Queer Leadership in Vet Med

Why Are There Not More LGBTQ+ Leaders?

Veterinary medicine stands at a point of substantial transition almost 25 years into the new century. The post-COVID period has been characterized by a drop in pandemic-level demand for services, a shift in the narrative of spectrum and outcome of care, heightened client expectations, an educator and specialist shortage, new didactic models, and the artificial intelligence revolution.

Any one of these new challenges requires intelligent, empathetic, culturally humble, and adaptive individuals to confront them. Our profession needs leaders informed by different viewpoints who are capable of nurturing innovation, disrupting the status quo, and building consensus.

With a history of recognition of LGBTQ+ veterinarians in veterinary medicine since the early 1970s, why are there so few queer leaders now? Marketers caught on to the need for queer representation in veterinary branding and advertising years ago because of the large proportion of pet owners in the queer community.

Many companies have Pride resource groups that are necessary to support large numbers of LGBTQ+ employees. Industry partnerships with affinity organizations provide advocacy, support, educational talks, and networking events to work toward inclusion and belonging in our profession. Actual inclusivity, however, requires entrusting individuals with positions that have direct involvement in policy and decisionmaking. This fact is not lost on any historically marginalized group.

Yet today there are only singular examples of queer clinicians, technicians, and faculty in leadership positions.

“Our clientele is diverse and our profession reflects this diversity,” says Jörg Steiner, Dr.med.vet, PhD, DACVIM, DECVIM-CA, AGAF, professor at Texas A&M and past president of the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. “Queer leadership plays an integral role in this representation.”

If this underrepresentation continues, the profession will not easily retain trainees, jobseekers, clients, and stakeholders for the long term.

“The most successful hiring managers ensure teams are diverse and that historically excluded communities—including LGBTQ+ and BIPOC veterinary professionals—are in leadership roles with a voice in all critical decisions,” said Mia Cary, DVM, CEO of PrideVMC, an organization devoted to advocating for the LGBTQ+ veterinary community.

In recent US polling, 30–40% of Gen Z individuals (ages 14–26) self-identify as LGBTQ+, including 25% who identify as nonbinary. General US population estimates say that 7.6% of US adults are LGBTQ+, with an estimated 26 million total queer folk in the US population. Based on this, the numbers of queer people in the veterinary profession will increase substantially in the next 5 to 10 years. This begs the question, should there be more directed mentorship and support than in the last 50 years for queer ascent in the profession?

Leadership Qualities Born from Adversity

Resilience is touted as an essential component in leadership. The queer community is celebrated in annual Pride gatherings commemorating the Stonewall riots of 1969. This moment belonged to an older generation and was a prelude to substantial struggle. Baby boomers and Gen Xers lived with the horror and keen loss of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and early millennials grew up watching the community come together in activism.

LGBTQ+ people in their mid-30s to late 40s developed as adults in a landscape where intimacy could still be prosecuted, benefits were not certain, and gay marriage was illegal. Within the LGBTQ+ community, awareness and understanding of gender-diverse people—even in the early 2010s—seems like the Stone Age in comparison to where the narrative is today.

At the same time, within the workplaces of the United States, United Kingdom, and multiple other countries, the 2020s have brought a coordinated legislative attack against all LGBTQ+ people and in particular gender-diverse people. This, combined with decreased access to reproductive healthcare, places a large portion of queer people in jeopardy.

As of mid-2023, 130,000–260,000 gender-diverse people were estimated to have been displaced within the United States, and the Human Rights Campaign had declared a national LGBTQ+ crisis. The past three years have threatened to bring back mainstream discrimination and reverse much of the gains of the prior half-century.

Although some are disproportionately affected by this new era, none of us remain unaffected by our past or present. This is compounded for those with intersectional identities. When queer leaders are chosen, identity is often woven from a fabric of adversity and survival, with many still contending with challenges both within and outside family.

“As our communities evolve and become more diverse, so must our leaders,” said Dane Whitaker, DVM, former president and current board member of PrideVMC. “Having queer veterinarians in places of leadership within the profession helps to reflect those communities and can push back against the hate and fear that is so pervasive in our society now.”

If organizations are seeking someone who can achieve long-term goals while dealing with abrupt and unexpected consequences, then they would be wise to consider the struggles and perseverance of queer individuals as a strength.

Coalition-building, negotiation, and compromise are essential for addressing long-term strategic goals. Unique to queer identity is the process of coming out that can be both extremely empowering and harmful. Many queer people lose friends, family, and spouses against our will in order to live safely and authentically. Many of us are outed at least in part because we cannot be anything other than ourselves.

To be queer is often to spend half your life hidden and the other half rebuilding community. Thankfully, for a time, this became easier for younger generations, but the current anti-LGBTQ+ legislation means that we have found ourselves often in a worse place than we could have imagined five years ago. Surviving takes a variety of skills. Building chosen family is a cornerstone of queer life, as is finding safe spaces. The world outside is full of outwardly antagonistic folk and well-meaning microaggressors.

The litany of “gay agenda,” “lifestyle choices,” “keep it in private,” “don’t rub it in people’s faces,” and pointed or unintended slurs is still very much present. Yet queer professionals aren’t doomed—we just come up through the workplace with substantial understanding of conflicting frames of reference, situational awareness, persuasive reasoning, and advocacy.

“We don’t do it deliberately, but just by being in the room, a trans person challenges . . . the way society is built. We instinctively know not only how to survive but to thrive when everything seems to be changing,” said Kate Toyer, BVSc, MANZCVS (Surgery), president of Australian Rainbow Vets and a small animal surgeon, on an episode of AAHA’s Central Line podcast.

Melody Martinez, CVT, president of the Multicultural Veterinary Medical Association and CEO of Acorde Consulting adds, “It’s critical that those who consider themselves allies earn the title by first recognizing that what harms one, harms us all—even if our gender or racial identities are different. Trans misogyny, for example, hurts cisgender women, and nowhere has that been more clear than in the discourse surrounding Imane Khelif [gold medalist in women’s boxing] at the Paris Olympics.”

Though not purpose-built for leadership, it is hard to go through life successfully as a queer person and not have the building blocks that are needed to rally consensus and the fortitude to persevere in a team.

Unstoppable Pride

Despite all of this adversity, queer society radiates joy, often brightest where there is the least acceptance. As we saw almost a hundred years ago when the pendulum swung toward overt prejudice and restriction, drag queens, singers, and writers serve as a beacon of hope. Time and again the voice representing young professionals is queer, whether it comes from performers like Megan Thee Stallion, Chappell Roan, and La Cruz; the comedy of Bob the Drag Queen, Hannah Gadsby, and Suzy Izzard; or the prose of Lamya H, Maia Kobabe, or Tarell Alvin McCraney.

For all the emphasis on difference and otherness in the harsh rhetoric of statehouses, courts, congressional chambers, and parliament, the biggest threat of queerness is its unrestrained humanity. A mythology of fear surrounds the boring truth that we are all just people. We are fortunate that there are allies who recognize this and help to shoulder us up. There is a paradox that those who detract from the value of queer leadership see this identity as a concern, an inconvenience, or irrelevant.

“We should strive to build a profession where everyone can be free to be themselves so long as that freedom doesn’t impinge on the right to exist free of discrimination and harm,” Martinez said. “Our humanity and freedom are bound up together. To ensure that we have a truly inclusive profession, those of us who experience privilege—we all do in some way—should remember that our own safety and joy is tied to that of others.”

The reality is that the broad reach of the community is a uniting force. Pride is an object lesson in this commonality of existence, with marches and parades in small cities lasting hours and rainbow colors stretched far into the distance by allies and queer people alike. Even in this time of bans, fines, and felonies, that energy is unstoppable.

Leaders of Tomorrow

Where can we find tomorrow’s leaders for veterinary medicine? This is a very popular question right now in national conferences, board meetings, and workshops. Education and advocacy leaders alike agreed on the importance of having queer leaders in place as we head into the future.

Rustin M. Moore, DVM, PhD, DACVS, dean of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, said his school is committed to supporting all students of all backgrounds and identities.

“We are committed to fostering a supportive atmosphere where everyone feels they belong and can thrive, including the LGBTQ+ and other diverse communities—regardless of their background, experiences, and other attributes—ensuring that everyone has exceptional experiences in our college leading to a satisfying, successful, and sustainable education and career,” Moore said.

Coretta Patterson, DVM, DACVIM, small animal internist and founding dean of Midwestern University College of Veterinary Medicine-Illinois, Downer’s Grove, also showed her support for the future of LGBTQ+ leaders.

“My hope is that we start out by creating a space where queer folk are leaders and that we become enlightened as a profession where great leaders—queer or straight, nonbinary, transgender, or cisgender—feel emboldened to take up leadership and are included, valued, and allowed to lead in a profession that we all want to help make better,” Patterson said.

Omar Farías, VMD, president of PrideVMC and director of scientific and academic affairs at Hill’s Pet Nutrition, pointed out that having queer leaders will benefit the profession as a whole.

“By promoting queer leadership in veterinary medicine, the profession will benefit from becoming more inclusive, diverse, and equitable, ultimately enhancing care for all individuals, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation,” he said.

Every day, LGBTQ+ people join the profession, save lives, get horses sound again, comfort clients, teach the next generation, run successful laboratories and clinics, manage large organizations, serve in uniform, stop disease in its tracks, and inspire others to do the same.

Out or not out, we are relied upon at all hours of the day, in all time zones, countries, on the open ocean, and even in space. As the number of queer veterinary professionals grows ever higher, the profession needs decisionmaking informed by our lived experience. When we recruit queer leaders, we empower the future of the profession.

Note: The author acknowledges and thanks Kate Toyer, BVSc, Mia Cary, DVM, and Finley Wolff for review of this manuscript.

Photo credits: Eoneren/E+ via Getty Images Plus