Today I had my first session at the EGU24, called 'The LGBT Pride group at EGU: Current progress, and challenges for LGBT people in the Earth system sciences, and ideas for how to overcome them'. I was the first of three invited speakers to talk about my experiences at the UT and what policies were in place. Some policies work well, some don't work at all, but it is a lot better than it was 5 years ago. For anyone who wants to know more about the current policies, visit https://www.utwente.nl/en/thinkwithprideut/ Did you know you can get up to two weeks of paid leave for transitioning? Unheard of when I grew up!
The room was packed and there were not enough chairs for everyone, so if I do end up helping to host next year's session, it will have to be in a bigger room. If this topic is relevant to 10% of the population/attendants, that means 1800 attendants, and even if that is spread out over each conference day that still means 180 people, not 60. So I can argue for it quantitatively. The discussion was very open and described various cases where work policies obstruct or support LGBT scientists, or where they are still sadly absent. My hope, as I expressed during the session, is that sharing our stories helps people with their own journey, either as inspiration or either good or bad examples. Knowing we are all together helps a lot too.
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