With our fantastic team of DE&I champions at work, we always take a moment in October to create awareness around Coming Out Day and Pronouns Day.

[timo_micro@scicomm.xyz]

With our fantastic team of DE&I champions at work, we always take a moment in October to create awareness around Coming Out Day and Pronouns Day. This year, we were not able to organize a panel discussion like last years, but we did welcome our colleagues to the office this morning with cake, macarons, rainbow lanyards, and stickers with progress pride flags or rainbow hearts and we raised the pride flag. Especially in a time where LGBTQIA+ people are used as a convenient minority to throw under the bus in the culture war to win votes, I believe that I, as someone who is privileged enough to be out and able to work on DE&I, have a duty to be visible on days like these on behalf of everyone who cannot safely be themselves. I will be here to remind people that LGBTQIA+ people exist, that we are everywhere and will not disappear just because some folks are too narrowminded to understand love beyond their own context. It's a small gesture, but according to several queer colleagues, that small gesture was really important for them to feel safe at work. Happy belated coming out day, and have a great pronouns day tomorrow.