A brief history of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Outlist

Shown below is how the appearance of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Outlist site looked before 2018. This list first went live in August 1998. It was based on similar outlists that existed for people at the University of California–Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At that time, very likely there were self-organized LGBTQIA+ groups in some other institutes as well. As far as we know, the American astronomers' LGBTQIA+ community first started to network together using an email distribution list that was formed in November 1992 as a result of efforts by four astronomy graduate students at the time. People then started organizing and getting together at the January 1993 American Astronomical Society (AAS) Meeting in Phoenix and the June 1993 AAS Meeting in Berkeley. The group continued to grow thanks to announcements in various newsgroups and the AAS newsletter. In 1998, the idea for an outlist webpage was born. This page was eventually linked into the AAS website, and the AAS established a Working Group on LGBTQIA+ equality (WGLE), now the AAS Committee for Sexual-Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy (SGMA), in November 2012.

While that is the American history, we recognize that astronomy is an international enterprise, and we welcome and celebrate the lives of all human beings in our international astronomical community. You will find that there are already many signatures here coming from institutes all around the world.

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Astronomy and Astrophysics Outlist

As professionals in astronomy and astrophysics, whether we are students, faculty, staff, librarians or are working in other positions, we all like to believe that our work environment is determined only by our capabilities as students and researchers, and that it is free from personal bias. A productive professional atmosphere depends on open and accepting interactions of individuals free from discrimination and harassment.

As openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other gender/sexual minorities (LGBTQIA+) members of the astronomical community, we strongly believe that there is no place for discrimination based on sexual orientation/preference or gender identity/expression. We want to actively maintain and promote a safe, accepting and supportive environment in all our work places. We invite other LGBTQIA+ members of the astronomical community to join us in being visible and to reach out to those who still feel that it is not yet safe for them to be public.

As experts, TAs, instructors, professors and technical staff, we serve as professional role models every day. Let us also become positive examples of members of the LGBTQIA+ community at large.

We also invite everyone in our community, regardless how you identify yourself, to work to be an ally and make visible your acceptance of LGBTQIA+ people. We urge you to make visible (and audible) your objections to derogatory comments and "jokes" about LGBTQIA+ people.

In the light of the above statements, we, your fellow students, alumni/ae, faculty, coworkers, and friends, sign this message.

The Outlist

Name Position/Affiliation Web Page and/or Email

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The Ally List

Name Position/Affiliation Web Page and/or Email

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Please fill out this form to add yourself to the lists or to update/remove your information.

The information you provided will be sent to current maintainers: Yao-Yuan Mao (Utah) and Omer Blaes (UCSB). You can also reach us at astro-outlist@googlegroups.com.

We will also very much appreciate it if you can help us advertise this site on social media (e.g., Twitter), your personal website, and/or your department's mailing list!

Relevent sites: AAS SGMA | LGBT+ Physicists | LGBT+ Mathematicians | 500 Queer Scientists | LGBT+ Inclusivity Best Practices

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