
at the other end of the spectrum,
there's always opportunities to invite people
into the conversation and to ask how they can support
and how they would like to support,
so I think I also really appreciate
the calling in of different ways of framing the language,
and I do truly think that it's a both and.
-: Yeah, Liz, I think you're right,
and Leon as well, but I'll add too.
I've really learned that
if you give people a chance, they're gonna surprise you,
and sometimes it's really important for you
to push the comfort level, to help them learn
and to grow, and the other thing is
even though there's a role that we all play
in helping people grow,
I'm also learning that there's a incredible role
for me to grow just in spending the time that I have
in NOAA Pride and working on that committee.
I have learned an awful lot,
even though I've been at this a long time.
I don't fully understand and appreciate all the challenges
that young people have today.
We always thought that we had it so much harder,
'cause we didn't have anything, but
Liz and I have talked about this kind of over the years,
how things are just very different,
but there's a great opportunity to give people a chance
and to learn yourself.
-: Fantastic, love this dialogue you guys.
Next question I will pose to Matt.
What has been or has there been your greatest challenge
in being out in the federal government work environment?
-: I've just been incredibly lucky.
I remember
on the hill, no challenges, in fact,
incredible support coming to NOAA.
During the Clinton administration
where there were out politicals for the first time
with photos of their spouses on their desk,
and I was working downtown
in NOAA Comms,
just have always been very, very fortunate.
So sorry, Mark,
I don't have a experience for you.
-: That's okay, I don't really have one either,
so it's a good thing, that's a good answer,
that's what we want to hear.
But I would like to ask Matt and Liz another question
and you guys can take it in that order,
but do you have any advice for students?
-: Yes,
and you've covered it a lot,
but it's really about mentorship, it's about connections,
it's about learning from others,
from their experiences
and connections in any career
are incredibly valuable,
so don't turn down any opportunity for networking,
for getting to know people, and to learn
about some of the things they've gone through.
-: I can add that your career doesn't have to be one thing,
whether it's one thing for the entire career
or at any given time.
Like I said when I introduced myself,
I wear a lot of hats.
I have a creative career, I have a more normal career,
but even that more normal career
I didn't ever plan to do.
I had studied anthropology and creative writing.
I didn't know I was gonna go into science communication,
I kind of fell into it,
and my partner too has just done a career change,
sort of midlife switching from design to engineering,
and so I think there's this pressure on students,
and I think sort of a double pressure
on queer students to both know what they're gonna do
in their career and also know who they are immediately,
and those can absolutely change multiple times
throughout your life,
and you can be doing multiple things at once
and that's okay, and it's cool to do, I think.
-: Awesome, all right.
So this is another question that I would like to pose
to the entire group,
and I'd like to start with Dylan here with this one,
but what is your favorite self-care activity?
-: Ooh, that's a good question.
I think to be honest for me,
it's probably just being outside and
I study the organisms I study scientifically,
but I really love just about any living organism out there,
and I think going outside, looking at the plants,
looking for birds, looking for insects
is something that can really kind of
bring me back into myself and give me space to process
anything and things like that, so I think
my greatest self care activity
is probably just going outside.
-: Ah, I feel that.
Leon, can you go next?
What's your favorite self-care activity?
-: Yeah, I have to say mine is definitely rooted
in music and good vibrations.
I play the ukulele and the piano, enjoy singing,
and as much of that I also feel like
this is a wonderful time to also know that like self care,
there's this like myth of the self.
I think Adrian Marie Brown speaks to this where
when we think about caring is also caring in community
and relation, cause we're never by ourselves or alone,
and so taking care and finding ways to care in community
and with each other is going to be
just as important as self care,
just wanted to drop that note.
-: Great, Liz, can you go next?
-: I'm with Dylan,
being outside, being anywhere that I can remember to breathe
and walk with my dog or look into a tide pool.
That's definitely self care for me.
Also reading, I love books.
-: Thank you, Matt.
-: Yeah, hard to get outside sometimes in DC,
but I do enjoy that.
I think for me, it's really my morning routine,
going to the gym, working out, stretching, yoga,
that really centers me and gets me ready for the day.
-: Awesome, good recommendations, love it.
This question I think is an important question
and I'd like to pose it to Leon and Liz,
but how did y'all decide when you were comfortable enough
to be like out and open in a work environment?
I'm not sure how to tell if a workplace is safe or not
and it can be scary.
-: Leon, do you wanna go first or do you want me to?
-: Go ahead.
-: Okay, so I will preface this by saying
that I think I have a lot of privilege.
I am a cis white woman
and so there's not a whole lot of risk for me
in terms of being out in the workplace,
and so being the stubborn person that I am,
I just kind of assume until proven otherwise,
and so far I have not had terrible experiences with that,
and I also find that it's important for me to do that
because there are other people who are not
as safe in that situation,
but I will say that like visibility is important,
so being able to see other people who are queer
is a good way to tell.
Sometimes a pride flag can help,
but also there are a lot of people
who will put a pride flag up and not totally be
familiar with LGBTQ issues.
But for me,
I kind of have the come out first, worry later perspective.
-: I love that.
Also really appreciate you naming your privilege.
I mean, same here.
I mean, I'm male presenting.
I would say for me, when I think about this,
there's so many levels to it, right?
Both the personal journey,
the interpersonal that you can have at work,
your institution, and how you feel about it,
and of course the systemic like situation
that we have around LGBTQ+, and so I would definitely say,
for me, it wasn't just about coming out.
There's also this piece of level language of like
letting people in or letting someone in,
and so find the people who are your allies,
who are your accomplices or co-conspirators,
whatever that might be in any workplace,
whether they do have policies that are more equitable
and justice and liberation focused.
That's great, but oftentimes there isn't
both the power and the will to make those changes,
and sometimes it will be up to us to create that space,
even if it is private space,
and so I encourage you to consider and find
what that looks like for you.
For me, I've been lucky in the actual workplaces
that I've been at generally has been much more open
or I found public queers that identify and share space with,
so that's gonna be a very individual journey for everyone.
-: Awesome, thank you.
So this question is very similar to the previous one,
but the second part is I think important,
and this is for anybody to answer.
When you were younger, how did you recognize allies?
What support did you need or wish you had?
Asking this question as a coworker,
but also as a parent of young kids
aiming to raise good humans.
-: Well,
I'll just say I didn't.
I grew up in rural Arizona,
never heard the word gay until I was in college.
There was one mention that I can remember
in my entire childhood of someone who was gay,
but they didn't call them that,
and they called them queer, and that was it,
and there was zero,
and going back to my 30-year high school reunion
and talking to all my friends
who all turned out to be also gay,
we were just astonished that none of us discussed it
or thought about it or it was never something
to even discuss.
-: Great, this is another question
that I personally think is very important
and I would like to pose to all of you once again,
and this might not be an easy question to answer,
but how do you effectively draw upon your network
to create opportunities without saying
I need a job or imposing on that relationship?
It's a tough question.
-: I can kick us off.
Yeah, that's always a challenge because
it can be immediately seen as unwelcome, but honestly,
the way that I've approached it is not coming with an ask,
but often with the give and because all of us
have something to provide,
it's very approachable to come and ask, like,
what do you need? What are you working on?
What are you passionate about?
How can I support you?
How can the skills and what I bring to the table
be of support of what you are manifesting in the world?
And often that's how connections and networking
and true partnerships begin is a question of
what can I do for you?
And then that's what the reciprocity begins,
and so there is something about that as an economy,
but it definitely inteling yourself into
the unpaid labor or blood, sweat, and tears side of this,
so cautionary tale.
-: Great.
Another question about allies.
Have you had an experience with someone
who has explicitly acted as your ally?
How did it support you?
How did that go?
Does any of you guys have any?
I'm trying to think of the opposite of the word
horror stories of like a good ally.
-: Absolutely.
There are multiple people who immediately come to mind
reading that question.
Oh, my office light just turned off, motion activated.
I think
some of the greatest things
that the allies I've had in workspaces have done
have been really simple things,
and a lot of times the most important thing is
for me to feel and to be very, very certain
that there is someone or some people in my corner,
there are questions I'm comfortable asking,
and issues I'm comfortable raising
when I know that there would be someone there
to back me up if I needed it,
and I think making it clear that someone supports me
and understands my frustrations with things
or understands the things that I need to feel supported
can be incredibly valuable,
and a lot of times that's as simple as
describing some sort of experience I've had
and someone reacting to it in such a way
that I can feel that they're feeling it with me.
Sometimes it's as simple as someone
asking if a new building renovation
will have gender neutral restrooms or something like that,
and those are all things I'm capable of doing myself,
but it's really nice to feel like
I'm not the only person in the room
thinking about those things,
and I think a lot of times
I have coworkers who will correct other people
on my pronouns, and again,
I'm capable of doing that myself, but it means a lot,
and it makes a big difference in how supported I feel
to feel that people around me would
are comfortable speaking up for me
and are thinking about those things as well as I am.
-: So Dylan, I'm glad you brought up that last point
about your pronouns.
Can you kind of talk a little bit more about
when you started feel more comfortable
using your pronouns in like a professional setting?
-: Yeah, definitely.
So I've been using they/them pronouns in certain contexts
for probably five or six-ish years now.
I've been using them in professional contexts
for probably about three or four,
and I think one of the big things,
kind of going back to what Leon was saying earlier
about coming out professionally and how important it is
to find your people to start with,
I think one thing that made a big difference for me was
having come out to certain people
in a workspace ahead of time,
and maybe it wasn't,
maybe they knew I used they/them pronouns,
but wasn't using them broadly,
and knowing that there were people similar to
what I was saying before,
knowing that there were people in my corner,
I think made it feel so much more doable,
and I think for me,
I've had a mixed bag of experiences using they/them pronouns
in science and the world of science,
but I think it matters a lot to me
because those pronouns feel like they capture more of myself
than using she/her or he/him pronouns would.
I'm not a woman, I am also not a man,
and going by they/them pronouns gives people around me
a more true perspective of who I am
and kind of guides them to a better understanding of myself,
and sometimes people have objections,
sometimes it takes people a while to get used to
using different pronouns, and
I'm never gonna hold a perpetual grudge against someone
because they make a mistake a few times,
but it really means a lot when people do work
to get used to them and to
address me how I'm most comfortable being addressed,
and overall I've had very positive experiences,
which I'm really, really grateful for.
-: And I would love to just jump in
with like a follow up for Liz,
'cause I'd really like to hear the question
we originally got,
I think I would like to hear a little bit from like
cisgender perspective on sort of how pronoun normalization
has happened, if that makes sense,
like slapping pronouns on everything and yeah,
making the conversation where yeah.
-: Yeah, I mean like, so I am, I'm cis.
I'm one of those people who you look at me,
you probably guess my pronouns correctly.
I also have a traditionally feminine name.
It's kind of a given,
but I still, I put my pronouns,
they're in my email signature.
They're in my, well, usually Zoom for me,
but my GoToWebinar name,
sort of where wherever I would put my name
when I'm working with people, I would put my pronouns there
and I don't do it to like get a cookie or anything,
I do it because it's a signal to people
that pronouns do not necessarily match
the gender you perceive a person having.
It gives people sort of a moment of, oh right,
I should think about that,
and like it says,
pronoun is as unique to a person as their name,
and so it's part of a signal to other people who are cis,
Hey, maybe think about it a little bit more,
and it's also I hope a signal to people who are trans
or non-binary that I will honor your pronouns too,
and that I am a safe space to be yourself
and share your pronouns,
and I'm not necessarily going to ask for them
because not everyone is comfortable sharing their pronouns,
but if you wanna share your pronouns with me,
I'm here for that.
-: Yeah, I love that.
Love that idea of it being a signal
and kind of a flashy sign, and I'd love to expand
on my own pronouns for ki/kin,
just to go a bit deeper on that,
'cause it is another signal,
and for me it's
less about gender and actually more about referencing
that we're also a part of a larger web of life.
The reason why I use them is because
it's also the way that
I often like to refer to other beings,
often more than human beings.
We very quickly label plants, we label
other animals as it very quickly,
and it can be a very,
very quick way to distance other beings, and in that case,
utilize them as a resource or to not treat them
as the kin or the relations that they actually are,
and so for me, that word has quickly become
part of my language, and as a reminder for me to use it,
not just for myself, but all the other beings
that I really appreciate in my life,
and definitely check out the article from Bob Amal Kimer
if you haven't read it.
It'll give you a much deeper grounding
of why this language was brought into existence,
the way it is.
-: I think we did share that article in the chat earlier,
so scroll back up and click on that
if you have not done so yet,
and just a reminder, these are great questions,
keep 'em coming.
I do see that some of you have your hand raised
and we simply have too many participants right now
for me to pull people off of mute,
so if you have a question,
please put it into the question box
on the right hand side of your screen
in this cool toolbar thing.
What was I about to ask?
Oh, right.
So this is just a general question for anyone really, but
do you guys have any advice for someone
who's just entering the admittedly pretty scary
post undergrad STEM workforce world right now?
What's the best plan of attack
for someone who just got their bachelors
and is looking to work?
-: I would say,
be open to trying
positions, roles,
fields that might not be exactly what you think
you see yourself doing in the long-term
if you have a long-term in mind.
I'm not sure I did immediately upon graduating,
but I think there are so many different fields,
different types of roles out there.
Something I've found really valuable
is actually saying yes to some opportunities,
some possibilities that aren't
what I'd immediately have thought of something for myself.
I'm currently in a role where I'm doing
a whole load more engineering work
than I ever imagined I'd do, and
it's been really, really interesting
and it's been really, really enjoyable in many ways
to think differently and to work on
some different types of problems than I often do,
and this isn't a position I thought I would've taken
two years ago, three years ago,
but it's definitely not one I regret now.
So I think my biggest piece of advice would just be
to be as open as you can
to the different types of things out there.
-: Can I add to that real quick?
-: Please, please.
-: I think Dylan that's spot on,
and also I would say don't feel like you have to fill
every single job requirement
of whatever job you're applying for.
Every once in a while, once in a blue moon,
you will see a job listing and you'll be like, yes,
I can do every single thing on that list,
but most of the time it will be,
I am very qualified for one or two
out of the three things there.
Apply anyway.
There's very few people who will fit
all three of those things
and you'll probably do an amazing job at it anyway.
-: I'm happy to add a bit more definitely
if there are places that you wanna work.
I mean, ultimately I think
what's more important is less about the organization,
but finding the right people that you wanna work with,
no matter what organization you're gonna be at,
there's gonna be people on both sides of that,
and so I often encourage people to also just reach out
and connect and hear more about someone's experience
on their job, on their role in the organization.
How does that actually feel?
Especially in this context,
if you're very keen and curious about how they handle
LGBTQ intentions in actual practice, I would also mention,
I think it's important to note like you are not your job,
you are not your role,
and so don't feel any amount
of crisis from that.
I think it's very easy to,
especially in this day and age,
and so I just wanna encourage people to keep on keeping on.
-: Great answers.
Wish I had heard this a few years ago, but here we all are.
So this is a really interesting question
that I'm really glad came through the chat,
so keep 'em coming everybody.
I have had negative experiences of revealing myself as queer
due to the older generation believing it's still a slur.
I did my best to educate,
but have the panelists had similar experiences?
-: Yeah, not exactly the same.
Oh, do you wanna go?
-: No go ahead Dylan.
-: Oh, I was gonna say not exactly the same
in the sense that it wasn't a negative reaction
specifically to me, but there's a workshop I run
and have run various times with various groups
just on general LGBTQ inclusivity, terminology,
things like that,
and we did get a question at one point
asking about the word queer,
because I think I'd used in a sentence, an example,
just describing myself as queer
and someone asked and said that
they couldn't imagine ever using that word
to describe someone because from their experiences,
it was the kind of word
you never said unless you really wanted to hurt someone.
And I think we had a really interesting conversation
with the group at that point
similar to kind of how you said about educating, but
we talked about it being a personal choice and
maybe it isn't something you want to
unilaterally apply to folks unless
you know it's something they're comfortable with,
but that at the same time,
if it's something that someone is most comfortable with,
I prefer describing myself as queer
to any other sexuality word,
then it's respecting
someone's feeling and someone's choice to use it for them,
but I think it was definitely an interesting conversation
and a valuable conversation because it reminds everyone,
and I think it's important to be reminded
that people are coming from different places
and can have very different experiences
and different histories with the terminology we use.
But so that's definitely something
that's come up in my experiences as well.
-: Liz, do you have a follow up?
-: Yeah, well, I mean,
I feel like Matt and I had many conversations about this
when I was at sanctuaries, 'cause yeah.
I think there are so many,
there's a history there with that term,
and I personally use queer to describe myself because
like Dylan, I feel like it fits me better
than any other term,
but I literally had a coworker when I mentioned,
when I describe myself as queer say,
oh Liz, you're not queer
because she thought I was insulting myself
or belittling myself, and I had to sort of stop and say,
no, no, no, this is exactly what I mean by queer,
but then you also have experiences like Matt was saying,
he grew up only hearing one person just
being mentioned
as gay and they were mentioned as queer as an insult,
and I think that history is really, really real,
and so those of us who do identify as queer
need to respect that and respect that
not everyone is gonna feel comfortable with that.
And then it goes both ways
and people who are uncomfortable with it
also have to recognize that it fits other people better, but
having that, holding that space to learn from each other
I think is really important.
-: Yeah, I'll just follow up.
Liz and I had several conversations and
it is one of those things where I, as I mentioned earlier,
especially as an older,
I've got probably two decades on folks on the panel,
it is a learning opportunity for me to understand that
it is very similar to your pronouns.
No one else can give you pronouns
and no one else can give you identity,
and how you think about yourself
and how you describe yourself is who you are,
and we have to acknowledge that and accept that
and not put those definitions on people.
-: Yeah, I love that.
I really appreciate that too Matt,
and I think to add is these are labels.
I mean, we also don't have to have labels.
It's perfectly fine to not have to name or categorize
or box yourself in any unique piece of your identity.
We contain multitudes,
and so I think another piece of this is the perspective of,
because of that
be more specific.
There's so much in specificity.
If you actually ask someone about their lived experience
and how they feel and who they actually are,
because when we say queer
or even when we say and talk about things like depression
or like trans, these are individual experiences,
no two are ever alike,
and so ultimately it's going to be about
who this person is and that's best done in actual honest,
like heart to heart conversation so
I encourage you to be curious.
-: Amazing.
We're getting a lot of questions in so real quick,
do any of you have any resources or websites
that can help someone who's just totally out of the loop
understand more of these terms or terminology?
-: If there's gonna be an email with the recording,
I would be happy to dig some up.
I don't have any of my fingertips right now.
-: Okay, that'll go out on our email.
So we are kind of running out of time,
so I do wanna make sure I squeeze this question in
and you all know what's coming,
but please tell me all of you your favorite sea creature.
Doesn't have to be a fish 'cause I know it's a lot.
-: For me, it's an Otter.
No one has more fun swimming around,
hanging out than otters.
-: Valid point, valid point.
-: Mine, Anne-Marie knows this already,
but mine is the Northern Fulmar, which is a seabird,
and it is my favorite because its defense mechanism
is to projectile vomit,
and I just appreciate any animal that is that out there.
-: Gotta respect it.
-: Anne-Marie, I see you're saying something,
but you're muted.
-: I have my mug on my desk in Silver Spring
with all the puking Fulmars, thank you very much.
-: You're very welcome.
-: I think I'm gonna actually jump on the seabird train.
I'm gonna say that my favorite animal,
marine animal or sea animal is a great black-backed gull,
which I work with up in Maine and
gulls in general are so maligned for various reasons,
but they are just some of the most beautiful creatures
I've ever seen ever seen, certainly ever worked with.
The level of devotion they have to their mates,
the level of devotion they have to raising their chicks
and the nuances and the intricacies of their behavior
are just so beautiful to me.
The fact that it's possible to tell individual gulls apart
because of specific personality quirks
and things like that is just so lovely,
so I'm gonna go with great black-backs.
-: Definitely, yes to all the seabirds.
Definitely gonna shout out
Wingspan Board Game by Stonemair Games.
If you don't know it, definitely check it out.
For me, I feel like my favorite sea creature
changes all the time, so today it's gonna be diatoms,
because I've been trying to make like
idioms and phrases happen for ocean puns all the time,
so like, instead of low hanging fruit,
it's high floating kelp.
Instead of like hitting the ground running,
it's hitting the ocean diving or swimming.
I've been trying to make this happen.
It's gonna be instead of a fly on the wall,
diatom in the sea, just let me be a diatom in the sea.
-: You heard it here first folks.
This is where it starts.
I honestly was not expecting diatom to come up.
I'm impressed, so.
-: They're also very, very beautiful.
If you look, take a closer look, they're so flamboyant,
so queer.
-: All right, Kennedy, Anna,
give us your favorite sea creature.
-: I also love plankton.
I actually have a copepod tattoo,
so I'm loving the plankton answer,
but I'm gonna go actually with a hooded or a lions mane
neutabrink, which if you haven't seen is like
a combination of a Venus fly trap and a sea slug,
and it's like the coolest thing ever.
-: And they smell like watermelon.
-: Pine sol than watermelon personally,
so if we wanna get into
the pine versus watermelon discussion, I smell pine.
-: I love that.
I just learned something today about neutebrinks.
I'm gonna go for my favorite is on the opposite end
of the size spectrum,
humpback whales are currently absolutely my favorite.
I am just so fascinated by their culture
and their relationships and their songs,
so just everything I can get my hands on
about humpback whales right now is what I wanna know.
-: Wow, okay.
We'll have to do a follow up webinar
on that watermelon pine thing.
Anne-Marie, do you have a favorite animal?
-: Oh, mine change all the time too,
but we just had our 30th anniversary of
Stale Wagon Bank National Marine Sanctuary Celebration
of the New England Aquarium last night,
and we had an underwater photographer show off all of his,
and based on that, I'm back to the ocean sunfish mola, mola,
the largest bony fish on the planet,
like a huge dinner plane on its side with its floppy dorsal,
just such a cool animal,
and then also the lobster in its larval phase,
which the photographer called the Superman phase
when they have their claws out in front of them like this
and they look like they're flying forward.
I have to say that was pretty fun,
so those are my two right now.
-: All right, finally got a fish in there,
you love to see it.
-: What about you?
-: The Puget Sound King Crab.
It's am armor tank of nothing but love and affection,
and I really do just love them.
When I see them on a dive,
I basically start crying 'cause I love them so much.
Alright, thank you all so much for joining me today.
Thank you in the chat for giving us
these amazing thought provoking questions.
Now I'm just going to sign us off here
and if you haven't already,
there's like a little bio document
that gives a little more information
about each of our panelists that you can download
in that toolbar on the side of your screen,
but this webinar is just one piece
of an entire month of celebrations for Pride in the Ocean.
You can join us on Saturday, June 25th,
from 10 to 3 for Pride Day at the Bay
at Mallows Bay-Potomac River National Marine Sanctuary.
But you don't have to live in the area
or even like to kayak to celebrate Pride in the Ocean.
Check out our Pride in the Ocean website for more info
where you can submit photos of yourself celebrating
and loving the ocean.
Our ocean is for everyone no matter who you love,
and we wanna know how you take pride
in this beautiful blue planet.
Once captioned, a video recording of this presentation
will be made available
on the sanctuary's webinar archive page
found at the URL listed here at the top.
If you enjoyed this webinar,
please make sure to check out others
in the National Marine Sanctuary's webinar series.
On July 21st at 6:00 PM Eastern, join Steve Giddings,
science coordinator for NOAA's office
and National Marine Sanctuaries
to learn why the lion fish invasion has been so concerning,
what we've learned about lion fish impacts
and control measures, and what the future holds
for this invasion and the people
who have become such a rich part of its history.
And of course, we invite you to follow us on social media,
both Mallows Bay and Olympic Coast and Stellwagen Bank
all have Facebook pages,
Stellwagen Bank and Olympic Coast
both have Twitter accounts
and I'm working on getting an Instagram account
for Mallows Bay, so keep an eye out for that.
And lastly, as you exit the webinar,
there will be a short survey
for formal and informal educators.
If you are an educator, NOAA would really appreciate it
if you would take just a minute or two
to complete the survey.
Your answers will help NOAA develop future webinars
to meet your needs.
Your participation is voluntary
and your answers will be completely anonymous.
Once again, I'd like to thank our panelists
for a really great presentation.
It was amazing to see all of you guys
and all of your great work,
and thank all of you for giving us
amazing thought-provoking questions
and for just being here with me tonight.
Have a wonderful day, have a wonderful month.
This concludes the presentation and stay safe, bye.