RSS Edinburgh and RSS Celebrating Diversity SIG host Kevin Guyan

Date: Monday 07 July 2025, 6.00PM - 7.30PM
Location: The Bayes Centre Edinburgh
The Bayes Centre, 47 Potterow, Edinburgh, EH8 9BT
Local Group Meeting
Book now


Share this event

Rainbow Trap: How Inclusive Statistics Still Box Us In

Across data and statistics, some LGBTQ lives and experience are now counted. But what did these communities need to give up in order to be included? Is our current suite of inclusive counting machines capable of reflecting the full diversity of people’s experiences – or continuing to erase those who sit outside a predefined list of gender, sexes and sexualities? 

Join author Kevin Guyan to explore ideas from his new book Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Categories and the Dangers of Inclusion. 

Through a tour of six different systems – stretching from hate crime reporting to dating apps – the book highlights how the promise of inclusion requires LGBTQ people to locate themselves in an ever-growing list of classifications, categories and labels. This requirement to be classified catches us all in a rainbow trap – determining what LGBTQ lives are valued and what queer futures are possible.

​Nt. It is anticipated this will be a busy event, so ensure you sign-up sooner rather than later.

 
Kevin Guyan
 

Kevin Guyan is a writer and researcher whose work explores the intersection of data and identity. He is the author of Rainbow Trap: Queer Lives, Classifications and the Dangers of Inclusion (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025) and Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022). Kevin is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Gender + Sexuality Data Lab.
 
Contact Chris Oldnall (Edinburgh Local Group Secretary) or Edinburgh Local Group
 
 
Book now