UL celebrates Rainbow and Trans Health Awareness Week

This year UL’s LGBTQ+ society Out in UL held Rainbow Week in conjunction with Trans Health and Awareness Week.

Trans Health Awareness Week, an iniative brought forward by UL Student Life’s Welfare Officer Lorcan O’ Donnell, ran alongside the seventh annual Rainbow Week this year.

By combining the two weeks all aspects of the LGBTQ+ community are celebrated through different events and workshops.

Some events throughout the week included Trans 101 workshops, Bake Sales and Halloween Pub Quizzes.

Mr O’ Donnell said Trans Health and Awareness Week came from wanting to “show support and acceptance of all gender identities and amplify the voices of our brothers, sisters, and non-binary pals for their fight for visibility and inclusion”.

UL Student Life’s Welfare Officer thinks weeks like this are very important because they focus “on one aspect and starts conversations around pronouns and trans rights. ”

Rachel Frohriep, President of Out in UL, said there is a lot more work to do: “There’s a bit of difficulty regarding binary gender selection on the Wolves site which is something to be worked on”.

However the President of UL’s LGBTQ+ society feels UL has taken some good steps, “The move toward adopting gender neutral bathrooms and the recent panel that Law Society had on LBGTQ+ rights brought in speakers on campus including a representative from Bi+ Ireland, have been positive and moving in the right direction” she said.

You can read our interview with transgender UL PhD student and tutor Alena Kiel here