Self ID in Ireland was 'sunk in by the back door'

[ArabellaScott]

Hello, Craicnet!

Thought this might be of interest:

Two Irish civil servants discussing trans issues, hosted by cross-governmental Proud to Work for Ireland network of LGBT+ staff networks.

From around 49 minutes:

'We were a world leader with, um, with our gender recognition bill in 2015, and uh, it it was just amazing to have self ID, and you see the the hassle that's been
caused and the uproar in in the UK when Scotland and now Wales both want to
introduce self ID, and the and the, um, Westminster government won't won't allow it.

They're taking it to to the supreme court there - it was almost a nonissue here, it was a non-issue here, although I suppose, I suppose one of the things was there was such a such publicity around the whole,marriage equality campaign that in a way we snuck that in by the back door [laughs]'.

Yep. That's exactly what they did. And in fact the famous Denton's report cites it as a great example of how to introduce the legislation in other countries. Unfortunately not nearly enough people know about it to be angry and we need the electorate to be very angry to have any hope of getting it reversed.

It's unbelievable how blatant they now feel free to be.

Yes. I had made a post quoting one of the speakers about the 'journey', but it unfortunately attracted a troll, so I'll just leave it for others to discover for themselves.

Of course, there's zero appetite to report on this so they can make any admission they like, it's going nowhere.

I was shocked also as never even knew about this until last year as I am guessing most people are. Same with the likes of Barbie Kardashian in a female prison. Shocking the way this country is run now and they take us all for fools and sneaking this in was just awful and no wonder people voted no for their 23 million referendum as god knows what would have been in there. No wonder Leo doing a runner.

All news about Barbie Kardashian was actively suppressed, so it's unsurprising most hadn't heard about it.

How was it snuck in? I don't understand.

Connie by our so called leaders who are a sneaky bunch of liars. I did not know I was voting for this as never mentioned at all anywhere. Shocking in this day and age.

Well it's presumably a law brought in by legislation so none of us get a vote on that. That's what TDs are for. I don't see how if something was passed by the Dáil and Seanad, and presumably publicly debated, it can be snuck in? Was it guillotined or something? I don't see how it was sneakily done.

Impact of Gender Recognition Act – The Irish Times interesting piece here

Yes I figured it was probably as described in the first letter. The issue wasn't very controversial at the time. It wasn't sneaky.

Connie it was sneaky if you read the second part of that article as nobody knew about it, done on the same day as marriage referendum.

I think it says that both pieces of legislation were passed on the same day. Not that it happened on the day of the referendum vote.

The marriage equality vote happened in May and the Gender Recognition bill passed in July 2015.

Sinn Féin’s then spokesperson for Social Protection, Aengus Ó Snodaigh, launched the first Gender Recognition Bill in May 2013.

There was committee- level discussion and 'public consultation' (mostly trans groups, I bet) but I don't know how much Dáil debate there was leading up to the passing of the GRA - it would be an interesting research project for someone to see who said what back in the Dáil back then.

Sinn Féin was very TWAW in the past, their 2014 policy document on LGBTQ issues even includes the Yogyakarta principles; but I can't see that or any other policy document on trans/LGBTQ issues on their website now. Has SF let that policy area lapse since 2014, or has there been recent pruning post referendum?

People Before Profit still has it's full LGBTQ policies up on their website, including supporting hate speech legislation, and making GRCs available to 16 year olds. But the election leaflet they put through my door doesn't mention LGBTQ issues at all. Post-ref pruning?

These were two full-tilt TWAW parties until recently.

It was sneaky because it was the medical model that was proposed through all the years of debates and consultations, until the 11th hour when under pressure and influence from trans groups it passed as self ID. That's the issue

Interesting. I wasn't aware of this. Is there an article or similar with information on this?

Well given Mary Lou's brother transitioned (quite how I'm not sure) and is now her sister I would imagine Sinn Fein are very much still TWAW.

I do feel that the tide is very slowly turning though. I remain hopeful that those captured will be freed and we can return to reality sometime this decade 🤞🏻

This is all I could find at this late hour, will have a proper look tomorrow for more.
IHREC statement

It wasn't controversial because most people had no clue what it entailed. Myself includes , mea culpa - and I'm a bit of a politics nerd. It was passed around the same time as Equal Marriage , sort of tailgating on the goodwill towards gay people having equal rights. I think the public perception of transsexuals as we always called them , was a tiny number of effeminate gay men who wanted a female name on a bit of paper. Not straight rugby players who insist they are lesbians. And demand access to women's private spaces.

No one seems to have thought this through ; the effect on schools , sports , prisons , women's clubs and societies. The long term medical fall out from puberty blockers , hormones , irreversible life changing surgery. They seem to have envisaged an easy win with no oncosts.

Anyway Mr Head Tilt knows it was 'snuck in'.

Thanks, I had a bit of a Google yesterday to try and find info on the process, but don't know enough about Irish politics to know how to look!

Here's an informative paper by an associate professor in Law and Body Politics.
Informative, but don't expect objectivity: another of her papers is entitled
Recent reforms in law on LGBT rights in Ireland: Tightening the tourniquet in the rights of vulnerable intersex people. Still using the term 'intersex' in 2021? Hmmm...

Gender Identity, Intersex and Law in Ireland
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=i3F5aPcAAAAJ&citation_for_view=i3F5aPcAAAAJ:zYLM7Y9cAGgC

I found the Sinn Féin policy doc by googling 'sinn féin LGBTQ'. It's a pdf and I couldn't link to it - I'm sure it's possible but it's just as easy to Google it!

The PBP policy is easily accessed on their website, which deserves full marks for being really clearly laid out and comprehensive. It should be a template for other parties' websites, then we could do a side-by-side comparison of similar products, like on Amazon ☺

I hope this will their undoing.

This is a really interesting talk from Laoise de Brún, CEO of The Countess on the subject of origins of Self ID law in Ireland. She's brilliant.

World leader for shtting on women - Western European chapter. 3 blokes on stage saying how men doing whatever the fck they want in Ireland is not an issue. Plus ca change… .

The flipping victims of the Mother and Baby homes and the Magdalen Laundries haven’t even been properly addressed. Babies who died because of the shameful treatment of women still in the ground years on. It’s all a performance. All the while the Bro’s (not the Christian Bro’s this time, the new Gender Sh*te Bro’s) are partying over the so called progressive methods they now have to keep abusing women and children.

Excuse my French, I couldn’t be more disgusted at those pushing this cr*p. Just when you thought we’d thrown the last yoke off women and children. They put themselves as the ‘moral’ ones last time too. It always seems to be the morality du jour to hurt women and children in some way.

I'm quoting myself here, in previous post I said:
I don't know how much Dáil debate there was leading up to the passing of the GRA - it would be an interesting research project for someone to see who said what back in the Dáil back then.

Last night I decided that 'someone' would be me, and I subjected myself to reading the Dáil interventions ['debate' would be a misnomer] on 5 March 2015
Gender Recognition Bill 2014 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) – Dáil Éireann (31st Dáil) – Thursday, 5 Mar 2015 – Houses of the Oireachtas
As far as I can see [I did quite a lot of skimming!] very single speaker was enthusiastically pro GR. There were criticisms of the proposed law - because it didn't go far enough! TDs objected to the requirement for medical opinion, single marital status/divorce, the failure to address the needs of the intersex community, and ....
not allowing children to get GRCs .

The first to enthuse over it were, in order of speaking:
Aengus Ó Snodaigh SF,
Joan Collins Ind,
Clare Daly Ind,
Mick Wallace Ind,

Richard Boyd Barrett PBP,
Thomas Pringle Ind,
and then the main parties took over, with Brian Walsh of FG leading the way.

The speeches were pretty cookie-cutter, all of them said how wonderful it was to be alleviating the torment and oppression of this minority, which some of them admitted they had been unaware of until.. well until TENI, more or less.
Some of them sounded like they actually believed that they were doing A Good and Progressive Thing; others sounded like it was a display of look how radical I am.
Nobody gave or asked for a definition of 'gender'.
Nobody raised the issue of existing sex-based equality laws.
Nobody queried the wisdom of passing unclear legislation.

Interestingly, it was Helen McEntee who referred to some people expressing their concern about children transitioning, and perhaps regretting it later.
Her way of addressing this was to say that the GRA was not about medical transition, it was just a legal recognition of chosen gender, so children could change their mind later and no harm done [I'm paraphrasing].

There was also a Seanad debate which I haven't read yet; and there was a later bill introduced by Regina Doherty I think? So more research to be done.

It's very interesting to see what the zeitgeist was around trans issues around that time.