I knew about the LGBTQ+ center but I was not aware of all the resources that the center provided to the students at NYU. I know there is a strong community at the Washington Square campus but Tandon only seems to have OSTEM, but it would be nice to have a more open community at Tandon. While Chris Woods was presenting I enjoyed his overview of the gender binary because I have been trying to better inform myself on gender and it being a social construct because since I was born they were assigning traits and interests to only two genders but there are a plethora of genders that range from male, female, or gender non-conforming.
While reading about Ben Barnes I was noticing some similarities in his experience and what Chris Woods was speaking about during the presentation. Ben experienced both sides of a unique view of the potential toxicity in the STEM field, coming mainly from certain men claiming the inferiority of women. He used his voice to help fight for the gender bias that he had experienced in his earlier years in order to improve the lives of his female-identifying colleagues.