TD (Irish MP) asks if GRA means that men can access women's spaces

[Mermoose]

On 24th February, Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth asked the following questions in the Dáil:

To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the Gender Recognition Act 2015 means that a man who self-identifies as a woman is entitled to access any and all female-only spaces and services; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the Gender Recognition Act 2015 means that a man is entitled to have their transgender belief that they identify as a woman outweigh the right of a woman or girl to object to their presence in a female only space; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the Gender Recognition Act 2015 means that a man who self-identifies as a woman is perceived by this legislation to be safe to access female only spaces irrespective of the physiological differences between male and female bodies; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

I've emailed Deputy Smyth thanking her for asking these questions, and pointing out how the proposed hate speech legislation will further stifle vital conversation on this issue. I'm also going to contact my local FF representatives with a copy of the email I sent her. I have never voted FF in my life but recently there isn't a single left wing party I have any respect for.

Link to questions on Kildare Street - as usual I couldn't find them on Oireachtas.ie when I went looking:
www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2021-02-24a.1587&s=niamh+smyth#g1588.q

I saw her questions because she's being denounced for asking them:
twitter.com/Oireachtas_RX/status/1369786903931846657

Fantastic questions.

And good luck to you and everyone else who raises this issue.

Solidarity with our Irish MNetters

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/craicnet

You could also raise your OP in the Craicnet section. Good luck

Thank you for your post. I think it is the first time I have heard of any TD expressing concern. I don't live in her constituency but I would like to email her to thank her.

twitter.com/Oireachtas_RX/status/1369786903931846657

That response by Heather Humphrey was a complete fudge.

saltedcaramelchocolate Of course it was. None of them have a clue what to say when you ask them about this because none of them gave a second thought to it when it was brought in.

Can you imagine a girl having a bra fitting and a person with a penis in the cubicle next door?

I always find the questions around teenage girls and their bra fittings to be a bit ....ick?
I'm more concerned with the boys in my DDs Scout groups sharing tents (teens being what they are). Or boys showing up for camogie training.

Anyway, applause to Niamh Smyth.

@Seatime

Can you imagine a girl having a bra fitting and a person with a penis in the cubicle next door?

Or doing your fitting. It has been pointed out before that M&S has a TW fitter. I won’t name the branch.

🇮🇪 Irish Staniland questions 🇮🇪

Niamh Smyth, good question. I’m in England but wish more over here would ask similar questions in parliament.

Would Smyths questions be punishable under the new Scottish Hate Crime bill?

Thanks Mermoose. I'll email too.

Solidarity with our Irish MNetters

🇮🇪 💐 ❤️ 100%

💐to the women on here emailing support to TD Smyth

Hi All,

Have any of you read The Irish Times piece this morning? I am willing to go public to respond but would like some support to word a letter. I really am fed up of this now. I will try to send you a link.

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/irish-feminists-must-avoid-british-trap-of-transphobia-1.4507862

I hope that works

Oh and I will email Niamh to thank her - none of the other TD's I emailed about this issue responded - so let us see who comes out in support of us eh?

Oh that misleading Irish Times article

"Not only was Ireland the first country to legalise gay marriage by popular vote, it was also home to some of the most progressive gender recognition laws in the world"

which forgets to mention that the gender recognition laws were snuck in with gay marriage without the general public knowing

Annasgirl for all the disingenuousness of the article itself, I was delighted to see it because the comments are some of the only accurate reporting on the 2015 GRA ever to be available in the Irish Times.

I just emailed my support, I'm no FF lover but if I was in cavan I would vote for her.

ooh the comments are very good, I've copied it in case Irish Times remove them

Had just come on here to highlight that IT article, thanks for sharing. This Emer O'Toole regularly pops up in the supposed quality media (Guardian, IT etc), inexplicably to my mind because shes not a great writer, is purely an opinion giver rather than a journalist and is Asociate Professor of Irish Performance Studies at Concordia University in Montreal (no, I dont know what that is either). While this article takes a pop at the British, her speciality in the Guardian is writing articles about how backward Ireland is. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/10/ireland-secularise-schools-catholic-dublin-divestment. She's awful but I take great heart from the comments underneath

Wow, I'm surprised at the comments.

More power to your elbows

It's a disgrace the way they are whipping up anti British sentiment, when things are getting so touchy again with the border after Brexit, and more and more talk about reunification.

All these Repeallers (and I'm of that generation) are clapping themselves on the back, but are too young to remember the British feminists waiting at the other end of the boat to being frightened women to clinics.

I just cant get over the ahistoricism ( a word?) Of the current woke- feminist crew

@7Days

Wow, I'm surprised at the comments.

More power to your elbows

I agree and hope it is left open, it seems to me to be pretty respectful though I suppose to some people anything other than 'isn't this great' is considered transphobic.