Glowing with Pride

Trinity’s Wren Library was illuminated with the rainbow flag to mark the start of Pride Month in a first for the College.

Students, staff and Fellows attended the event on 1 June, which TCSU LGBT+ Representative Jaysol Doy said was ‘one of the most special and brilliant nights of my life.’

Pride Month commemorates the struggle for rights and pursuit of justice, dating back to events at Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, in June 1969, when action by police sparked the LGBTQ rights movement in the United States and beyond.

Each February Trinity flies the flag during LGBTQ+ History Month and this year the College and TCSU came together to mark Pride Month.

LGBTQ+ Liaison Officer at Trinity Dr Anna-Maria Hartmann said: ‘Seeing the Wren glow in the colours of the rainbow was deeply moving. I feel very lucky to have been involved in the planning of this celebration of our LGBTQ community, alongside the many departments at the College that assisted.’

Jaysol Doy said illuminating the Wren Library was particularly significant.

For a building that began construction in 1676, and is representative of so much tradition, to see it as a symbol of a progressive and inclusive new period in our College’s history was so symbolic and so wonderful.

As I was looking at the illuminations from the Backs, it made me think of all those Trinity students, staff and Fellows who would have walked around those Cloisters unable to express themselves and living in fear. In a way, last night was, for me, a reclaiming and celebration of their identities that they could not show and an affirmation of our visibility, strength and pride today.