Gender Ideology in Ireland and Women’s Rights

Gender Recognition in Ireland

In 2015 the Irish government enacted the Gender Recognition Act.

This act enables any adult individual, through a simple administrative process, to self-declare their gender identity; that is to self-declare themselves legally as members of the opposite sex. While people aged 16-17 can also apply to be legally recognised as the opposite sex they must obtain a court order and the consent of a parent or guardian. 

Under this legislation, an individual is not required to have undergone any form of medical transition nor are they required to have any intention of ever doing so nor do they need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Here is a statement from the Joan burton, former Minister of Social Protection:

“The process will not require details of care including medical history or confirmation of a diagnosis. Nor will it require that the person has lived in the acquired gender for a specific period of time after their transition.”

This means that a biological male, even without any medical treatment, can be legally recognised as female should he state that he identifies as a woman. In turn this allows men to enter female-only spaces in which women and girls are vulnerable, compete against women in sport, have their crimes recorded as though they were committed by women and allows them to be the female intimate care provider to women who exercise their right to request one.

Still not enough?

While radical feminists have expressed discontent towards this act as we recognise it has negatively impacted the rights of women and children, Irish trans activists have expressed their discontent for very different reasons. Organisations such as TENI and BeLonG To have deemed this act insufficient, onerous and exclusionary of trans-identifying minors and non-binary people.  They have proposed for several reforms to be applied to the GRA along with other reforms to be applied to Irish law in general.

Proposed law reform by TENI, BeLonG To and the National LGBT Federation

TENI have listed several of their grievances with the GRA 2015 in their STAD Report as well as with the 2018 review of the act. The National LGBT Federation has proposed several the implementation of several laws, a couple of which we agree with such as the banning of gay conversion therapy but also a few that are fundamentally harmful to women and children.

• Simplifying the process of gender self-determination for 16/17 year olds by removing the requirement for parental consent and certification from a medical practitioner.
• Self-declaration of gender for children under the age of 16 with parental consent
• Enact transgender hate crime laws. It’s important to note that TENI records microaggressions as hate crimes. ( STAD Report 2014-2016, p.7)
• Introduce guidelines for education institutions which emphasise trans affirmation particularly in areas such as bathroom use, deeming third options such as staff bathrooms discriminatory
• The introduction of GIDS (Gender Identity Disorder Services) clinics such as Tavistock to Ireland 
• Ensure that, in appropriate circumstances, trans access to medical services cannot be obstructed by reluctant parents
• Allow full legal recognition of families who conceived through Assisted Human Reproduction in Ireland or abroad. This includes surrogacy.

What does this mean for women’s rights and child welfare?

Female-only spaces

We recognise that the Gender Recognition Act of 2015 is in direct conflict with rights of women and girls. Women’s rights are based on our sex. Not on gender expression. The reason we have female-only spaces is because men, not all men but men, pose a threat to the safety of women. This act allows biological males –including those who have not undergone medical transition, received a formal diagnosis or begun hormone therapy– to gain access to female-only spaces such as bathrooms, changing rooms, transition houses,support groups and prisons. 

In Ireland we currently have a pre-operative, pre-hormone therapy trans woman sex offender being housed in a women’s prison in Limerick. According to Law Society of Ireland,

“It is understood that the prisoner was assigned a high level of monitoring after being convicted of ten counts of sexual assault and one count of cruelty against a child. The prisoner is accompanied by two officers at all times while in the common areas of the detention facility.”

Trans activists repeatedly tell us nothing bad will happen by allowing biological males to legally identify as women but in reality there have already been several instances of trans women entering female-only spaces and subsequently assaulting women. In Canada, we have a case of the state choosing to defund Vancouver Rape Relief, the oldest rape crisis centre in the country as trans activists who vandalised their store front with graffiti and roadkill, considered them transphobic for refusing to accept males in their facility. 

While Ireland, to our knowledge, is yet to experience issues for women’s shelters in regards to Self-ID, a 2019 report by The Irish Times on the lack of homeless services for transgender people contained a the following quote from a TENI spokesperson

“Homelessness services need to be accessible for everyone, which for trans people can mean inclusion in either gender-segregated or gender-neutral services, depending on their own circumstances,” 

While we fully support the introduction of trans-specific shelters, we are unsure if by “inclusion sex-segregated services” refers to the allowance of trans men and trans women in services catering to their own sex or whether it means they should be permitted to avail of services reserved for the gender they identify with. Should it be the latter, we find this concerning as we need to put a plan in place for especially marginalised, abused and disenfranchised women’s right to still be protected in female-only spaces. There have been cases of sex attacks on homeless women that often go unnoticed, according to head of charity Cork Penny Diners, Caitriona Twomey.

Women’s Sport 

In 2014, the Minister of Social Protection published a revision of the Gender Recognition Bill which included the removal of Head 26 or ‘the sports clause’ which stated the following:

“Head 26 enables a body responsible for regulating participation in competitive gender-affected sporting events to prohibit or restrict the participation in such events of a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Act and who is seeking to compete in the acquired gender. The prohibition or restriction can be affected if it is deemed necessary to secure fair competition or the safety of other competitors.”

The removal of this clause enables biological males to compete against and with women in sport. This creates an unfair playing field for women in their own sports as men have a biological advantage over women in that they have a higher lung capacity, higher red blood count, more muscle mass and a different skeletal structure, including a narrower pelvis which is particularly advantageous in sports such as cycling. This is also the sport in which we have seen transgender athlete Rachel McKinnon obliterate his female opponents in racing. That maybe isn’t quite as bad as the likes of Fallon Fox who competed against women in MMA and has crushed open a woman’s skull. Allowing men in women’s sport is not only unjust but it is also dangerous. 

Women deserve the right to compete in sport on fair grounds.

Language policing 

National LGBT Federation have published their 2020 Manifesto with their first line of action being to “Enact a specific hate crime law that is robust and LGBT inclusive”. As previously mentioned, it’s important to note that TENI considers microaggressions and harmful digital communications to be hate.

Microaggressions include “behaving or acting strangely”, “making strange facial expressions”, misgendering and questioning one’s biological sex. They explain that most microaggressions manifest as transphobic expressions and rejections of non-binary conceptions of gender.  (STAD Report 2014-2016 p.9) None of this is hateful nor does any of it incite violence or hatred against trans individuals.

There are many problems here. What TENI deems to be “transphobic expression” includes acknowledging that women are biologically female and that males cannot be women regardless of gender expression.

If the acknowledgment of women as a sex-class is to be deemed as an act of hatred then women’s right to organise politically against female oppression will be inhibited as well as our ability to define this oppression and analyse how and why it manifests. 

Microaggressions as defined by TENI are not incitements of violence or even displays of hatred but instead encompass correctly-sexing individuals (intentionally or unintentionally) and recognising reality. Making microaggressions that is difficult to prove a hate crime, is in violation of the people’s right to free speech. 

As one respondent said:
“The point is that a lot of the time it isn’t direct insults, abuse or attacks, it’s people … behaving, acting strangely, with very strange facial expressions, frequently they say inappropriate things in public places, such as asking me what I have below … all these things make one feel different and cumulatively make one feel less and less comfort and eventual social retreat and
introversion.” (2015)

We reject this as we know women are a sex-class who are oppressed on this basis and not a group of people who are defined by a set of oppressive sexist stereotypes otherwise known as ‘gender’.

Removing safeguarding for 16-17 year olds

They are also currently lobbying for 16 and 17 year olds to be able to self-declare without parental consent or referral from a medical practitioner and seem to be doing a good job of it. 

The Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty said

“One of the main findings of the Review Group was that the current legislation is too onerous for children aged 16 and 17 years, as it involves a court process and certification by two medical practitioners. The measures I am proposing today aim to reform this process to reflect the fact that the legal recognition of a person’s gender is separate and distinct from any question of medical intervention, and should be facilitated with parental consent and a simple revocation process.”

Self Declaration of gender for under 16’s

Another of TENI’s proposals, one that they have lobbied incessantly for, is the introduction of legal gender recognition for under 16’s. 

They propose that this would be done with the consent of parent which might offer a small sense of security to some of us but this sense is quickly fleeting upon reading the National Trans Youth Forum Report 2015 which has among its recommendations “Ensure that, in appropriate circumstances, trans access to medical services cannot be obstructed by reluctant parents” What does this mean? What are the appropriate circumstances? What constitutes a reluctant parent? Somebody who doesn’t want their 10 year old son to take puberty blockers or their teen-aged daughter to undergo a mastectomy? 

We see this as extremely worrying as not only does it tell children that failing to adhere to sexist gender stereotypes nullifies their biological sex but it also exhibits a lack of consideration for the abundance of research that has found a large majority of children who identify as trans end up desisting later in life. 

This paired with the introduction of GIDS clinics, like those in the UK, could cause significant harm to many children in Ireland. There have been several scandals regarding GIDs clinics in the UK including reports of rampant homophobia,medical mismanagement, false claims mental health benefits of transition, rushing children into transition without sufficient therapy, data breaches etc.

There have also been high numbers of people, primarily women and girls who now make up the majority of transgender people, seeking to detransition. Many of these people are left with irreversible changes to their bodies. One of whom, Keira Bell, taking legal action against an NHS gender clinic as she feels that she did not receive sufficient therapy before being medicalised.

“I should have been challenged on the proposals or the claims that I was making for myself,” she said. “And I think that would have made a big difference as well. If I was just challenged on the things I was saying.”

We take issue with Gender Identity Ideology and the Gender Recognition Act lacking safeguards to protect biological women from male violence as well as our sex-based rights. We question several of the points proposed by TENI not out of hate or phobia towards individuals who suffer with gender dysphoria but because some of these proposals are in direct conflict with women’s rights and we find that it lacks consideration for child-welfare.

Sinead

Student, 25, Radical Feminist. If you enjoyed her work, donate to this writer.