Irish Girl Guides worrying trans policy

[CumannNamBan]

Irish Girl Guides have membership based on identifying as female. They allow mixed-sex sleeping arrangements. To me they put a lot of emphasis on secrecy in this document below.

We have self-id laws here.

I don't have children, so no children in the guides. I came across this when reading the submissions to the Gender Recognition Act Review Group.

These are some extracts from their submission to the Gender Recognition Act Review Group, from 2018. All submissions can be downloaded from here. Theirs is number 87.
www.welfare.ie/en/Pages/Review-of-the-Gender-Recognition-Act-2015.aspx

Extracts

As an organisation we believe in being fair, open and inclusive, while still being committed to the concept of a girl-only organisation.

Irish Girl Guides' Membership Policy states that "membership is voluntary and open to all who live their lives as female and accept the Guide Law and Promise"

This means that membership is based on gender identity and IGG remains a space of all who live as girls and women, regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth

10 Guidelines on How to Support all members

1. Living their life as female

This phrase was deemed most appropriate for IGG after consultation with TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) and members with experience of transgender issues

2 Confidentiality and disclosure

Under the Equal Status Acts a person does not have to disclose if they are transgender. The only way to know if a member is transgender is if they or their parent informs you. If they do, you should respect their confidentiality. As with all our members we would encourage parents to inform the Leaders of any matters which could result in a girl needing extra support or help. The trans status of a person is sensitive personal information and is protected by data protection legislation legislation. Unless explicitly directed by the member/parent, the information must be treated as confidential.

1. Overnight

As members of a Unit, all girls will participate in the same activities. For trans members, this includes sleeping in the same area as the other members if the transgirl/woman herself is comfortable. For overnight events, the Leader should discuss with the member who is trans with their preference is. If they are under 18 and have a group of friends they may feel most comfortable sharing with them. At no point should they be seperated in a stigmatised way.

1. Garda Vetting and IGG Screening Process

An adult who applies to a be Leader does not need to declare if they are transgender. If they have gone through the process of obtaining a change of gender on their record and getting a Gender Recognition Certificate, the Garda Vetting Unit will already have a record of this. Either way, their application to be a Leader with IGG is carried out in the same way as any other and confidentiality prevails.

10 Transition from female to male

If a member of IGG is transitioning to male, they will be leaving the organisation...At an appropriate time, you may wish to discuss with them and their parents finding another organisation that better suits their needs.

Curious. It is seperate from UK Guiding?
The guidelines (I think) are broadly the same but the caveat about asking f to m has been withdrawn after a fuss was made. After all a child f to m is still a female regardless of what you call yourself.

For trans members, this includes sleeping in the same area as the other members if the transgirl/woman herself is comfortable.
As usual, feck whether girls are comfortable with a male person sharing with them.

Ah yes, good old Ireland. Women's rights haven't even made it it out of the starting blocks properly and are already being compromised/eroded/belittled.
I despair.
We have had the priests, state institutions, mother & baby homes, teachers & swim coaches abusing their positions, cervical cancer stuff up - still have massive gender based pay divide, old boys clubs in full force, women doing the majority of housework/childcare etc, 'boys will be boys' mentality.
Why on earth are girls rights so easily ignored.

Has anyone else contacted Regina Doherty? I wrote to her (by post) months ago, got a standard reply saying I'd get a response soon, and then nothing since. I'm going to follow up and ask where the response is. Does anyone know if Ministers have to reply within a certain time? It wasn't an FOI request so I suppose not?

"If a member of IGG is transitioning to male, they will be leaving the organisation..."

Gosh, how inclusive they are.

And they straight up say that male leaders will be sharing overnight accommodation with young girls, if the male leaders feel most comfortable with that. And of course, no parents will be informed. And the young girls are groomed to be "inclusive".

But don't worry, Ireland has never had a problem with men in dresses sexually offending against children. And these men have certainly never taken advantage of those organisations (who make secrecy sacrosanct) to hide their offending.

For trans members, this includes sleeping in the same area as the other members if the transgirl/woman herself is comfortable.

Dear parents: not to worry. If an unplanned teen pregnancy occurs, at least we voted to legalise abortion.

For trans members, this includes sleeping in the same area as the other members if the transgirl/woman herself is comfortable

Note how the word "woman" is deliberately introduced there. It tees up male leaders to be able to share "the same area as other members".

Meanwhile, let's look at the Scouting Ireland side of the tent:

www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/scouting-ireland-raises-membership-fees-to-fund-legal-costs-and-abuse-supports-1.3926105

Scouting Ireland raises membership fees to fund legal costs in abuse cases

Scouting Ireland is facing a major historic child sex abuse scandal, with a review identifying 321 alleged victims, and 247 alleged perpetrators.

So just because hundreds of men abused children, we just simply don't know if some men will abuse children if we remove basic safeguarding procedures.

Hi Beamur, I think it is seperate but I wonder if they attend international conferences together? I also thought it sounded like the UK guidelines.

Popychk

Bloody hell. It's never-ending, isn't it.

All a man has to do is don a dress and say the magic words and then they are saintly and without blemish.

Yes, the parallels are uncanny.

Not for the first time, I'm struck by wilful blindness that must operate to enable an organisation to draw up a policy like this. Can they really not imagine a scenario in which allowing biological males to share sleeping quarters with biological females leads to undesirable consequences?

I've resurrected an old user name for this post. I'm a brownie leader in Dublin. I tried to go to the LGBT awareness training that was held last year but other life stuff got in the way. I was sent the slides afterwards though. The training was delivered by a TENI representative and the slides seem very similar to the mermaids jellybaby nonsense. Luckily I'm in brownies so this is unlikely to be an issue in our group but I'm concerned about the wider issues that will arise. I'm only a leader a year (and only joined to get dd a place ) so I don't know the politics or structure well enough to know how to approach questioning any of it. I've spoken to my fellow leaders and sent them the slides and mentioned a couple of my fears and they agreed but have said nothing since.

If there are any other brownie/guide leaders on here who are interested in looking at how we can start to challenge this I'd love to talk to you.

If there are any other brownie/guide leaders on here who are interested in looking at how we can start to challenge this I'd love to talk to you.

More generally, please, please, any Irish women on here - write to Regina Doherty. Ask her to explain how Self ID works in practice. Ask her what the word 'woman' now means, as far as Irish law is concerned.

Hi Mermooss, I agree re contacting politicians. I've contacted them numerous times. The only reply I got was to a question to the Minister about the make-up of the group that was reviewing the Gender Recognition Act. Silence on all my other questions.

Still, I think if they get more letters they might get nervous.

As Scouts are mixed does anyone know what their policies are regarding accommodation in camp etc?

I haven't read their policy docs as ds is only 7, but for a recent camp for beavers, Cubs and scouts in our hall, there were very clear girl and boy tents. Ds wasn't staying overnight so I just didn't have the emotional energy to invest in looking into it fully, but it's on my long list to see how self if Id comes into it.

Ouch, from the guidelines:
What if a non-binary person wants to join IGG?
To join IGG a person must be living their life as female. A non-binary person does not identify as
male or female and therefore a non-binary person cannot be a member of IGG.

How do I know if a member is transgender?
It is not the role of a Leader to judge who is and who is not transgender. It is not appropriate to
ask a member if they are or aren’t. Hair length, interest or lack thereof in sports, make-up or
jewellery does not identify who is and who is not male or female

And what does living as female mean?
*It was felt that when a person is ‘out’ with their family/school/workplace,
they have decided to live as a female and at that point Irish Girl Guides is an ideal
organisation for them... *
What the fuck does that mean?

I don't understand how anyone can read that and not see how ridiculously stupid it is!
Girls will end up pregnant and abused - that is obvious.
But as long as men's feelings don't get hurt, that's ok.

Some small piece of good sense: If they have gone through the process of obtaining a change of gender on their record and getting a Gender Recognition Certificate, the Garda Vetting Unit will already have a record of this.

Unlike in the UK, where the trans person is supposed to disclose their past names and there's no independent record of previous names available to the DBS to make sure the list of past names is complete.

So you can have a girl who likes masculine stuff, be in the IGG, but another girl who likes masculine stuff and identifies as a boy must leave?

Or a boy who wears eyeliner and has long hair can't join, but his rufty tufty mate in combats can, as long as he says some magic words?

I mean, it's the same as the GG here, but the IGG are happy to actually write down the mad implications and reach the insane conclusions and say, yeah that's it.

What a load of old cobblers.
You can't ask any questions.
You can't share any information.
You just have to accept blindly whatever a child, or more chillingly an adult decides to tell you.
How can no one see the giant holes to be exploited in this?

This fucking 'living as female' nonsense again.

You live as female by being female. There's no other way to live as female. How you dress, what your interests are have no bearing on whether you're living as a female.

And when one of these boys 'living as a female' inevitably sleeps with a girl who is 'living as a female' which one of them will get pregnant? Who's the one who's going to put herself at significant health risk (no matter her choices), who's going to have her education suffer and potentially the rest of her life drastically changed, because they decided that 'living as a female' was something that males could do, so there was no problem sharing accommodation.

It's unbelievable. And it's happening, and as usual, it's those of use with no choice but to 'live as female' that will be suffering for it.

Dec05
Ah yes, good old Ireland. Women's rights haven't even made it it out of the starting blocks properly and are already being compromised/eroded/belittled.

^^ this 😡

FFS the rush to prove ourselves more woke than everyone else in the world really pisses me off. I noticed the love of drag years ago, drag artists presenting on RTE, then the whole Panti Bliss mania - how fucking insulting to women is that name? The whole woke lot of them can fuck off AFAIC.

At exactly same time as cementing the concept of males 'living as a female'...

Hair length, interest or lack thereof in sports, make-up or jewellery does not identify who is and who is not male or female

It's absolutely insane.

Only three ways to live as a female:

Lactate
Menstruate
Gestate

(*but not necessarily in that order.)