FROM THE EDITORLGBT+ people are starting the f ght to be heard at the next big Catholic shindig: October’s Synod on Young People

WE ASKED THE TEAMWHAT SHOW ARE YOU DYIN’ TO SEE THIS YEAR?

Here We Go Again!Here’s your official warning, brain boxes – bury those noses

Synth You Been GonePutting some zip into the dog days of September, PureGrand

Super MarioThe final whistle has blown on the World Cup leaving

Cast Your MindIt’s a golden age for podcasts. And that’s half the

A Quickie with...We have the new single from Jack O’Rourke, with its

Tutu MuchThe all-male, high comedy ballet troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de

QUEER VIEW MIRRORAhead of the pope’s shindig for some kinds of families,

Following the CaminoJane Casey is neither religious nor the ‘outdoorsy’ type, so how did walking 117KM through rural Spain on the Camino de Santiago turn out to be so her kind of thing, that she can’t wait to do it again?

THE BOOK GUYWhat’s keeping Stephen Boylan up at night this month?

modern anthem010 Charting The Songs We Love So WellWith her part in the new Mama Mia! and a tour in the oing, Cher is on a bit of a renewed roll, but it’s not her irst time at the comeback rodeo. Exactly 20 years ago she reinvigorated a lagging music career with a song that would go on to be both a record-breaking hit and the apotheosis of her gay appeal. Words by Conor Behan

The VerdictYears & Years diicult second album?

Surviving EddyAs a stage adaptation of The End of Eddy, Édouard Louis bestselling autobiographical novel about anti-gay bullying, comes to the Dublin Theatre Festival, its director Stewart Laing talks to Brian Finnegan about his own reasons for taking on the project, toxic masculinity, and young people inding self-empowerment

Seeking SanctuaryWhen aircrat engineer Sinan Shwaili and a group of fellow activists put up posters in Baghdad, hoping to help other LGBTs, little did they know that their lives would instantly fall apart. Sinan shares with Brian Finnegan his story of terror and murder in Iraq, his desperate light to Ireland, and how he is still forced to live with anti-gay hatred in the Direct Provision system. Portrait by Marek Hajdasz

Acting Up In AmsterdamRobbie Lawlor of ACT UP Dublin shares his most powerful moments of the 22nd International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, AIDS 2018, at which protests and radical messages were the order of the day

Glitterati“The closure of The Dragon, and the curtain closing on The Panti Show both had a big impact on the community.” So says, Beth Hayden, founding member of Glitter HOLE, a gang of performers who mix their response to a percieved lack of drag diversity with radical queer politics. So what we can expect from the inauguaral Glitter HOLE Fringe show, The Fianna Fellatio Party?

pink fringeThere’s a stellar line-up of happenings at the Dublin Fringe Festival with a troupe of shows made by and for queers. Here are some of the highlights:

TERF WARSThe hijacking of London Pride by a group of trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) last month is indicative of the rise of what seems like a bitter division within the UK’s LGBT community. But in Ireland, TERFs and trans exclusionary rhetoric have barely been seen or heard. So, what’s diferent about the queer community here, and why is important that we stay tuned to what’s happening across the water? Aisling Cronin reports

OPINION: Kate KiernanTrans exclusionary radical feminists relect to us the woundedness of our own community, our desire to be ‘normal’

THE DREAMERSriginally from Mongolia, 22 year-old photographer and creative director, Steven

IDENTITIESAs LGBT continues to expand to include ever diversifying letters and identities, more and more people are exploring beyond the narrow deinitions of what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Yet on some level the growing diversity of identity still isn’t being recognised in the larger community. Chris O’Donnell meets some of the people whose identities it under the plus in LGBT+. Illustration by Oliver Weiss

OPINION: Doireann O’MalleyHumans are such diverse, queer creatures, and should be embraced for their dif erences rather than oppressed because of them

INSIDE OUTWinner of the Stewart Parker Award for her play The Half Of It, actress and writer Karen Cogan brings her dark comedy, Drip Feed, about growing up female and queer in 1990’s Ireland, to this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival

Shirley’s Burn BookCherish Maloney has a fungal infection, and…