Lena is a transgender woman and a fourth-year mathematics student at the University of Minnesota. She asked to be referred to with just her first name, as she is not ready to come out to her family.
“I’m a trans woman. And I say I’m a lesbian. I’d say my moments of queer joy are relatively few and far between, just because I don’t think I put in the effort to strongly dress one way or the other. That’s just because I’m scared of looking ridiculous or something. But, when I do dress up, when I do go out, I do feel a lot better.
Sometimes it’s great to go out in public and have a little bit of tension. Where I’m like, ‘This is a very attention-grabbing outfit, or at least one that I don’t normally wear, and I don’t know if people will think I look good.’
Some things that do bring me a lot of joy are whenever I get to meet queer mathematicians or queer mathematics students here. It’s a wonderful thing to have. For example, I got paired up with one of the grad students here for my independent study project, and she goes by she/they. We don’t really talk about queer things that much — we’re mostly talking about technical aspects of our field of study — but, it’s nice that there’s that underlying intuitive understanding between us.
It’s nice to have a role model for this. When I didn’t identify as trans, I didn’t really understand the phrase ‘representation matters.’ But it’s nice. It’s like a little thing you get to have that says people like you do get to be in these positions.
Also, last semester, when there was a different postdoc student here, there was a substitute teacher for a day and she was a trans woman. It blew my mind just to think that someone like me could be a mathematician, could have a career.”
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Interview conducted by Noor Adwan.