In honour of Pride, Butterfly Conservation spoke to a Ph.D. student, Bradley Neal (He/They), on all things LGBTQ+, Conservation, and Butterflies.
Please tell us a bit about your work and interests in Conservation
I’ve been interested in butterflies since I was a kid…So that started my passion for them specifically!
My Ph.D. project is about urban woodland butterfly conservation. I am interested in how fragmented woodland habitats are potentially connected by roadside woodland vegetation to help ‘transport’ butterflies around a city. As a bioindicator species, butterflies can be useful indicators of the health of an ecosystem, so studying how habitat networks function and their suitability for butterflies in urban spaces can also help us to support wider biodiversity in towns and cities.
How have you found it being a member of the LGBTQ+ Community working in the field of Conservation?
Most places I’ve studied at have been inclusive, although quite persistently I get the same old ‘I didn’t know you were gay’ or ‘I would never have guessed you were gay’ and I guess they’re just a bit naive rather than anything particularly bad but it does also show people still buy into stereotypes and no matter how well-meaning it sounds it’s kind of tedious. So, I’ve accounted that everywhere I’ve been.
Do you mind us asking about the challenges have you faced as a member of the LGBTQ+ community?
I grew up in quite a homophobic environment, section 28 made it illegal at school to discuss anything that would be deemed by the government as promoting homosexuality to children I believe is the phrase. This meant when I was growing up it made me think there was something wrong with me, I knew I wasn’t interested in women the way the rest of my male friends were at least, but I didn’t really know what that meant other than I was not normal. And I know that sounds kind of weird to think that I didn’t think being gay was an alternative but at the time if gay men had been depicted in anything they would always be stereotypes that I didn’t see myself as, and that on top of being constantly reminded how ‘bad’ it was to be gay, or that it was embarrassing, someone once told me.
However, until I met someone that actually was openly gay and was a lot more like me, and then I grew to understand myself from there. Being gay and growing up in this environment did cause me a lot of problems. I had issues with confidence, and self-esteem, I had problems expressing my emotions, because all of those things if I had expressed how I really felt about myself then I would be shut down really quickly. So, this wrecked my education, I put no effort into school because I didn’t want to be there, and I did really really badly. Until I met my husband, then this all turned around, he loves me for me and helped me get my degree and get me where I am today so I wouldn’t be here without him.
How would you describe the importance of LGBTQ+ representation in the field of Conservation?
It’s really important, of course. Not just for LGBTQ+ people but for diversity among people in general. Certainly, a mixture of opinions, backgrounds, and perspectives, it’s so important in Conservation, Science or I guess the workplace in general. I’m an Associate Lecturer with the Open University as well and from a student’s perspective seeing someone like themselves or to look up to that represents how they feel I think is really important for motivation.
When I was growing up I had no role model for what I wanted to do, I think the most famous gay scientist off the top of my head is Alan Turing. And while he achieved some incredible things, he died of suicide because of how the government treated him at the time so it’s not exactly an inspirational story that would make a young queer person think ‘I can be the person I want to be, there are other people that can do it so I can do it too’. There’s not much representation for LGBTQ people so representation and diversity is really important and I think it’s important to support and inspire people to get into something like conservation is really important for everyone, no matter who they are. Or even if they care about conservation or not it’s still important.
What could the whole field of Conservation do to be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ Community?
Representation is important and certainly platforming and promoting their more diverse researchers or colleagues. I guess ultimately it just needs to be more performative support, stating your alignment and opinions on LGBTQ issues, not individually, but a more general stance, a bit more than ‘we support this and that’ but maybe some examples of what you’ve done or plans to include more diverse people in your research or things of that nature.
Can you provide any advice or guidance to people who are LGBTQ+ and are interested in Conservation on how and why to get involved in this field?
Specifically for LGBTQ people, I’d say networking is a good idea, start to connect with people whose work you like or that you’ve read about or researched and do outreach in their work. They are often looking for participants in their surveys if you’re looking to contribute.
More broadly on being LBGT I suppose a lot of struggles I had that were knock-on effects from the way I grew up were holding back and lacking confidence in who I was and what I could achieve. So, I suppose just the need to, as hard as it can be, embrace it and be proud. Don’t try and hide who you are, surround yourself with some decent and supportive people, and know that I, personally, would take even greater interest from hearing from an LGBTQ+ person’s work or research so there’s certainly an audience out there for people that are ‘out’ as it were and there’s an excellent network of supportive people online as well.
Basically, my takeaway message is: get involved with these LGBT Science communities because there are a fair few of them and lots of them are very good. You can do some volunteering as well, most places like that are very accepting. Just keep going for it, don’t feel like you should be held back because of what someone else is doing because there are plenty of people who are like you, like me, out there.