A Tipperary transgender woman says the importance of honouring LGBTQIA+ History Month cannot be understated.
Every February marks a month-long celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary history, with a special emphasis on how far the community rights and related civil rights movements have come.
Saoirse Mackin says this month was first created or marked in the US by a teacher in Missouri-just a year after being gay became legal in Ireland-and has since gained momentum in other countries.
Speaking to Tipp Today, she differentiated between Pride and LGTBTQIA+ History Month.
“We have pride and we have other similar events, but it’s important that the lives of people who fought for our rights before us are also recognised and celebrated through history as well. Pride started as a protest, and that’s very much what it still is, it’s to protest for LGTBT+ rights, whereas LGBTQIA+ History Month is more a celebration of what has been achieved, and obviously there’s still a lot to come.”
Speaking on those achievements, Saoirse says Ireland has made significant progress when it comes to recognising the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, in ways such as being the first country to legalise same-sex marriage by vote of the people, and gender recognition for trans people.
However, she says Ireland still has a ways to go.
“There is still a long way to go. For example, we still don’t have a ban on conversion therapy, and we still don’t have hate crime legislation that is any bit sufficient. So, there is still a long, long way to go. We’re not anywhere near where we need to be yet.
“We’ve definitely made a lot of progress from where we were only 20 or 30 years ago.”
