Hello all, As you may know, today is the Belgian Pride parade, a day for LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) people in Belgium to collectively take pride in their identity. In the spirit of the day, I wanted to announce something to you: I am transgender. I started physically transitioning six months ago, and already present as a woman everywhere but at the university. I have already started the procedures to change academic email address to my actual name (it's simply Alex), and would appreciate if everybody made the effort of addressing me as you would any of your other female coworkers — we are few but we are here ;-) This includes of course using "she" and "her" when talking about me, for example: "Did you hear about Alex? Her paper got accepted, she worked hard on it!" If however you use the wrong terms unintentionally, please correct yourself when you notice, it's better to say something than nothing at all. See you all next week, Sincerely, Alex