GSRD Éire 2027: Beyond Labels: Power, Belonging and the Lives We Live- Irelands LGBTQ+ Mental health Conference

GSRD Éire 2027

Beyond Labels: Power, Belonging and the Lives We Live

Saturday 24 April 2027
National College of Ireland, Mayor Square, Dublin 1
In person + online

9 am Registration 
5 pm Closing
7 pm Afterparty 

GSRD Éire 2027 is our inaugural LGBTQ+ mental health conference, bringing together therapists, counsellors, psychologists, healthcare and social care professionals, educators, students, community workers and LGBTQ+ voices for a day of learning, conversation and connection.

We want to create a conference that goes beyond simply adding LGBTQ+ identities into existing models of practice.

Beyond Labels: Power, Belonging and the Lives We Live will explore how gender, sexuality, relationships, identity, community and wider systems shape mental health, wellbeing and the ways people experience care.

Confirmed for GSRD Éire 2027

We are delighted to welcome internationally recognised psychosexual, relationship and trauma psychotherapist Silva Neves to GSRD Éire 2027. Silva is an award-winning psychotherapist, author and international trainer specialising in psychosexual and relationship therapy, compulsive sexual behaviours, trauma and grief. He is the author of Compulsive Sexual Behaviours: A Psycho-Sexual Treatment Guide for Clinicians and Sexology: The Basics, and works extensively with LGBTQ+ communities. silvaneves.co.uk

We will also be joined by Dr Dwight Turner, psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, author and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. Dwight’s work explores power, privilege, race, otherness and intersectionality within psychotherapy and wider society, asking how systems of supremacy and marginalisation shape both our clients and our professions. His books include Intersections of Privilege and Otherness in Counselling and Psychotherapy, The Psychology of Supremacy, Decolonising Counselling and Psychotherapy and A Phenomenology of Racism in Counselling and Psychotherapy. His work also invites us to think more deeply about allyship, particularly how we recognise and use the privilege we hold in relationship with others. Dwight Turner Counselling

Dr Christian Schulz-Quach will also join us. Christian is a psychiatrist and palliative care physician at University Health Network in Toronto and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. His work sits at the intersection of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, oncology, palliative care and queer health, and he co-leads work focused on improving cancer care for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Alongside Christian’s contribution, we will host a special Irish screening of his multiple award-winning short documentary On Queer Aging and Endings. The film centres Norwegian trans physician and queer-rights advocate Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad and their partner Elsa as they navigate serious illness, ageing, mortality, identity, love and legacy. The film has also screened at BFI Flare and has received awards at international film festivals. Queering Cancer

And these are only some of the voices joining us. More speakers, facilitators and contributors will be announced as the programme develops.

One conference, different ways in

GSRD Éire will take place across multiple spaces at NCI.

Alongside the main programme, attendees will be able to choose from parallel talks, workshops and conversations across areas including:

psychotherapy and mental health

gender and sexuality

relationships and intimacy

neurodivergence

sexual health and HIV

chemsex

shame and belonging

suicide and mental health

ageing and endings

intersectionality and social inclusion

community and lived experience

research, healthcare and education

The intention is not to create one level of LGBTQ+ training for everyone. The programme will include accessible entry points alongside more focused and specialist conversations.

Who is it for?

The conference is for therapists, counsellors, psychologists, doctors, nurses, social workers, social care professionals, educators, youth and community workers, students and trainees, as well as others working alongside LGBTQ+ communities.

You do not need to specialise in LGBTQ+ work to attend.

We particularly want the day to create opportunities for people working in different professions and settings to learn from one another — and for professional knowledge to sit alongside community and lived experience.

In-person and online

In-person attendees will have access to the full conference programme, including the main programme and available breakout sessions and workshops.

Refreshments will be available throughout the day.

Lunch is not included in the ticket price.

This is a deliberate choice. Providing a fully catered conference lunch in Dublin city centre would substantially increase the cost of every ticket. We would rather keep the cost of attending as accessible as we reasonably can, particularly for students, trainees and early-career professionals.

There are a wide range of cafés, restaurants and food options around Mayor Square, where attendees can generally buy lunch for significantly less than the cost of conference catering, while also having greater choice around dietary requirements, preferences and taste. Refreshments will still be provided throughout the day.

NCI is in the heart of the IFSC and Docklands, with a wide range of cafés, restaurants and food options nearby. There will be a dedicated lunch break, and attendees are equally welcome to bring their own lunch and eat in the campus lunch space.

Online attendees will have access to the streamed main programme and talks in the main room. As the conference will be running across several spaces, not every breakout session or interactive element will be available online.

Tickets

We will offer a limited allocation of Early Bird, Student Early Bird, Student, General Admission and Online tickets.

Early Bird allocations are genuinely limited and will close once the available tickets have been booked.

Please choose the ticket option that applies to you below.

AFTER-PARTY AT STREET 66

The learning might finish for the day, but the conference doesn’t.

Join us from 7–9pm at Street 66, one of Dublin’s best-known queer spaces, for the official GSRD Éire After-Party — with drinks, pizza, music, dancing and plenty of time to connect with the people you’ve spent the day learning alongside.

Your after-party ticket includes drinks tokens and pizza, and while our official gathering runs from 7–9pm, you’re very welcome to stay on afterwards and make a night of it.

We think conferences should make room for more than study. Some of the most important conversations, relationships and collaborations happen when the notebooks close. Learning together matters, but so does eating together, laughing together, dancing together and having some fun.

For a conference centred on queer lives, belonging and community, it feels especially important that we create space for joy as well as serious conversation.

So come for the conference — and stay for the party.

Saturday 24 April 2027
7:00–9:00pm official GSRD Éire gathering
Street 66, Dublin
Drinks tokens + pizza included
Music • Dancing • Community • Queer joy

You are welcome to remain in Street 66 after 9pm.

Accessibility: Street 66 is semi-accessible. If accessibility is important to you, please contact us before booking and we will provide as much information as possible about the venue and discuss what support may be available.

Building GSRD Éire

This is the first GSRD Éire conference.

We are building it collaboratively with LGBTQ+ practitioners, professionals, students and community voices, with the hope of creating something that can continue to grow in the years ahead.

More speakers, the full programme, accessibility information and conference updates will be added to the GSRD Éire website as they are confirmed.

Saturday 24 April 2027
National College of Ireland, Dublin

Beyond Labels: Power, Belonging and the Lives We Live.

Refund policy: Tickets are refundable up to 40 days before the event, less any booking or processing fees. After this date, tickets are non-refundable, but may be transferred to another attendee with prior notice. If the event is cancelled, ticket holders will receive a full refund of the ticket price.

For more information go to www.gsrdeire.com