Did This Really Happen?! (DTRH) is a creative and impactful initiative that confronts everyday sexism in science through comics based on real, anonymised testimonies from the scientific community. Initiated in 2016, the project began collecting anonymous testimonies in 2018 and has since grown into an international team of geoscientists. The comics are freely available and have proven to be a powerful vehicle to start difficult conversations in a nonconfrontational manner, raising awareness, and promoting equity in scientific spaces.

With funding from the IGNITE Network Flexible Funding (FA2: EDI Challenges, Round 1, January 2024), the DTRH team expanded their efforts to: 

• Continue collecting and illustrating testimonies.
• Broaden the scope of experiences captured, including issues of representation and intersectionality.
• Explore how the comics are being used across different contexts to support equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) efforts.

The project has received over 280 anonymous testimonies and produced more than 65 comics, each illustrating real experiences of sexism within the scientific community. Submissions span all career stages, from students to senior professionals, across both academia and industry, with the majority coming from early to mid-career researchers.

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