Gender critical in Ireland

[Muppetryofthepenis]

Just wondering if there are many others out there. Was reading a political pamphlet and it was going on about self ID and how important it is. I just don't agree and think it's so damaging to change the definition of what a woman is. And the definition of a man too, I guess. Sex based rights are under threat in Ireland. Fed up with all the nonsense. Wondering what other Irish mumsnetters think.

HilarysMantelpiece
Sometimes, I do wonder if it's just me? and am I now the "old dear who's out of touch".
But, then reality bites again....... humans cant change sex.
I will not be adding pronouns to my email handle.

I am already exceedingly kind, and have no need to publicly demonstrate it by colluding in a lie.

I agree, and I have had moments of 'am I going crazy?' or 'what's the harm, is it really that bad?' etc. but actually every time I come back to the truth, which is that it is really that bad. It's a lie, and it has a shit load of negative consequences (which we are now seeing, even though the media and government tries to ignore them) because of upholding this lie.

I can't think of any other situation (happy to be corrected) when the public as a whole is compelled to lie and participate in someone else's self image or delusion - compelled by law, by language, by policy and when that fails, by shaming and punishment.
It's completely ridiculous and ultimately unsustainable.

And I can't get past the glaringly obvious - that it is women and girls who are losing out big time because of this. I don't believe gender ideology would ever have gotten this far, had it disadvantaged men the way it does women and girls. No way.
Which is fucking depressing in itself.

Happy New Year to the Gender Critical Irish!

How are we all feeling listening to the piece on Morning Ireland this morning about the Scottish rapist who now won't be held in a women's prison where neither presenter thought it worth mentioning that we have similar cases here where the offenders who committed crimes as men are held in women's prisons? You would think that would have been an interesting avenue to explore. This is the Morning Ireland clip for anyone who hasn't heard it: www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22204236/

A friend sent me Fintan O'Toole's article from the Irish Times this morning where he reckons that the problem with Enoch Burke is that he's asserting a right that was always assumed and accepted, the primacy of religious belief. She was interested in Fintan doesn't appear to have noticed that the Enoch Burke situation is a battle between two religions. I'm trying to gee her up to write a letter to the paper making that point.

He misses the point spectacularly.

The Irish Times seem to be determined to alter the facts to fit the story, as this article yesterday by Justine McCarthy displays.
Spot the incorrect information in this article 🙄
www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/01/26/enoch-burke-has-ridden-roughshod-over-the-rights-of-students-he-was-employed-to-teach/

I just had a brief scan (I know I'm abusing someone else's subscriber log in!) but I notice that there are letter writers across all fields of interest and expertise - except this one - represented.

I did hear they were going in hard for the student market and good luck to them in that endeavour.

Such a pity Enoch couldn't behave himself (by sticking to the terms of his original suspension) and allow this case to play out in the courts. I wonder what the result would have been. Would he really have been forced to submit to transgender ideology at school in the face of his own religious beliefs? I hope not.
I do feel for the child at the centre of all this too though.

Sorry I didn't notice that the link was behind a pay wall.
I don't know if it is allowed to copy and paste the entire article.
Here are a few extracts

"Burke, who was suspended from the teaching staff last August for refusing to obey the school’s instruction to respect the student’s chosen name and pronouns, has been standing stubbornly in the corridor and in the school grounds while journalists wait and watch at the gates."

" In a perturbing sideshow, some teachers’ unions are reported to be concerned about the “speed” with which Enoch Burke was sacked after last week’s disciplinary hearing. Seriously, is it really their uppermost apprehension that a teacher was dismissed nearly five months after refusing to obey a school instruction relating to a potentially vulnerable student and after nearly three months in jail for flouting a court order?

When teachers’ representatives imply that the niceties of the process should trump the educational and emotional needs of students and ignore the obligation that it is the teacher who is supposed to be the adult in the classroom, we should all be very worried. New Ireland’s tolerance does not extend infinitely to indulging the zealotry of a few to the detriment of the many. The real reason to be concerned about this whole affair is that the school seems to have believed it could not bring it to an end sooner by telling Burke his services were no longer required ever before he was taken away to Mountjoy Prison in September for 108 days for disobeying a High Court injunction"

Very poor quality journalism from the IT.
The reference to the teachers unions is bordering on hyperbole.
I don't agree with Enoch Burke's behaviour but I would agree that this article seems to be aimed at pandering to their student audience

I'd just like Fintan to clarify why organising around a belief in gendered souls is better than organising around a belief in immortal souls. I'd like anybody to answer it, anywhere, to be honest.

@takeawaydinner I didn't read the article yesterday- I glanced through Fintan's article on my paid for subscription [take note Irish Times- I'm not on a free student subscription, I'm actually paying for your content].

This sentence stands out to me from the piece that you quoted.....
" New Ireland’s tolerance does not extend infinitely to indulging the zealotry of a few to the detriment of the many."

Can we all take time to re-read this and consider how it applies with regards to the "zealotry of the few" impacting to the detriment of many women?

Nicola Sturgeon wants it both ways: a trans woman is a woman until I say he isn’t.

And can we add this (to fully reflect O'Toole's single lens bias, and his evident failure to appreciate the irony of what he's saying): "it's also what makes his idea of rights so crude - there is no room for conflicting rights to be balanced or adjudicated". Indeed Mr O'Toole, that is precisely what Irish women are trying to point out to the wilfully blind and deaf state which has endorsed gender ideology in its cack-handed self-ID legislation and the war on the rights of women and the safe-guarding of children. (Quote from his article in the IT today).

Well said 3times .... one could tweet/ send this thread to FOT.

To be fair to the man, I generally like his column, not because I always agree with him, but in general he has thought about issues and makes me think more broadly than I might otherwise.
What is it about otherwise sane and thoughtful men, that they cannot extend their thinking to women's rights?

JOC is also in the paper today talking about medical gaslighting of women...not a strong column (especially as she seems to not have read Caroline CP Invisible Women).
The Irish Times as a reflection of Irish society is not as tolerant or progressive as it might like to think that it is... (and is read by all the IPA graduates and CS heads).

@HilarysMantelpiece
I hadn't noticed that but the expression "being so open minded her brains fell out" seems apt on this occasion 😂

takeawaydinner it seems apt for that lady on many an occasion. She writes well, which sometimes obfuscates that she hasn't really thought through the subject matter.

www.independent.ie/opinion/dismissing-enoch-burke-is-easier-than-trying-to-understand-him-so-i-read-his-books-to-find-out-more-42317612.html
A very interesting article in today's Sunday Independent.
Eilish's O'Hanlon is one of those journalists, who unlike Justine above, doesn't shirk from providing or analysing opposing views. I don't always agree with her but she is always thought provoking.
In this article, she has actually taken the time to read books that Burke has published in order to get a better chance of understanding why Burkefor which she deserves a lot of credit 😂
From reading the

Sorry, pressed post in error.
What I was trying to say was that O'Hanlon had read the books to gain a better understanding of why Burke is behaving as he is.
The closest comparison is to Ian Paisley and his Free Presbyterian Church, where not an inch was given.
In the case of Enoch, threats of fines or imprisonment are meaningless to him, as he believed in martyrdom. and to deviate, even in the slightest from his beliefs is not something he can do.
An interesting and thought provoking read.
I suppose it gives rise to the question, if someone is entitled in law to their religious beliefs, no matter how intolerant they appear, can they be forced to set aside those beliefs when the rights to those beliefs are part of Irish law?

It's the old saw though, isn't it takeaway..... your right to swing your arms around ends at the tip of my nose.

Enoch is entitled to his views and I absolutely support his right to them, and his right to articulate them....
right up to the point where he attempted to intimidate the school Principal.
More importantly, his rights end where he brought any stress, embarrassment, sense of shame on the student in question or any other student in the school.

This is where rights absolutely must, at all times, be balanced with responsibility.

Oh, I absolutely agree that Burke's suspension and dismissal were justified on the grounds of his behaviour. But in the hypothetical situation where Burke had politely refused to use the students pronouns as it was in direct conflict with his religious beliefs, how is it possible to balance those rights?
I cannot think of any other situation where a such conflict of rights would happen.

Yes, it appears the trans juggernaut fist hit his nose first.

Minister for Justice Simon Harris (a "male feminist" if ever I saw one) has been asked by independent TD Carol Nolan about male sex offenders in women's prisons in Ireland, in light of recent events in Scotland. His reply is... interesting.

gript.ie/simon-harris-irish-prisons-not-legally-defined-as-male-or-female/

Reminder that this man, Helen McEntee, the woman he's keeping a seat warm for, her predecessor Charlie Flanagan, past placeholder Heather Humphreys, and Frances FitzGerald, are responsible for a policy that currently has at least three male offenders in the women's unit of Limerick Prison.

"While all prisoners committed are accommodated in accordance with their legal gender, it should be noted that Irish prisons are not legally defined as ‘male’ or ‘female’ prisons.”"

Surely.....?
The logical corollary of that illogical, daft notion is, that if there are not legally defined 'male' and 'female' prisons, then men who identify as a female gender can be held in a prison with a primarily male population.
unless validation and access to vulnerable people is the real goal🙄

Hopefully the Scotland shitshow is helping people to wake up

That prisons are not defined as female or male is not the ‘Gotcha’ that Simon Harris seems to think it is