GCN is conducting an anonymous survey to better understand what the LGBTQ+ community thinks about age and ageing in Ireland.

For a long time, most of us only saw one type of ageing experience represented in mainstream culture with cis-het nuclear families, but these perspectives about old age are often unappealing and uninspiring. For many, ideas of family and community radically shifted after coming out, and opportunities to break all the conventional rules and approach ageing in a way that feels authentic emerged.

For the first time in history, Ireland has multiple generations of LGBTQ+ people living beautiful openly queer lives. As a society, people are coming out younger, living longer, and communities are increasingly diverse.

Now, GCN wants to hear from community members. What comes to mind when you think about ageing in Ireland? Are you looking forward to getting older? Do you dread it? We want to know what you think.

The survey includes 20 short questions and you’ll be able to complete the whole thing in less than 10 minutes. It’s totally anonymous, with the option to skip any questions you don’t want to answer. If you’re eager to share more than what our set questions allow, there is also an open comment box to tell us what you think! These responses will be used to better understand what the community thinks about ageing, and it will also help GCN to identify ways to better include and cater for the older LGBTQ+ community through the services we provide.

Don’t miss out on having your say – take the survey here!

The survey is part of a project funded by The Community Foundation. GCN is working in partnership with Rita Wild, the coordinator of The Festival of Dangerous Ideas: Queer Hedge School with Gay Project, to develop and implement this project.

Preliminary results from the LGBTQ+ ageing survey will be shared in GCN’s December print magazine, with full results and analysis being published in the February 2023 issue.