Supporting LGBTQ+ Physicists: Collective Efforts and Curated Resources for our Physics Community

Within the physics community, LGBTQ+ scholars and researchers experience distinctive challenges as well as calls to action and claims to joy.  Especially in our current and evolving social landscape, community, resources, and action in support of LGBTQ+ physicists are paramount. Support can come in all sizes and scopes, from small decisions in the classroom and interpersonal interactions, to larger advocacy efforts. This presentation will briefly describe two grassroots efforts of LGBTQ+ physicists to curate resources and engage our larger community in conversation, which facilitated our own community-building and joy.  

In the first effort, a large team of early career scholars organized the 2022 Physics Education Research Conference: Queering Physics Education, which imagined a queer future of physics by centering queer theory as a research lens and as guiding principles for organizing the conference. We strived to honor community input, distribute power, provide transparency, solicit feedback, build relationships with local activists, infuse joy, and expand accepted types of knowledge and contributions. The second effort, which is ongoing, is the curation of resources for LGBTQ+ folks and those who would like to support them, to be published as an American Journal of Physics Resource Letter. These works are intended as labors of love for our research communities and the physics community at large, and I will share about our processes as well as concrete resources that can support attendees in supporting themselves and others in our community.