Pride Month at the Institut Pasteur – check out the program and note the dates in your diaries!

We would remind you that the Department for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the DEI Events group, the Queer Club and StaPa are joining forces to celebrate Pride Month with a Pride Month Seminar Series. The month of June will culminate with the Institut Pasteur's official participation in the Pride March on June 28.

Get your diaries out to note down the upcoming events!

•    "The Story Behind "500 Queer Scientists"" with Lauren Esposito, Wednesday June 11 at 4pm (Teams, in English)

While society has made strides toward acceptance and legal protections, LGBTQ+ representation in STEM has lagged behind this progress, particularly where identities of women and gender minorities intersect with Black, indigenous and other person of color identities. At the professional level, LGBTQ people in STEM are statistically underrepresented, and the major issues faced by sexual/gender minority STEM professionals, include a heterosexist climate that reinforces gender stereotypes in work environments, a culture that strongly encourages people to remain closeted at work, and a general lack of awareness about LGBTQ issues among STEM professionals. Because heteronormative assumptions frequently silence conversations about gender and sexuality in STEM workplaces, progress toward equality and inclusion has been slow to advance. We will discuss these issues in greater detail, as well as what has been done to turn the tide of equity and inclusion.

 

•   "Representations of transgender individuals: dichotomies vs. mediating figures" with Karine Espineira, Wednesday June 18 at 2pm (Teams, in French) 

Karine Espineira is a French-Chilean media sociologist. She has been an associate researcher in the "Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Récits Cultures et Sociétés" (LIRCES) at Université Côte d'Azur since 2012, and an associate member of the Laboratory for Gender and Sexuality Studies (UMR LEGS) at Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis since 2017. In 2010, she co-founded the Transidentity Observatory (ODT), an independent site for information, knowledge production and analysis on trans, inter and gender questions. In 2022, with Maud-Yeuse Thomas, she published the book Transidentité et transitudes. Se défaire des idées reçues.

Exploring the transgender paradigm leads us to think more broadly about the challenges related to representation and raises a host of questions. How have trans people been imagined and modeled in the social and media consciousness? The popularization of transgender experiences can be traced back to the 1920s-1930s. Did this popularization, which generated certain representations, contribute to a better understanding/acceptance, or did it set in stone a fixed idea? In the decades from 1980 to 2000, these questions were addressed in transgender organizations with a realization that media mistreatment had led to exclusively negative representations. Over the past decade, series in particular seem to have reshuffled the cards, providing us with media figures who are more dynamic but sometimes troublesome in other ways.

 

•  June 28: Pride March

Once again this year, the Institut Pasteur will be taking part in the Pride March in Paris on Saturday June 28, 2025. This year, the Institut Pasteur will officially march alongside other Paris-based research institutes—including Institut Curie, Institut Imagine, Les Cordeliers, and Institut Cochin—to deliver a shared message: scientific excellence goes hand in hand with respect for human rights.

All staff members are more than welcome to join the march to show their support and pride!

The organizers would like to thank you in advance for your participation and support for a more inclusive working environment at the Institut Pasteur.

 

More informations: dei.events@pasteur.fr

 

The Department for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the DEI Events group, the Queer Club and StaPa are looking forward to seeing you there!