Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has confirmed that is it not against the law to use “incorrect pronouns” or to refuse to use “preferred pronouns”, after it was revealed that some of Ireland’s leading universities had told staff that it was “unlawful” to refuse to use preferred pronouns.
This week Ms. McEntee told Newstalk’s Ciara Kelly that “misgendering somebody will not be a crime” – and that hate crime legislation was concentrated on where hatred or violence was incited.
Asked “is it against the law to not use the correct pronouns or to refuse to do so?”, the Minister replied “It’s not.”
"Misgendering somebody will not be a crime." Minister for Justice Helen McEntee on @NTBreakfast. pic.twitter.com/gzayKpaiCb
— NewstalkFM (@NewstalkFM) October 13, 2023
Last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he “couldn’t imagine” the State prosecuting anyone for using “the wrong pronouns.
Lecturer Colette Colfer highlighted last week that five higher institutes of education – University College Dublin, Trinity College, the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI), Dundalk Institute of Technology and South East Technological University – claimed that refusing to use preferred pronouns amounted to unlawful discrimination or harassment.
I've gone through Gender Identity Policies and Equality Policies of all 19 Higher Education Institutions in Ireland that have Athena SWAN awards. In total, five HEIs have Policies stating it is unlawful discrimination or harassment to refuse to use preferred pronouns.
— Colette Colfer (@ColetteColfer) October 9, 2023
Ms. Colfer said that she has no issue with using preferred pronouns for individuals, but she took issue with the compelled speech aspect of the claim, and the assertion that to use the wrong pronouns was actually unlawful.
Writing for Gript this week, Dr. Matt Treacy said that despite the assertions of the universities “no such law on the use of pronouns seems to exist.”
That includes “refusing to address a person by their preferred gender pronoun or new name.”
As Ms. Colfer had done, he pointed to the role or influence of the English NGO Advance HE, and their Athena SWAN Charter:
Last week, Ben Scallan of Gript pressed Equality Minister Roderic O’Gorman on the issue, accusing him of evasion for refusing to say whether or not “misgendering” someone at work could constitute unlawful discrimination or harassment.
"That's not an answer to the question": Ben Scallan accuses Irish Equality Minister Roderic O'Gorman of "evasion" for refusing to say whether or not "misgendering" someone at work could constitute unlawful discrimination or harassment.#gript pic.twitter.com/MDONaRHfTs
— gript (@griptmedia) October 5, 2023