Trans* Research Association of Ireland (TRAI)

The Trans* Research Association of Ireland (TRAI) is a new research network supported by the UCD College of Arts and Humanities and School of English, Drama and Film and is open to all trans* researchers working in Ireland, and all researchers working on and with Irish transness.

Research Aims

The Trans* Research Association of Ireland seeks to create a network for trans* researchers & researchers working on Irish trans* issues. It hopes to disseminate Irish researchers’ contributions to international field of trans* studies & prioritise applied trans theory and scholarship in an Irish context. TRAI is excited to foster a community around trans research in Ireland.

TRAI Roundtable & Symposium

The network hosts a roundtable and symposium each year. 

The 2024 Roundtable takes place on 19th March 2024 at the Museum of Literature Ireland. It is entitled “Activism & Academia” and interrogates how trans research and activism can work in coalition. 

More information about the 2024 Symposium will be available soon. 

News & Events

Do you have an upcoming event that might be of interest to the network? Let us know at transresearchireland@gmail.com so we can add it to our upcoming events list. 

Network Board

Taylor Follett (he/him)

Taylor Follett is a PhD candidate at University College Dublin, where he researches women’s relationship to the family in Irish novels post-2010. He is currently working on his PhD thesis, “‘An Arbitrary Misfortune’?: Negotiating women’s relationship to the family in the contemporary Irish novel”. Taylor’s research interests include contemporary Irish writing, LGBTQ+ representation in Irish literature and beyond, and queer and trans* theory. Originally from rural Northern California, he lives in Dublin with his husband and their pets.

Robin Steve (they/them)

Robin Steve is a queer trans poet and researchers. They live in Dublin, where they are pursuing a PhD at University College Dublin. Their research, funded by the Irish Research Council, focuses on the intersections between trans poetics, trans ecologies, and trans temporalities. Their poetry has been published on Honest UlstermanAbridged, and Impossible Archetype.

Dr Matt Kennedy (he/him)

Dr Matt Kennedy (he/him) is an interdisciplinary empiricist in the area of trans studies, a writer and a boxer. He is currently employed in Belong To, Ireland’s National LGBTQ+ youth organisation as the research and advocacy manager. His PhD was a qualitative, interdisciplinary, community-based project exploring transnormativity and the lifeworlds of young trans men in Ireland yielding contributions to national and international scholarship in relation to transnormativity, trans theory and scholarship, healthcare, social class, legal identity and narrative production. His research areas and interests include trans studies, queer studies, autoethnography, disciplinarity, abolition, feminist theory, gender studies, archival studies, youth studies, sport and masculinities. His writing can be found in The Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, Irish University Review, and Poetry Ireland among others.

Dr Anne Mulhall

Dr Anne Mulhall is an Associate Professor in UCD School of English, Drama and Film, where she directs the MA Gender, Sexuality & Culture and co-directs (with Dr Aideen Quilty) the UCD Centre for Gender, Feminisms & Sexualities. Her research and teaching focuses on contemporary literature, culture and theory in and at the intersections between queer, trans, gender, feminist and critical migration studies.

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