Since last year, all personnel in the Irish Defence Forces must complete mandatory “unconscious bias” training, which includes troops introducing themselves with their gender pronouns, learning to avoid “micro-aggressions”, studying the “gender pay gap” and more, Gript can reveal.
In 2023, the Irish armed forces unveiled a new “Gender Diversity and Unconscious Bias” training module, which is a “Defence Forces-wide” initiative “to be rolled out to everybody”, a military spokesman told Gript.
“The Gender, Diversity and Unconscious training course is mandatory for all Defence Forces personnel,” the spokesman said.
“Since its rollout in 2023, 58% of the Defence Forces serving personnel have undergone the training.”
“IT WAS JUST RIDICULOUS – YOU WERE MADE TO JOIN THIS SKYPE CALL FOR, LIKE, THREE HOURS”
Gript spoke to a number of Irish Defence Forces personnel who had participated in such courses, who shared their reaction and experience of the material. The response was uniformly negative.
“To be honest with you, I only have one word for it: it was ridiculous. That’s just being completely honest,” said one active duty soldier, who asked to remain anonymous.
“I remember there were talks within the briefs about pronouns and different kinds of genders – ‘he/she’, ‘they/them’, and all that bullshit.
“We were mandatorily made to sit there listening this stuff, even if you didn’t want to.
“It was just ridiculous. You were made to join this Skype call for, like, 3 hours. It was just so stupid.”
“I’M A SOLDIER – I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO SIT THERE AND LISTEN TO MANDATORY BRIEFS ABOUT THIS SHIT”
The soldier told Gript that he felt there were better uses of military time.
“I’m a soldier – I shouldn’t have to sit there and listen to mandatory briefs about this shit,” he said.
“There’s more important things to be worrying about, you know what I mean? Actual training, the Defence budget, stuff like that. And yet this is being pushed on soldiers and other colleagues in the job.
“It should be a voluntary thing – if you have an interest in it, you should be able to do it on your own time. But we shouldn’t be made to go and do this stuff.”
“EVERY SINGLE PERSON I SPOKE TO FELT THE SAME WAY”
Asked if other troops he’d spoken to felt similarly about the training, he said they did – even including the commanding officers who were directing them to participate in it.
“Every single person I spoke to felt the same way: that it was absolutely ridiculous,” he said.
“It was just one of these things where you had to just sit there and have your name ticked off on a list. You’d mostly just be on your phone and stuff like that. I just remember that everyone who was participating in the brief was saying that same thing: that it was so stupid.
“Even the people that made us go to the briefs said the same thing across the board. It’s only the top brass and the higher ups that are making us do it…it just trickles down the chain of command and everybody’s made to do it.”
“IF YOU WANTED TO COMPLAIN…YOU’D PROBABLY JUST BE TOLD TO FUCK OFF”
Asked if there was any way for soldiers to complain, he said that it would likely be a fool’s errand to try and do so.
“If you wanted to complain, I’m sure you could, but you wouldn’t get far,” he said.
“Not at all – you’d probably fall at the first hurdle and basically just be told to fuck off, and that’s being honest with you.”
‘SHARE YOUR PRONOUNS’
One “Diversity, Gender and Unconscious Bias Training” presentation seen by Gript opens by telling participants to share their “name and pronouns” – that is, their “he/him”, “she/her” or “they/them” gender pronouns – as well as their role within the Defence Forces.
Slides acquired by Gript
It then goes on to say that its purpose is to educate the troops on a range of issues, including “understanding gender stereotypes” and “the benefits of diversity in a military context”, explaining that diversity helps with “mission readiness”.
CREATING “SAFE SPACES”
Soldiers also learn how to create “safe spaces” through ‘embracing difference’ and ‘active listening’, as well as the benefits of “affirmative action” – that is to say, the act of giving special advantages or promotions to women or minority groups to increase their representation in a given field.
SOLDIERS TOLD TO BE CAREFUL TO AVOID “MICRO-AGGRESSIONS”
The presentation urges soldiers to be conscious of “micro-aggressions”, which it describes as “everyday behaviours and assumptions we make about people based on their gender which make the workplace feel less inclusive.”
It says that examples of this include telling a woman she’s “articulate”, or saying to someone “You’re too young – you won’t remember this” – presumably when referring to historical events that may have happened before an individual was born or when they were a child, such as The Troubles or 9/11.
Another example of a “micro-aggression” given is asking someone of a migrant background what country they’re from originally, or telling them they have good English.
“WOMEN ARE PAID LESS THAN MEN”
The course also has soldiers study “gender mainstreaming” and the so-called “gender pay gap”, claiming that: “The Gender Pay Gap in Ireland is 13.9% – in other words women in Ireland are paid almost 14% less than men – even though women received more third level educational degrees than men.”
Notably, under equality legislation, it is already illegal for any employer in Ireland to pay women less for the same work as men, and this has been the case for decades.
The presentation goes on to highlight research which indicates that many male soldiers don’t think female soldiers are able to meet the demands of the special forces, which it says is a result of “stereotypes”.
“Many respondents repeated common stereotypes that men are rational thinkers and physically strong, while women are emotional and physically weak,” the course says.
“Male participants often rationalised that their own wives or girlfriends would not be able to handle the physical demands of special forces; therefore, no women could.”
“BE AN ALLY”
In an effort to help troops try and overcome their own “unconscious bias,” the course then goes on to urge soldiers to “get comfortable being uncomfortable” and learn to “be an ally” and an “upstander not a bystander”.
HOW WAS THE COURSE DEVELOPED?
The course, which was initially outsourced to an external provider, is now being conducted in-house by Irish Defence Forces staff.
“Before the development of an internal training program, initial training of Defence Forces’ personnel was contracted out to an external provider – in this case the Irish Centre for Diversity,” a Captain in the Defence Forces press office told Gript.
“Following an initial round of training for the entire organisation, a ‘Train the Trainers’ course was conducted in mid-2024; this training is now conducted internally by Defence Forces personnel.”
It is understood that the course is run by the Defence Forces’ HR and Training Department.
Gript was provided with a variety of materials on this topic, including presentation slides, a diversity handbook for senior officers, and a more general guide document for rank-and-file troops and staff.
“EXTREME WOKE” MATERIAL
Reacting to the course, Independent TD Carol Nolan told Gript she found the “extreme woke” content of the course “astonishing”, “infantilising” and “almost pathological.”
“Who is setting this agenda?” she asked.
“Where is the clamour among courageous recruits and among our young men and women for this nonsense?
“Intellectually force-feeding recruits this dubious psycho-babble is a recipe for disaster. It is actively repellant to anyone with an ounce of common sense.
“You don’t need to be a code breaker to realise that this garbage clearly signals the institutional and cultural capture of the Defence Forces leadership.”