TDs getting it wrong about trans issues again in Ireland

[Roseglen84]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-quote-wrong-says-woman-defamed-by-td-mick-barry-fdcmx099k
(If someone can tell me how to do a share token that would be great)

Stella O'Malley - a psychotherapist who has spoken out against the medicalisation of gender non conforming children - has been misrepresented by some arsehole TD Mick Barry who didn't understand what she was actually saying.

“Ms O’Malley is an extremely controversial figure among the transgender community in Ireland and internationally,” Barry alleged.
“...she recently messaged on a gay rights advocacy group, which excludes trans people, that ‘I don’t think you should have any empathy, and I haven’t asked anybody to have any empathy and I don’t think you should have empathy or sympathy’.”

He added: “There should be no role for views such as this in sex education in our education system. This highlights the need for legislation on objective and factual sex education in schools.”

When actually she was talking about AGP individuals in women's spaces.

The recording of the Twitter Spaces conversation, from which Barry quoted, shows that O’Malley was asked if women who are concerned about losing women-only spaces should have empathy for autogynephiles — a designation disputed by many in the trans community that describes men aroused by the thought of being female.

In her initial response, O’Malley said: “I don’t think you need to give any empathy at all, at all, none. Zero. I think I should, because I’m trying to understand them.”

I despair at how weak and susceptible our politicians are to this nonsense .

Afraid I have no idea about share options. Afaik Mick Barry is a Socialist Party TD in Cork City although he is a Dub. And he is getting a pasting on Twitter over this falsehood. Somehow I doubt that gender ideology will go over big in his constituency.

Mo leithscéal...he is People Before Profit. They have driven out some GC members. Pity as I'd be quite sympathetic to their views on other things.

Same, I used to think PBP were pretty good. And yeah I don't think his average constituent would buy into genderwoo, but that's what makes it even more frustrating when he blindly spouts this nonsense - who is he trying to impress? Certainly not the voters. Why are politicians so blind on this issue?

@Roseglen84
He was elected on the back of water charge grievance; now that's put to bed, he has to find a new issue to hang his political hat on. His trying to equally blame NATO & Russia for the Ukrainian invasion didn't go too well so all aboard the trans train instead.

Share token :
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b1f5c116-d3c3-11ec-9a4b-0a4344895d12?shareToken=5b2bb75f367521f282cf85f5e5a4f0d0

OP - Look for the little envelope towards the top of the article next to the word SHARE. Click on the envelope and it will take you to a blank email with a link you can copy and paste

Is Mick Barry People before Profit or the Solidarity Party? Either way, why oh why is he trying to get involved in trans issues? (Yes I know @Mandodari answered this upthread but it drives me nuts). He has made a clown of himself.
Stella O'Malley wrote about the incident in the Sunday Independent
www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/fear-of-the-mobs-public-shaming-is-silencing-the-voice-of-truth-41650223.html

@Solidarityovercharity
Barry is a member of People Before Profit/Solidarity. The two parties joined together to form a sort of socialist McBusted, but with less appeal and fewer hits. He has been knocking around politics since the 1980s. He used to be in Labour but was expelled because he was a Trot. He has spent his political career espousing a brand of politics that died in the 70s, and even then was never popular in Ireland.

It is just baffling that he can stand up and call for sex ed in schools to be factual and objective, while ignoring facts and objectivity in the name of a movement that ignores facts and objectivityand what he means by wanting sex ed to be factual and objective seems to be the opposite.
I would love if sex ed was factual and objective BTW! Would not have to be trying to figure out what my kids have been told and to then think critically about it.

What I don't get is how he can just leave it up when the basic facts are just wrong. He said it was a text to a trans-exclusionary LGB group when it was actually a feminist Twitter space?! And yet apparently that's fine... you say tomato, I say tomahto, a member of Parliament says slander, anything goes :|

Apparently you can just say anything nowadays about ppl like Stella and get away with it... because trans!

He should just take it down. It makes you wonder what other stuff PBP say which turns out to be literally lies. Presumably basically anything

You could be fairly sure that if in his next election he stands up in the Fair Hill or Knocknaheeny, the rougher parts of his Cork north central constituency, and said women had penises, he’d be laughed out of the room. It was just this kind of trans ideology that drove the working people in the UK from the Labour party. It is clear from the words he used that Mick Barry has been hijacked by transactivists who fed him false lines. They cause mayhem and misinformation wherever they take their obsessive ideology.

The problem is all the major parties have signed up to this. Lowering the age for transition and all that goes with it are part of the current programme for government. There is a huge problem in the conflicts of interest in certain ministerial briefs....minister for children, equality, disability, integration and youth. Does anybody actually think all those disparate groups can be soundly supported under one brief?

@Believerinbiology
Look at his comments on the EU Peacekeeping mission in Mali. He views the world in a weird way and seems convinced that what Ireland wants and needs is a severe form of socialism that already has been proved to be a failure. Its hardly surprising that he is hitching his wagon to this particular horse. Like so many on this island, the desperate urge to prove to the Catholic church that they are no longer relevant means adopting any policy the Church would oppose. They aren't stopping to think how this will effect women & kids because they don't really care. As long as they can burnish their secular credentials they are happy.
For the record, I'm not catholic, I know the evils they did but the current trend is an excuse to overthrow one group of women oppressors and introduce another one instead.

The Minister for Completely Unrelated Abstract Nouns.
Mick Barry could take it on.
Seriously though , I voted for PBP in 2011. I was rather annoyed to lose my job - permanently - and be forced to bail out greedy speculators whose bets went sour.

Now , like many here and in the UK also , I am politically homeless. I'm more of a socialist than a Shinner but something tells me Mary Lou x co will sniff the wind and freeze out the gender loonies . After all , they hedged their bets on water charges - and were late to the game on abortion and equal marriage.

You can see why trans stuff appeals to FF / FG though. They get to look progressive without spending the billions needed to fix housing , health et al. As for the bould Mick , is he hiding behind parliamentary privilege and does that cover tweets?

My understanding, and am happy to be proven wrong, is that parliamentary privilege would only cover him if he had made the claim in the Dail prior to publishing the tweet.

Abhanmor SF are signed up to the trans bandwagon too and committed to lower the age for children to get a gender recognition cert with or without parental consent. Although like any other political group I don't know how much they'd push for it if they actually had power

I've actually voted for Mick Barry in the past, I'm really disappointed to read this

Thank you, I never knew how to do it.

This also pisses me off big time, he is completely misrepresenting what she says, and then spouts this bullshit about sex education being 'factual' when gender ideology is not based on facts but feelings. That's why I asked how they could be so blind?

Why is this the one issue where common sense completely fails?

Sharon Keogan seems to be the only person in Irish politics questioning this stuff, she made a speech criticising Self ID few months ago.

And now she has been outed from an Oireachtas committee. It's seems like the undesirables are being purged.

Is there no one gc other than Sharon Keoghan? I've nothing against her but she's pro life and that doesn't help the cause

Abhannmor a lot of trans bill are coming from Fintan Warfield, who is a Sinn Féin politician. Sinn Féin want the GRA extended to children and non binary identities.

www.sinnfein.ie/contents/57257

Yes but they are also very pragmatic. If they get negative feedback from working class or rural voters they will park this. They won't die for Barbie. Whereas PBP are just a clique of paid hobbyists.

Hmm, I didn't realise that - how dissappointing. Unfortunately, GC politicians are few and far between in Ireland :-( So frustrating.

Have a look atThe Countess and see if they have any recommendations about contacting TDs.

thecountess.ie/is-the-proposed-hate-crime-bill-fit-for-purpose/

Long read, but a very good insight into how Barry got himself into this situation.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/timeline-of-a-blunder?r=1hsp8e&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email