SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife is aiming to better support the needs of LGBTQ adults through a weekly program for clients 19 years and older.

Rainbow Coalition of Yellowknife vice-president Chelsea Thacker is pictured at the organization's Rainbow Youth Centre on Monday. The organization announced last week it will offer weekly programming specific to adults. - Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photo

The organization announced last week it will open the Rainbow Youth Centre on 52 Street exclusively to people over 19 on Thursday nights for a queer and trans adult meet-up, following its regularly scheduled queer and trans youth group earlier in the evening.

"Although it's the Rainbow Coalition's mandate to serve youth, we actually did a program survey and one of the results that came back was that we could start reaching out to the public and doing more programming for 19 plus," vice-president Chelsea Thacker said.

The Rainbow Coalition defines a youth as anyone under the age of 30. Thacker said while the organization already welcomes people over 19, dividing its weekly queer and trans program into two age groups will help address people's diverse experiences.

"We feel as if youth who are under 19 experience different challenges and changes in identifying as queer and trans than young people who are 19 and over," Thacker said. "No one else is really doing it right now, so we figured that we would take it on and see how it went."

Anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum is invited to attend the weekly youth or adult group, which meets on Thursdays to talk about sex education, queer and trans people in the media and queer and trans relationships.

Adults are also welcome at other programs, such as Parenting in Full Colour and Queering Addictions, Thacker said.

If all goes well with the adult trans and queer group, the Rainbow Coalition could open up adult-specific groups for other programs like Partnered Queer, which meets every third Tuesday to talk about relationships between people who are queer, trans and straight.

"That will most likely be the next step in what we take on as dividing between young people and those who are 19 plus," Thacker said. "The relationships between young people when they're queer and trans and . when they're 19 plus is also vastly different."

The organization plans to take the change one step at a time, Thacker said, but hopes it will create a more positive environment for queer and trans youth.

"Having older queer and trans people in their community who feel safe and healthy creates that future safe and healthy environment for (youth)," Thacker said. "It's a residual effect."