Behind The Scenes At NASA's LGBTQ+ Scientist Of The Year Award

You will have already heard that Jane Rigby, who is an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Flight Center. She won the LGBTQ+ Scientist of the Year at NASA for 2022.

This is, of course, a significant achievement, making Rigby the envy of LGBTQ+ scientists everywhere. It's a sure bet that when Rigby started out LGBTQ+ing, she had no idea of the heights that awaited her. But she kept on her non-straight path, and the rest is history. How proud her parents must be.

Again, since NASA made such a big deal of it, you already knew all this. But what you didn't know is that I happened to be at NASA this year, trying to talk people out of the EM drive. It was nice coincidence that when I was there I was allowed to tag along with Guy La Femme (originally from Quebec), NASA's chief DIE officer, in his search for LGBTQ+ candidates.

"We really need Bs this year. We never have enough Bs," La Femme told me as we walked along NASA corridors.

"What about gays?", I asked.

He waved the suggestion away. "We are stuffed with gays. We have gays from here to Mars. Who do you think designed our fierce new spacesuits? No, what we need is some genuine Diversity. That's the only way to get noticed these days. We had a trans intern last year in the Elementary Math Division, and he---I mean she-would have been perfect. But she received an offer to become technical advisor to Disney's new science cartoon series, and she left."

We had by then reached a break room. "Hey! Brian!" he shouted to a large black man drinking coffee. "We might have our B---and he's black!" he whispered giddily to me. Then to Brian, "Didn't I see you in the bathroom stall with Peter from Accounting at last year's To The Moon! bash?"

"My zipper was stuck! Those lousy new spacesuits are always sticking. He knows how to fix them. We complain about them damn things all the time."

"Nothing...romantic, then?"

"What are you talking about? I'm married."

"Yes, I know." And then to me again, "That's what makes him our B---duuuh."

But he gave up on Brian, and we continued on. We passed by an administrators office and La Femme said, "That's X"---for political reasons, La Femme asked me not to use the administrator's real name---"And I know for a fact that he likes to spend all his free time in the employee children's playground, if you know what I mean."

"One of the pluses in +?" I asked.

La Femme nodded. "It would such a coup. Only problem is, he's mortal enemies with last year's winner, who has a lot of sway with budgets around here. We just can't risk a scene breaking out at the award's ceremony."

I pointed to a guy walking with a clipboard. Dressed in all black, sleeveless shirt, tattoos everywhere. More piercings than I could count. Hair dyed a color unknown to Nature. "What about him?" I asked.

"No, he only has sex with his wife. Nothing kinky, even. I checked."

La Femme considered. "The perfect person is the Congressman---you know the one: the one that's so good to us. It's a known thing he will screw anything he can get his hands on. You should have seen what he did with one of the rocket models from last year's science fair. The whole crowd cheering 'Armageddon!' He has no fixed gender: perfectly gender fluid. Everything you'd want, really."

"Except?"

"Except he's not a scientist. He can't tell a black hole from...well, from any other kind of hole," he laughed. "Besides, the award really should go to an employee. We have to have some integrity."

And so, at long last, the candidate list being rich but troublesome, the award went to Rigby.

In the official announcement of the award, NASA said, "Rigby is just the greatest LGBTQ+ scientist there is. She can LGBTQ+ all over the place, and she can LGBTQ+ all day long. One time we came into her office, and there she was, LGBTQ+ing the place. We were amazed."

It was after my trip I realized that while the first moon landing wasn't faked. the next one will be.

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