Ireland: Belong To & Cass Review

[FanOfGailDines]

I looked up the Belong To website so see what they said about the Cass Review. They state in April 2024 that

Belong To will conduct an analysis of the Cass Review to better inform our understanding of care for trans young people.

Have they done that yet? Their statement about Cass is highly misleading.
And many more schools are signing up to the BelongTo Quality Mark.

Would be good if there was some media questioning of all of this in light of the breastfeeding madness that has made it into the news. You go down this path and have this in schools and this is where you get to... (Norway, Iceland, strange man at breastfeeding conference)

People in Ireland need to pipe up about this. I can't believe my kids are surrounded by this dangerous propaganda.

Children and schools are relentlessly targeted by trans extremists. It's how the dangerous behaviour that puts children at risk often gets a free pass. Once the young without the life experience and critical thinking skills sign up to this, anything goes.

Unfortunately Ireland is asleep at the wheel. The NGOs hold incredible power over the government. MSM mostly just does the governments bidding.

Gript is one of the only media sources actually taking this on, but it’s all too easy to dismiss them as right wing cranks. If other media brands did their jobs there would be no need for Gript, but alas, this is where we are.

There may be chinks of light though. Ellis O’Hanlon is not afraid to call stuff out. The tabloids are starting to. Newstalk and particularly Ciara Kelly don’t completely toe the line.

I’m not sure what can be done as an individual, and I know you’ve been interested in this before. Maybe contact your TD about Belong To and your concerns - you may just get shut down though. Raise it with the school. It’s difficult because ordinary people know so little about it and I suspect often don’t want to know more.

I know, it just seems so stupid because if you went and asked everyone in Ireland door to door what they thought you would get totally straightforward sound answers about all of this (by and large) and yet...

What about a kind of Gin Lane Hogarth print with chest-feeding men and S&M gender identity instruction for children such as they have in Iceland. Maybe that would wake people up?

I will try your suggestions and contact the school and try to hint that BelongTo might be misleading. I mean, it is misleading, but nobody likes to be told something too definitively.

Perhaps a fresh school year is a good time for action and the tide is turning. People are busy, they just need to have it laid out for them.

And will contact the TD. Thanks!

I would love to see a day when every single rainbow flag is removed from schools. Belong To should have no place in schools. They are pushing gender ideology under the guise of anti-bullying and even sneaking in questionable reading material like that book that Norma Foley refused to comment on "What's the T'.
In my kids old educate together school, they were taught in classes about 'sexuality' and all the different 'genders' you can be from the age of 6 and were teaching kids that you can be born in the wrong body. When I objected I was told it was standard teaching practise in line with the department of education guidelines . I'm not sure if this is true but the principal felt safe enough that she'd get away with it.

Parents need to wake up and take this seriously and start demanding changes from the department of education and challenging this damaging narrative. A whole generation is being indoctrinated.
Hopefully the tide is turning and more people will speak out.

www.belongto.org/president-catherine-connolly-announced-as-new-patron-of-belong-to-lgbtq-youth-ireland/

I don't even think this long long list of quality mark schools (approx 100) that have the accreditation is complete because I just looked up a school that is not on there and it has it too.
https://www.belongto.org/support-for-someone-else/at-school/lgbtq-quality-mark-schools-map/
So perhaps we are talking one eighth of all the secondary schools in Ireland that are signed up (770 schools approx in the whole country) and who knows how many are taking part in the accreditation process?
This is happening post Cass and if they are being misleading about the Cass Review or not mentioning it in the teacher training then that is a worry. Social transition is not a neutral act.

I've talked to a headteacher at a BelongTo Quality Mark School. She didn't know anything about Cass or WPATH. She did quote the suicidality line so perhaps BelongTo are still telling people that.

I have only found three people in perhaps 50 conversations in Ireland in the last couple of weeks that have any idea of gender self ID or the gender identity content in Junior Cycle.

I've written to President Connolly about BelongTo. Explained the connection to WPATH. BelongTo and TENI think Ireland should be following WPATH. That WPATH 8 have a chapter on Eunuch Identity and that they aspire to no age restrictions on medical/ surgical interventions for children.

I am writing to organisations that have Gender Identity and Gender Expression Policies and asking them to add 'desistors' and 'detransistioners' to their glossaries.

I have written to the NCCA and other organisations about the Junior Cycle content and how it is ignoring the Cass Review.

I'm giving it a go. I don't expect much to come from this but I think if enough of us keep plugging away there will be greater awareness.

I've been in touch with TDs.

https://teni.ie/trans-healthcare-another-way-is-possible/

The school policy I looked at for gender identity was written in collaboration with TENI. The page in link above, written not long after the publication of the Cass Review, states ... Ireland needs to do better, Ireland can do better!

The development of high-quality youth services in line with the WHO and WPATH recommendations, with mental health support and access to puberty blockers on the basis parental consent

This is what they want for Ireland. They want Ireland following WPATH. I think more Irish people and Irish institutions need to be better informed. No one knows what WPATH is.

If they did then we would be rid of this in schools at least.

Just reading, as I have been earlier, about the appalling events in Germany with the trans policeman, and thinking, how can this happen in 'sensible Germany', as most thought, but it does. And the German public are largely not engaged (for a variety of reasons). And now to look at Ireland, and see the same thing going on?

The lack of public information is a real eye-opener. Why are much of the population not paying attention to this in Germany?

The other thing I've thought about here in Ireland is that there must be an influence from Australia and Canada amongst young people as so many of them go there for a stint.

Isn't Catherine Connolly the patron of BelongTo? Sadly, I suspect she knows full well what it's all about and thinks she's on 'the right side of history'. I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her. It's still good to bring it to her attention though in case I'm not giving her enough credit.
www.belongto.org/president-catherine-connolly-announced-as-new-patron-of-belong-to-lgbtq-youth-ireland/

It's amazing right! But perhaps she hasn't looked at WPATH. I'm trying to stick to the raw evidence in my emails as it were.
I think a bit of chip chipping away might help. Certainly if President Connolly realised how out of step she is with the clear majority of Irish people that might give her pause...
I was having these conversations in England and had a fair bit of push back but really nothing here! People have very scant knowledge about Gender Self ID or Gender Identity Ideology in schools and when they do know they don't like it.

Whoops I made a spelling mistake. Desisters not desistors. Wouldn't like to be responsible for widespread spelling misinformation in Irish institutions!

Thankfully reality is that there is no peads trans clinic in Ireland, and the likelihood of getting puberty blockers from a GP is very very low, as their fear of being sued is very high. And trans self ID is the law, but as a fashion it seems to have peaked amongst the kids.
As ever with official Ireland there is a huge gap between what they say, what's actually available and what people support. However sadly anti LBG sentiment also seems to be on the rise, so not throwing the baby out with the bathwater is important too.

That's a good point. I'll try always to stress the way this is impacting teens that may be same-sex attracted. I think Julie Bindel's podcast series 'Julie in Genderland' is brilliant for an overview of harms.
I met a girl who was very upset at not being able to get her breasts removed. It is good that it is harder to make the irreversible choices here but it doesn't stop the malignant thoughts.

Beyond Gender & Genspect have an episode 'Inside Europe's Transgender Medicine System' with Róisín Michaux.

It gives a glimpse into the medical temptations that exist for trans identifying teens in Ireland. Even though the drugs and hormones and surgeries are not readily available here doesn't mean they can't be accessed or ruminated on.

The fact the Ireland’s medical provision is slow to adapt to new trends has been a blessing in disguise on this topic.

I’m sure those determined enough will still find a way, but you’d have to be extremely determined to leave the country (and nowadays the UK too). Very few will go to those lengths thank God

Reading Irreversible Damage and according to Abigail Shrier many of the children who were the victims of this craze in the U.S. were from families who had 'progressive politics' and were very liberal and also living in communities where there wasn't so much in the way of extended family support. Also often sending the kids to therapy for everything from an early age.
I've just been at a Blitz today and that does not describe the part of Ireland I'm in. There is the protection of the still-pretty-traditional communities here.

I just think it is rotten though to rely on that. Gender Identity Ideology shouldn't be in the curriculum and taught as fact and even parts of the Bí Cineálta programme in NS is warming children up to these ideas. It is making the slow-cook dangers invisible.

You are absolutely right and the influence Belong To and TENI have over the curriculum is disgraceful.

But I find it interesting that there are cultural factors that have helped curb the worst of this in Ireland. Your point about extended family is well made. I had my first baby in London and my second in Dublin. The difference I’ve seen in how people approach child rearing, if they have support versus if they don’t, is very significant.

I think the protective factors that exist in Ireland (strong families, community sports, the church, libraries, Family Resource Centres, nature on your doorstep for most, people looking out for each other) I think there are many factors here that do provide some protection against things like gender ideology.

Where I think there is very little protection is with exposure to awful online content. There are almost no general laws here against pornographic content. Anything is allowed. And the rates of viewing and the ages of first viewing churn your stomach.

Parents want their kids to have what everybody else has so most children have access to the internet.

The popularity of video games with pornographic content (STEAM vouchers sold in Smyths Toys) and the young age most kids start gaming are alarming.

White Fox is popular clothing for girls and the website is sort of soft porn. The porn industry influence is very apparent here.

There are many ways this connects with Trans and gender identity but to mention a couple...

If you are addicted to porn it takes you down a dark path of viewing more and more extreme stuff to get a bigger dopamine hit. So you might end up viewing content that you would never have been interested in to start with.

You can see why the idea of escaping your body would grab hold of vulnerable kids when the picture of ‘being a girl’ or ‘being a boy’ is choreographed by a predatory industry.

The fixation on the importance image and the body dysmorphia that comes with that and also the focus on oneself and your online 'product' being a sort of changeable avatar.

I think there is a big problem with porn-influenced culture here and I think that it somehow connects with the trans stuff.

I know that is a bit vague but in the Irish context I don't think you can talk honestly about the public health crisis of porn without addressing the gender identity ideology content too.

And yet, a TD [Teachta Dála = MP] from one of the parties in government can organise and event at Leinster House [=Houses of Parliament] to highlight women's health and the need for better access to diagnosis, care and treatment, and can say this
“A woman's body, in all its spectacular uniqueness and complexity, must never be defined by its assumption that pain is simply normal...'
Erin McGreehan TD
Former Miss Ireland tells of excruciating pain ordeal, hair loss struggles - and collapse

So far I haven't heard of any threats to cancel Erin McGreehan for stating that a women's body has uniqueness ...

And this story has been reported in the media without any hand-wringing about 'when we say women we also say men' or 'people with a cervix' or 'people with endometriosis'

It's almost as if The Plain People of Ireland, as Myles na nGopaleen called us, hear all the TWAW/TMAM stuff, pause, then go 'Yeah yeah....well anyway...' and continue to talk sensibly about the specifics of women's health and men's health.

Very good points @FanOfGailDines and @MarieDeGournay

The point about online lack of safeguarding is very well made and yes, that is a huge issue. It's worth noting that online, the culture the country we are brought up in is much less relevant as it's all international online.

What I struggle to get my head around most in an Irish context is the difference between the NGO class/political classes and everybody else on this issue.

Yet, the politicians and the NGOs also have grannies and aunts and cousins and so on who will be telling them to cop themselves on. Or do they differentiate between what they say in work versus at home/social setting?

ps Maith thú/well done FanOfGailDines for keeping the pressure on by emailing, writing,etc. I try to do that too, you've inspired me to get cracking again!

I'm thinking of using the Irish Presidency of the EU to let politicians know that although I am an admirer of 'The Europe Project' in general [for lots of reasons, the main one being how it brought together people who had been slaughtering each other only a decade or so previously], the fact that the EU has adopted gender ideology hook, line and sinker is a serious problem.
A political union which states that 'woman' also means 'man', and requires its member states to go along with that, with all the legislative, social, ethical, etc consequences, is not somewhere I want to be.

Given that a lot of Irish people are becoming more Eurosceptic for a number of reasons, it might encourage Irish politicians to be a voice for either more common sense in EU law, or more freedom for states to derogate from those laws.

Because of our voting system, there is more weight attached to individual voter's opinions than in the UK, so a whole lot of people telling politicians that they don't agree with the EU on women's rights/gender issues, and will bear that in mind at the next election, might have an effect...

edited for spelling - the typos I noticed, anyway.
I've never worked out whether there is or is not a spell-checker operating in these posts - I think errors are highlighted sometimes, but then a howler is waved through..😠

I have very little faith in Irish politicians to stand up to EU orthodoxy on this issue unfortunately. Ireland seems to have pinned its colours to being the yes men of Europe.

I still think it's very important to make our opinions felt, that what @FanOfGailDines is doing is great.

The Plain People of Ireland,

A pint of plain is yer only man, Marie! 😁

A ball of malt and a pint, since you're buying