Nine Undergraduate Biology Instructors Revealing their LGBTQ+ Identities in Class Resulted in Benefits for their LGBTQ+ Students and Students with Other Marginalized Identities

Few LGBTQ+ biology instructors reveal their identities to undergraduates, often without considering the potential student benefits. Although instructors who have revealed their LGBTQ+ identity perceive positive impacts for students and a pilot study demonstrated this positive impact, we know of no multi-institution studies exploring how instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure affects students. We recruited a nationwide sample of nine LGBTQ+ biology instructors to disclose their identities and assessed the impact of disclosure on students via surveys (<i>n</i> = 2045). Few student participants in our study reported that instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure negatively impacted their course experience, and most students agreed that instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure is appropriate. Counter to our expectations, state LGBTQ+ acceptance did not have a significant effect on participants' responses to the instructor's LGBTQ+ disclosure. Additionally, students in our study with marginalized identities-including LGBTQ+, women or nonbinary, persons excluded due to ethnicity or race, or having anxiety or depression-benefited disproportionately compared with their peers. Although this multi-institution work is promising in that it corroborates previous findings of benefits to students following instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure and provides evidence that contradicts assumed regional differences in US students' responses to instructor LGBTQ+ disclosure, we encourage caution in generalizing the results to the students of all LGBTQ+ instructors.