Drag and science unite as LGBTQ researchers bring their work to the stage — for inclusion | CBC Radio

In front of a sold-out crowd in downtown Toronto, a performer with the stage name Elle Nyx the Space Witch takes to the stage to deliver a presentation on the process of ram pressure stripping.

Ram pressure stripping, in which the gas is stripped away from a galaxy as it enters a cluster of other galaxies, is a process astronomers believe affects star formation.

But in this case, it’s also the inspiration for a performance in an event that’s meant to challenge stereotypes about who belongs in science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM).

For University of Toronto astronomer Leo Alcorn — a.k.a. Elle Nyx — this meant dropping the traditional trappings of the professional scientist to perform in fishnet stockings, a star-spangled dress and a red lace robe, representing the dark matter, stars and gas that make up galaxies.

“I thought, why not show people what this looks like,” she said. “So the costume that I’m wearing figures very heavily in my act.” 

At this event, held in a packed bar in downtown Toronto, Alcorn is one of four scientists who took to the stage to present their work — and then performed in drag.

The event, called Science is a Drag, is the brainchild of a group of scientists who saw a need to create more inclusive spaces in STEM with drag.

“Scientists can look however they want to, however they identify and feel comfortable,” said co-founder Shawn Hercules. “Science is a Drag humanizes scientists and shows that we come in many shapes, forms, sizes.”

LGBTQ scientists say they face discrimination: report

Science is a Drag began in 2019. Hercules was doing their PhD at McMaster University in Hamilton, investigating why triple-negative breast cancer affects women of African ancestry in a particularly aggressive way. They bumped into fellow PhD student Samantha Yammine at a Toronto viewing party for the TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race. 

By that point, Yammine, a science communicator known as Science Sam on social media, and Hercules had already met through Instagram. Yammine mentioned she had been mulling over the idea of producing a science-based drag show, and asked Hercules if they wanted to get involved.

“I was like, yes, that sounds amazing, and it just started from there,” Hercules said.

Hercules had grown up in a religious environment in Barbados, and had never been to a drag show before arriving in Canada for their PhD. They admit that getting comfortable with drag required overcoming their own discomfort and preconceptions.

But it also took a real courage based on the barriers many LGBTQ scientists face within STEM itself. 

A 2019 report by the U.K.-based Royal societies for Chemistry and Astronomy and the Institute of Physics, for instance, found that 28 per cent of LGBTQ respondents stated that they had at some point considered leaving their workplace because of the climate or discrimination towards LGBTQ people.

Nearly half of all those who said they were trans had considered leaving their workplace because of the climate, with almost 20 per cent considering this often. Similar research is not available for Canadian scientists. 

Hercules points out that scientists say this shapes the kinds of questions that researchers are asking — for instance, by structuring genomic work around a binary understanding of sex — and can perpetuate a sense that members of the LGBTQ community don’t belong in science spaces.

‘Let’s run this experiment’

When Hercules, Yammine and another PhD student, Geith Maal-Bared, approached Carrie Boyce, executive director of the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, a science engagement charity based in Toronto, she saw the potential to challenge those notions right away.

“I remember just being so excited myself. I think I’d only been to one drag show before. I’d been in Canada for about a year and I was still, in many ways, coming into and embracing my own queer identity,” Boyce said. “And I was just like, ‘Yeah, I haven’t heard of this happening before. Let’s run this experiment. I’ll get scientists, let’s see what happens.'”

WATCH | Elle Nyx performs on stage at Science is a Drag:

Scientist Leo Alcorn performs as Elle Nyx at Science is a Drag

University of Toronto astronomer Leo Alcorn is one of the scientists who presented their work and performed at Science is a Drag in Toronto. The event challenges stereotypes about who belongs in science, engineering, technology and mathematics (STEM), and seeks to create more inclusive spaces for LGBTQ scientists.

Initially, Boyce says she was worried they’d have trouble finding enough scientists who were willing to not only give a science presentation, but also perform in drag for the first time.

“It’s quite an intense ask to put out there,” she said.

As it turned out, they had no trouble finding researchers to step up and perform, including Hercules.

“My drag name is Rawbyn Diamonds … [it’s] a bit raunchy, but it also sounds a bit classy, so that’s kind of the drag persona that I have created, which honestly is kind of just me,” they said.

Hercules gave a talk on their thesis research and lip-synced to Rihanna’s Umbrella. 

“Of course I had an umbrella.” 

Milestone event

In the four years since the first performance, Science is a Drag has grown, attracting interest from groups in other cities who are looking to put on their own events, and winning an international award for science engagement.

For participant Alcorn, who first performed at the 2023 event in Toronto, the event was an opportunity to bring her knowledge of extragalactic astrophysics to a wider public — and to encourage more people to realize the universe is bigger and more complex than they could imagine.

“In astronomy, we’re not so much what we call an experimental science. We’re an observational science,” she said. “Because of that, I can only see things and put them in boxes, little categories. But I’ve learned through my time and research that the universe, these categories are just shorthand, they’re not actual truth.”

“There’s what I would imagine [are] near infinite possibilities of expression of galaxies, and why can’t humans be the same way?”

In June 2023, Science is a Drag held their largest event ever, tickets for which sold out in minutes. But it’s not lost on performers and organizers that Science is a Drag is hitting a milestone even as attacks on LGBTQ individuals intensify. 

“The show itself is really becoming kind of a love letter from us to the 2SLGBTQ+ community, both in science and outside of it. It’s really a very timely reminder that you’re enough, exactly as you are. And that is a message that I think just bears repeating again and again,” said Boyce.

At a time of increasingly violent rhetoric toward the LGBTQ community, Boyce says the hope is that Science is a Drag can serve as a sanctuary and a space to bring people together, as well as a springboard for a community of scientists who are empowered to go back to their labs and departments and facilitate change. 

“We’re creating just this space that’s just full of kindness and love and joy — around science of all things. I never would have thought it possible, but it seems to be working,” she said.