As the NXF (National LGBT Federation) celebrates its 40th birthday, its Chairperson, Caroline Keane, looks back on her own journey and forward to a landmark year for the Federation.

I grew up in Mayo, in the very west in a place called Louisburgh. remember when was 10 or 11 and two girls from the school asked to go to the toilet at the same time. Someone shouted ‘lesbians’ at them. was like ‘What? Are lesbians people who go to the toilet together?’ had never heard the word, didn’t know what it was. These things weren’t very visible in the ‘80s and ‘90s in West Mayo.

I had a growing awareness in my late teens, early 20’s. came to Dublin for college in UCD and began to realise who was. At that time in Dublin there wasn’t a huge amount happening, especially for women. moved to London for a career and our office was in the middle of Soho. That’s where discovered gay life. I joined the Diversity Choir and was in the GLEAM (Gay and Lesbian Employees At Microsoft) Network. That’s where got involved with community work. It was a way to get to know people and a way to understand what you could be. When came back to Dublin was more confident, was more sure of who was and immediately auditioned for Gloria (Dublin’s Lesbian and Gay Choir).

Everyone got involved in campaigning for Marriage Equality in 2015 in various ways. knew a few people who were in the NXF. At the time they had a lot of people who had been involved in big projects like Marriage Equality, Section 37. There was a recruitment drive and was part of that.

Our foundation is in education - spreading awareness. It’s about the present, the past and the future. The NXF are the publishers of GCN, so in the present it’s GCN writing and reporting.

In the past- it’s the archiving and the history of our community. We grew the Irish Queer Archives which were handed over to the National Library of Ireland. We share parts of the archive in projects such as the ‘Road To Equality’ exhibition and as part of our 40th anniversary we want to make that archive more accessible and to grow it.

The future is the research we do. For instance, the biggest studies of the LGBT community in Ireland - Burning Issues One and Two - were run by the NXF. We take insights from that research and feed them into policy change and advocacy for the country. So it’s: Record. Report. Reform.

The NXF also run The GALAS - Ireland’s LGBT awards. These were started to recognise people within the community and those who support the community, pushing for LGBT equality and the improvement of LGBT lives. We’ve had the opportunity to recognise some really hardworking people. There is so much good work being done or that still needs to be done for people in rural areas, older people, trans people, there are lots of people to shine a light on. As part of it, we also have the international award which is a bursary given every year to an international recipient to help them continue with their work.

In 2018, we published the report ‘Far From Home: Life As An LGBT Migrant In Ireland’. Coming out of that, in association with LGBT Ireland and the Queer Diaspora - a Direct Provision group, we’re bringing together groups from across Ireland and Europe in a Learning Exchange run by Chris Noone from the board to figure out how we can help LGBT migrants better, especially those in Direct Provision.

I believe what’s good and supportive and holistic about our community is that you can be connected with such a wide range of people. A lot of the time as you get older, you tend to move in a narrow sphere of people, whereas in the LGBT community, when you go out to a bar or you go out to a group, you’ll be talking to people across all age ranges, backgrounds, jobs, etc. Our connection with our community, where we get to hear varying viewpoints, is important for all of us.

We have been lucky to have some wonderful people join the NXF recently. We now have nine people on the NXF board, and we also have subcommittees of people who are very active in the work we do, for example - research, and have a wide community of people who get involved for different projects. We are also looking for people to get involved with our 40th anniversary celebrations, so please contact us at info@nxf.ie.

To keep up to date with the NXF follow them on Twitter @nxfie and on their National LGBT Federation Facebook page.