Leo Varadkar Times article - Our gender recognition law is not perfect but it's right

[Underthinker]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/1f895d94-eb13-4d6d-a88c-17b71ff34a7f?shareToken=b9a85f64620c28cb4388ddb376c29002

Stumbled on this in the Times where it was a bit hidden away. Apologies if it's already been discussed. Sorry don't think I can do share tokens.

He sounds like he spent the last ten years asleep or completely isolated from all media.

He’s completely ignoring the fact that Barbie Kardashian has a GRC, for a start.

He really throws everything at it, doesn't he? Genital inspections, intersex, non-binaries, oh so complex sport, gay rights, no easy solutions, ...

Fucking hell. Reading that has actually raised my blood pressure. It's got it all - populist hysteria, bathroom bans and genital inspections. And Barbie Kardashian is an isolated case. And he makes sure to mention that Barbie Kardashian is Brazilian, because of course no Irish man would cause an issue like the way BK has.

It absolutely drips of male entitlement. He obviously hasn't spoken to any women, except perhaps Nicola Sturgeon. And any women who have concerns have been manipulated by a media mass panic of course. Fucking arsehole.

*Edited for typos because I rage typed

I'm Irish and despair with Varadkar. He's known for not being the brightest shilling.

I'd left Ireland for Terf island a few years before that Act came in. I can't believe women and girls aren't protected as a sex class in Ireland after all we've been through down through the years. The misogyny continues...

I realised I hadn’t read the whole thing - he brings Barbie K up only to dismiss him.

Trans sub-categories for sports would be absolutely fine with me.

Same here. And I doubt my family back in Ireland even know Ireland has self ID, such was the stealthy way it was snuck in.

And yeah you'd think lessons would have been learnt from out past, and maybe they would have prioritised the safety, dignity and privacy of women and girls, but of course not.

He's also a doctor too 🙄

I see a tiny cause for satisfaction in this huge piece of BS: Varadkar acknowledged that "Barbie Kardashian"* is a male. A couple of years ago he would have called him, at best, a trans woman, or a trans female. Times really are a-changing.

*Why are these men allowed to change last names as well as first names, what is the damn pretext? No one can claim that last names are gendered for Christ's sake! And unless first names, surnames are not arbitrary, they are evidence of belonging to a family.

I would imagine the number of trans people in Ireland is quite small. But if all the entitled, angry men in Reddit, who are upset about being told by their employers that they can no longer undress with their female colleagues, follow through with their threats to move to Ireland, Ireland might be in for a rude awakening.

And what is this bollox about Irish being a queer language?

Probably because there aren't terms for 'yes' or 'no' so he sees this as a spectrum 🙄

Oh this is definitely true ⬆️

Amongst all the bluster in that article, I actually detect a nervousness. There is the concession that the law isn't perfect. Leo Varadker knows that Barbie Kardashian won't be (in fact, isn't!) an isolated case. And at some point, if journalists and the media in Ireland stop being so cowardly, there will be accountability, and this will come back to him.

"no child harmed" - if they are being encouraged online to change sex they are being harmed.

"I understand that the issue of males in women’s spaces had an added dimension of safety. Males are stronger than females. Women’s concerns should not be dismissed." - but I'm just going to ignore them because they matter less than menz feels.

"Let’s listen before we post and talk, not shout people down." - I'll not listen to the women and will shout them down, though.

I believe a trans category was trialled in the States but no one applied. Part of the fetish is to undermine women’s rights.

Well Im shocked , shocked I tell you that a gay man with no skin in the game and a desire to protect his legacy and sell his book doesn't get it

He's one of the most misogynist blokes I've ever come across. Of course he's supportive of removing women's rights 🙄

I can see why the article was hidden away, it was a whole lot of waffle that wasn't worth reading. There was no mention in the article about TiF's, as a gay man surly he would have something to say about a women who thinks she's a man who fancy's women and is now 'identifying' as a gay man.

Luckily the comments comprehensively destroy him!

Yes, gay men who come out with this sort of nonsense always turn out to be utter transphobes when they're asked if they'd consider a transman with a vagina as a sexual partner.

Owen Jones even said to the people who asked him that question that it was homophobic just to ask.

Hypocrites.

I understand that the issue of males in women’s spaces had an added dimension of safety. Males are stronger than females. Women’s concerns should not be dismissed. I do not see an easy solution, however. The lazy anti-woke solution would be to introduce bathroom laws or single-sex space laws limiting access to one sex.

How would it be enforced? Genital inspections would be totally unacceptable and DNA tests impracticale.

You can't say that certain men aren't a threat or a problem to women one minute, then suggest spaces just for women and girls for our safety, privacy and dignity aren't workable the next because the same men can't be expected to take no for an answer and will violate them anyway.

I think that he does this to separate BK out as not 'truly trans'

Yep. TRAs in the streets. TERFs in the sheets.

Which all boils down to the fact that they don't think these men are actually women either, any more than the TERFs do.

But they expect women to disadvantage themselves to maintain the lie. At the same time as being clear that they themselves are not prepared to.

Typical arsehole men 🙄

True. Still, Sturgeon could not bring her shameful self to say that Adam Graham (who wants to be called Isla Bryson) was a male. Just "an individual".