I’m still excited over this week’s two—TWO!—Nobel laureates (Carolyn Bertozzi and Svante Pääbo) who are also queer parents. Why does this matter?
First, there’s the simple matter of queer visibility. Both Bertozzi and Pääbo are open about their lesbian and bisexual identities, and they are the first queer Nobel laureates of the modern (post-Stonewall) LGBTQ-rights era, to the best of my knowledge. They offer yet another proof that queer people can not only contribute positively to society, but can excel. Not that we should need to excel in order to validate our existence, but it is good to see that being queer, and openly so, doesn’t have to present an insurmountable obstacle to success. For Bertozzi, much the same could be send for her gender; as she has explained, she had to overcome bias against her as a woman in order to succeed in her chosen field. This is not to ignore the many systemic hurdles facing queer people, and which need to be addressed; but figures like Bertozzi and Pääbo give us an inspiring glimpse of what is possible. Imagine what humanity could achieve if there was no systemic bias or oppression of any kind.
Second, Bertozzi and Pääbo achieved their successes as parents. While I don’t really know what their spouses would say about this, I would like to think this shows one can be both a parent and a success in one’s career field. Yes, Bertozzi once tweeted, “I don’t think anyone would label me a dedicated mother unless I quit my job.” At the same time, she’s expressed the struggle of trying to balance work and kids (Nobel laureates—they’re just like us!), and is clearly involved in her kids’ lives, as “‘loose tooth puller’ (x 2 kids) and ‘Avengers: EndGame’ chaperone,” among other things. She’s tweeted about taking one of her kids to piano lessons and writing letters of recommendation while waiting, clearly trying to both parent and attend to career duties. Additionally, she’s touted co-workers “who show everyday that great science and great parenting are highly compatible, indeed mutually reinforcing.” It doesn’t seem like she’s doing what older generations of (mostly male) laureates have done, leaving all of the child rearing to their spouses while they go off and exercise their brilliance elsewhere.
Pääbo, for his part, said in his Nobel interview that when he got the surprise phone call about the prize, “I was just gulping down the last cup of tea to go and pick up my daughter at her nanny where she has had an overnight stay.” That doesn’t speak to the full extent of his parenting involvement (and having a nanny is certainly a help), but hints that he’s not leaving all child-related duties to his wife, Linda Vigilant. Vigilant also has a doctorate in genetics and works, as he does, at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, so she has her own career to balance as well. (Of course, Bertozzi has noted that the expectations for men and women are often unfairly different, saying, “I was recently in a meeting where a colleague was praised as a ‘family man’ because, like Bill Gates, he drops his kids off at school from time to time. Wonder if Bill ever served as ‘poop doula.’” Without any further insight into Pääbo’s household, however, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.)
Finally, let us consider that being queer and being a parent have sometimes seemed incompatible. So have being openly queer and achieving career success, and so have being a parent (particularly an involved one) and achieving career success. Bertozzi and Pääbo offer examples that suggest, at the highest levels of visibility, that all three are indeed possible. I’d like to give them a prize for that.