Letter from Irish feminists to British "Terfs"

And that the many women (straight & gay) who campaigned for Equal Marriage, haven't had the same support from men (gay or straight) about changing those abortion laws, either in the Republic or NI*

They are two completely different issues.

Interesting that a group of men who feel like they're women have made greater strides in being taken seriously as the most oppressed group ever than all the women in Ireland who still can't access abortion.

And that the many women (straight & gay) who campaigned for Equal Marriage, haven't had the same support from men (gay or straight) about changing those abortion laws, either in the Republic or NI.

In Ireland a boy in a frock would be told to fuck up if he carried on like some of the Trans in the UK do. British people are more inclined to put their heads down and not involve themselves. Bullshit isn't tolerated as much.

"Us"^

I have seen Irish women wishing "is" well and urging us on in SM, so clearly there ARE Irish feminists felling that, post-legislation, all is NOT rosy in the Emerald Isle garden.

They're probably posting from their priest holes.

Ahh, I see what you mean now.

TBF, once it's a done deal, everyone has to roll over and take it and "issues" aren't permitted.

Yes, that's pretty much what I meant. Just that the demographics are so enormously different that you can't really draw any useful comparators between the two countries. You're never going to get the critical mass of TRAs

Aside from that, I'm glad Ireland haven't seen issues with gender self ID. But the two countries are different, culturally, in population size, and in the exact laws proposed. So it's not directly comparable.

Even female health care professionals should be offering a chaperone. It's a misconception that only males need to have a chaperone present. It's best practice for both sexes, regardless of the sex of the patient they are treating.

And actually, having seen the first line and the list of names on that letter I know where it's coming from.

It's students who have drunk the Kool-Aid [sigh]

As an aside, though, I think the most important thing for women's rights in Ireland in many years will be the Repeal the 8th Referendum.

I do hope it doesn't become a platform for displaying trans rights as well - it's going to be a hard task to convince older people especially to vote FOR abortion. Giving them any excuse to say "all these nutters are voting for this, I'm going to hold the line against it all and so vote NO" - which I think is a real danger.

To be fair to Jiggly, I think when she said "It's an irrelevance" she wasn't talking about the population of Ireland but about the numbers of trans people being so small that self-ID is irrelevant to most of the population, am I right?

I think that so far self-ID hasn't been an issue because we don't seem to have the numbers of aggressive autogynephile older TRAs, at least not showing themselves. Things like toilets are being more reasonably considered, with standalone toilets being made "gender neutral".

While I agree with everything MarDhea saysHowever, I think we are being very naive about the longer-term implications. For example I know a very male-looking (despite loads of make-up and high heels every day) student nurse who is going to be treated as female for the purposes of treating patients (intimate care for older people, no chaperone etc. I don't think the "privacy rights" vs "trans rights" have been tested yet, and it will be interesting to see which way the law would go.

Also sport - we in Ireland win very few Olympic medals. When an Irish woman athlete loses out to the first male Olympian the shit will hit the fan.

I disagree with almost all of the letter, but I don't know why the "we need to talk about the GRA" is going to Ireland as it's a different country and the law is entirely different.

On the last paragraph in the letter, many British women do and have given support to Irish women and their fight to access abortion (not least the fantastic Abortion Support Network who help women come from Ireland and Northern Ireland to England to have abortions - who from looking at their website are a mixed Irish/British group).

I think it might be difficult to know if there are women who have been negatively affected by the GRA in Ireland. Lack of media awareness doesn't necessarily mean nothing is going on. Presumably there could be, eg disabled woman who have been asked to accept trans women providing intimate care, but unless those women speak publicly about it how would we know? Or perhaps there isn't the aggressive trans activist movement that we have here?

I think the "we need to talk.." needs to keep its focus on the UK as we can't hope to change the laws in other countries - and certainly we need to get our own house in order first given the craziness that is currently happening.

DodoPatrol - I will try to find it but don't have it to hand. I think it may have been from a submission a Canadian campaigner - Paul something? - made to his parliament when their self-ID laws were debated.

MarDhea

It was organised by one woman. The same woman incidentally who has just been kicked out of the Labour Party. As I said before, I didn't understand why Dublin was included in the tour but there really is no need to have the sneery tone 'There are No TERFs in Ireland, you bigoted Brit batards'.

And my parents are Irish btw so there is no imperialism coming from me I assure you

I completely agree MarDhea. I don't agree with the contents of that letter but slating Ireland when clearly you don't understand it all does nothing for your cause.

I think Ireland is enormously different to the UK. And I'm a bit mystified why the 'tour' is going to Ireland at all, given it's a different country and all. I would also be pissed off if I were an Irish feminist

I am astonished that they haven’t got bigger fish to fry! Where to even start with inequality in Ireland!?

Did you mean to come across as such an ignorant arse?

FYI Ireland does better on sex equality measures that the UK, has lower levels of domestic abuse (incl stalking, violence against women, murder of women by partners or exes) than the UK, has better female educational attainment than the UK, etc. Having lived and worked in both countries, I have found the UK to be more sexist than Ireland.

Abortion is the aberration that has taken so long to sort out because it involves a change to the constitution and therefore a referendum, but trust me, we've been working on it for years and the vote will happen in the next few months. That's where Irish feminists are concentrating their energy, not on transactivism.

FWIW, I don't agree at all with the cis-statements in the letter and I see why the GRA is so concerning to gender-critical UK feminists. But the letter is right about how Irish feminists are fed up with the imperialist arrogance of British feminists telling us how we're doing feminism all wrong, without the slightest understanding of how The culture and history of feminism in Ireland differs profoundly from that of the UK. That same imperialist attitude is evident in this thread. Enough.

Can I ask apart from abortion being illegal(which is the same in NI which is part of the UK) how is Ireland 'extremely poor' for women's rights?

Is it, LangCleg? Do you have any links for that? (The US states, I mean?)

Ireland is a completely different place to the UK in terms of cultural mores. It's true that countries with self-ID often quoted by TRAs - Malta and Ireland - are extremely poor for women's rights generally and are not good examples to hold up.

It's also true that in every state in the US where self-ID has been brought in, there has been a corresponding uptick in sex assaults and voyeurism crimes.

Why am I an arsehole for pointing out that Ireland is a tiny country with a tiny population?

While I support the opposition to the proposed changes to the GRA, I don't think it's helpful to campaign about a change to UK law in Ireland. Especially when it enables this response:

So tell us: what is it that you know of Irish feminism that you feel entitled and authorised to come here and lecture us on? Dublin has not been part of the UK since 1921, yet you originally described ‘We Need To Talk’ as a UK tour while still including Dublin on your list of venues. This gives us some idea of how little you know about Irish realities, north or south.

What's been coming repeatedly into my head for ages is "who is your audience and is your message suitable for that audience?"

I think there are also provisions in Ireland relating specifically to privacy and embarrassment, which go a long way towards protecting women from situations like the smear test example recently over here