Letter from Irish feminists to British "Terfs"

[SoupyNorman]

Link here. All sorts of issues bound up in this, but it got a lot of traction on Irish Twitter last night.

One point it does make is that the equivalent of Gender Id has been the case in Ireland for a couple of years, and yet the sky hasn't fallen in for women. Is that the case? Can any one living in Ireland confirm that? I sort of think you're not comparing like with like when it comes to the trans community in Ireland and that in the U.K., but I'd be interested to hear other thoughts.

Can Irish lesbians marry? When was that permitted?
Can Irish women access an abortion? Since when?

Now can you see the culture in Ireland is different from that of the mainland. So the case for self ID might also be different here.

Can Irish lesbians marry? When was that permitted?
Can Irish women access an abortion? Since when?

Yes presuming those Irish lesbians live in Ireland they can marry. Since 2015 when we had a referendum on the topic.

No abortion is not legal here, same as in some of the UK. Although we are having a referendum to try and fix that this year.

Now can you see the culture in Ireland is different from that of the mainland.

The mainland?

Britain is not the mainland, it is a separate country ffs. I don't agree with the imperial comments in the letter, but this mainland concept is a crock of shite.

Mainland. FFS.

As MarDhea has commented, Ireland actually does pretty damn well on women's rights in general. Yes, we are behind on reproductive rights but progress is being made (far far more than in NI which is part of the UK and which won't be getting abortion or indeed SSM any time soon) and I do believe that issue will be sorted soon.

We have a smaller pay gap than the UK, more women in leadership roles in both industry and politics, better educational attainment for women (actually, for both sexes I would suspect), men take a more equal share in caring responsibilities. I've read a theory that one reason for this is the sanctified position of the Irish Mammy, which means that caring responsibilities are highly valued whether carried out by a man or woman. Education is also highly valued across pretty much all socioeconomic groups.

Yes, there is an abysmal history for women's rights here, as there is in many countries around the world. I think as a society we've actually done a pretty good job of facing up to that. If we're going to play Irish feminists vs British feminists, it's also worth considering the reasons for that history, and the power void the Church filled at vulnerable moments in our history.

YY LivLemler.

There's another interesting historical difference between the place of women in Ireland and Britain that still has a cultural legacy.

In Gaelic Ireland ~1500 years ago, women had high status in society, acted as judges and lawyers, kept their own names of marriage, owned and administered their own property, could divorce at will, etc. These rights were whittled away after the Norman invasion and romanisation of the church, but many of them were still current across Ireland (bar the Pale) into the 17th century (Gráinne Ní Mháille is a great example), and were culturally observed in parts of the country into the 20th century (e.g., Peig!), by which time Westminster laws were granting women more legal rights. Post-famine, the church swooped in to hammer home its vision of subservient women, and while it gave more cultural power to men it didn't didn't completely shake the old order. There was never a cultural norm of women being the effective property of their husbands.

By contrast, Anglo-Saxon England ~1500 years ago treated women as little more than chattel, meant to obey her husband in all things. Women could at least own and administer their own property, but they lost that right when the Normans arrived. From the 11th to the 19th/20th centuries, women had few rights unless widowed, and the cultural norm was for women to be subservient to their husbands.

So culturally, Irish society hasn't had the same depth and duration of female oppression as English/British society. Irish women instead have a century and a half of post-famine church dominance to fight against, whereas English/British women have centuries of cultural norms to fight against. It makes a different landscape for feminists, with different causes for sexist behaviour and different latent attitudes to combat.

But I digress. Back to the point of the thread!

There's an 'interesting' theory that gender critical feminists are going to Ireland to disrupt Irish feminism just before a big debate on abortion rights. Because gender critical feminists are funded by the right-wing anti-abortionists. As you might expect.

mobile.twitter.com/CaseyExplosion/status/955800969115328514

Ok in full it says:

With regards to #TERFsOut, I want to ask everyone 2 questions:

1. Who is funding them?

1. Why now? Why did these caustic ideologues decide to spread their hate now, when Ireland's gearing up to repeal the 8th amendment?

I ask this because: (link to transadvocate.com/fake-radical-feminist-group-actually-paid-political-front-for-anti-lgbt-james-dobson-organization_n_20207.htm)

They're getting pretty cagey when asked who is funding their tour, and I think we all need to be seriously asking why that is? I doubt they're doing this on their own dime, they've never taken interest in anything Ireland has done before, not even our gender identity legislation.

I mean, our Gender Recognition Act was passed back in 2015, if TERFs had any interest in Ireland at all, why weren't they holding these talks before that, when it was pertinent to their stated agenda?

Why wait until Ireland's having a huge push for reproductive healthcare?

Now, I want to put this in the context of something else of note, an un-named anti-abortion group in Ireland has hired a Brexit-linked group to handle digital operations.

Some entity is paying a lot of money to try and get Ireland to keep it's archaic laws, to deny access to reproductive healthcare. So ask yourselves, why are these UK TERFs, who've never show a lick of interest in Irish affairs before, suddenly rearing their heads now?

I just can't get my head around it, why now? Why, when Ireland is about to have a referendum on the 8th, did they decide to try and come here and stoke hatred against trans people? Unless...

Are they deliberately trying to disrupt and derail Irish feminist activism?

Religious right hate groups have been using trans people as wedge issues for years now, they peddle the same transphobic "bathroom predator" memes as TERFs, they insist trans women are sexual predators, mentally ill etc. They're all singing off the same hymn sheet is what I mean.

So I think everyone working to #repealthe8th and everyone involved in the abortion rights campaign here in Ireland, need to keep asking:

1. Who's paying for this?

1. Why now, when we're about to have a referendum on the 8th?

1. Is division/derailment the goal?

#TERFsOut

This is seriously important to ask, because anti-abortion campaigns aren't going to come at you directly, they'll want to distract you. So I wonder if this UK data firm will be pushing transphobic scaremongering through social media in the lead up to the referendum?

It's a cringeworthy letter, the usual no-platform approach that this younger generation of TRA feminists seem to prefer. If they were true socialists and feminists they would welcome free speech and open debate.

I do understand the irritation sparked by a UK politician extending their political campaign tour relating to the proposed GRA legislation to the ROI though. That makes no sense as it's a completely different legislative environment. Belfast would make more sense if they are going to come to the island of Ireland.

I also sense some Sinn Fein influence from the talk of imperialism and the refusal (footnoted, indeed!) to call the Republic of Ireland by its name and referencing 'the south of Ireland' instead to avoid offending hardliners who refuse to recognize the validity of a 26 county Irish state. Tiresome...

Interesting that Ireland's self-ID legislation passed in 2015 though... I did not know that. And I am Irish (although I don't live there anymore).

It isn't just Sinn Fein that talk like that.

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

Odd. The letter appears to me to be Irish feminists telling British feminists they are doing feminism all wrong

Either way, its not like for like. Self-ID is very different here than it is in Ireland, infact given there are exemptions for sex I do not see the point in having self-ID in Ireland to start with. Seems very pointless when all of the reasons people want it are exempt

I would probably be happy with self-ID if single sex exemptions were made for areas that are currently sex segregated.

Something else that needs to be said is that Ireland does not appear to have shouty female penis type TRAs, like there are in the UK.

I'm starting to sigh when I hear Venice mentioned now. Above all else she does seem to have a talent for alienating people, even those who were her allies initially.

Can anyone point me in the direction of what the exemptions for sex are in the Irish law? I'd be interested to read them.

I've just googled it www.oireachtas.ie/documents/bills28/acts/2015/a2515.pdf and am making my way through.

Comedic confusion of gender and sex here:

18. (1) Where a gender recognition certificate is issued to a person the person’s gender shall from the date of that issue become for all purposes the preferred gender so that if the preferred gender is the male gender the person’s sex becomes that of a man, and if it is the female gender the person’s sex becomes that of a woman.

Hmm can't see any mention of exceptions in that Act. Anyone have a link to where I might find them?

There's an 'interesting' theory that gender critical feminists are going to Ireland to disrupt Irish feminism just before a big debate on abortion rights. Because gender critical feminists are funded by the right-wing anti-abortionists. As you might expect.

Wow, they really do talk out of their arses and will come up with any ridiculous theory as to why gender critical feminists are literally the devil eh. Yes, I am sure high on gender critical feminists list of priorities is making sure Irish women cannot access abortions Sounds very feminist-y

I've got a link to a document, hang on while I hoke it out.

Here www.ihrec.ie/download/pdf/ihrec_equal_status_rights_explained.pdf

It's discussed on this thread, which had a link to another thread discussing it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3141014-The-GRA-in-Ireland

Feminism has been actively discouraged in NI by some quarters.

It is interesting that the people who wrote that letter dont know about women in the UK funding abortion pills and helping with railroads.

Something else that needs to be said is that Ireland does not appear to have shouty female penis type TRAs, like there are in the UK.

No we don't have many of these and most of the Irish population would be shocked to find out that they even exist.

There is a "live and let live" philosophy here which would be swiftly reconsidered if any of this aggressive "lady-dick" type of crap made it into the mainstream media. I agree with everything Maryz said upthread too.

Thanks Flavia. I note that IHREC link only runs up to 2012, mind you. I wonder how all this plays out in the wake of the Gender Recognition Act.