Non-Binary Systems: Looking Toward the Future of Gender Equity in Planetary Science and Related Fields

Gender equity is one of the biggest issues facing the fields of planetary science, geoscience, and astronomy, and there is broad interest in addressing gender disparities within STEM disciplines. Many studies of these topics have been performed by professional physical scientists who are relatively unfamiliar with research in fields such as gender studies and sociology. As a result, they adopt a normative view of gender as a binary choice of 'male' or 'female', leaving STEM researchers whose genders do not fit within that model out of such research entirely. Reductive frameworks of gender and an overemphasis on quantification as an indicator of gendered phenomena are harmful to people of marginalized genders, especially those who live at the intersections of multiple axes of marginalization such as race, disability, and socioeconomic status. In order for the broader geoscience community to best serve its marginalized members, a new paradigm must be developed. We aim to address the future of gender equity and the inclusion of nonbinary and transgender people in geology, geophysics, planetary science, and astronomy by recommending better survey practices and institutional policies based on a more complex approach to gender.