Michael Ramsey-Musolf

I came out as a gay man while I was a Ph.D. student at Princeton, during the height of the AIDS crisis. At that time, I had no openly LGBTQIA role models in physics and a dearth of gay role models in the priesthood. For a detailed look at the challenges I faced in physics, even with the support of my early career mentors and many colleagues, please watch my presentation “Shattering the Lavender Ceiling: A Gay Theoretical Physicist’s Perspective”.

Navigating the rigors of a dual vocation in theoretical physics and priesthood while growing into an identity as a gay man and developing a supportive community, I faced and overcame significant challenges not encountered by most of my peers in either profession. Despite my talents and accomplishments, my success as an openly gay physicist and priest was by no means a foregone conclusion. To this day, the climate for sexual and gender minorities in physics remains challenging, as delineated in an APS climate study. The situation for openly LGBTQIA clergy in the Episcopal Church has evolved, but my ability to serve as a priest during this evolution was sometimes limited by higher authorities due to my sexual orientation.

On the personal side, l have developed my own “family of choice,” as my birth family has been unsupportive of me as a gay man. I was disowned by my parents, a painful fact not revealed until after their deaths. The primary member of my family of choice is my wonderful husband of 26+ years, Darrel Ramsey-Musolf, currently a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at UMass. My family of choice also includes several other close friends who have embraced and supported me as a true sibling.

As a result of my experiences and general passion for justice, I  became a visible advocate and prophetic voice for underrepresented/underserved minority physicists in general and LGBTQIA physicists in particular. In 2012, I served on the first-ever APS panel on sexual and gender minorities in physics at the March meeting, after having collaborated with Elena Long and others to establish the lgtb+physicists grassroots organization. My work with that organization has included co-authorship of the Best Practices Guide.  I have been profiled in several publications, including the Madison, Wisconsin monthly Our Lives and the APS News. In the summer of 2017, I presented the first version of my talk “Shattering the Lavender Ceiling” as a lab-wide presentation at Brookhaven National Laboratory. I have given subsequent versions of this talk at Helsinki University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Chicago, and Jefferson Laboratory. In my research groups, I seek to create an environment that is proactively supportive of early career physicists from all backgrounds and identities.

More generally, having experienced prejudice, discrimination, and rejection at the deepest levels, I endeavor — through both my scientific work and ministry — to bring more love, justice, and joy into the world, particularly for those who, like me, know firsthand what it means to be “orphans and strangers” on this planet.