“That was very common. Plenty of times, someone bought me a drink. I used to hang around mainly with the older people when I was there. At one point, they brought me to a nightclub which now, looking back, I’d never bring a young person to a nightclub.”
Asked whether Belong To staff were aware that adults in the group were buying younger members alcohol, Seán said that an incident took place around April 2017 which staff were made aware of.
“They then stopped letting adults attend the Sunday group,” he said, adding: “But they still let them attend the other groups. They told us in the Sunday group that this was due to lack of funding.”
Asked about rules and code of conduct, Seán said one rule which stood out to him was ‘Don’t talk about gay club’ which meant that if you saw another member of the group on the street, you weren’t supposed to talk to them.
However, he said that “most of us broke that rule” and that members of the group, aged between 14 and 24, would “get each other’s contact details, and we’d make plans outside of Belong To.”
He added that “if anything were to go wrong,” there was an impression that “we couldn’t tell BelongTo because we weren’t meant to be doing that.”
He said that many in the Belong To youth meetings had “dealt with trauma” in their lives, and that some who went on to choose the medical pathway to transitioning were on the autistic spectrum.
Asked about underlying issues, Seán claimed that the approach of Belong To was “constantly” affirmative towards those who were questioning their gender.
“They were just affirmed straight away. If it’s a young woman who had an eating disorder, that was never questioned. It was never questioned if she was sexually abused. It was just affirm, affirm, affirm. Many of these young women want to escape their trauma by transitioning, and it’s never looked into whatsoever.”
According to Seán, the majority of those who identified as transgender, upon leaving the group, desisted from gender ideology, and went on to live in the body they were born in.
Seán said that not using pronouns “would never have been received well” and that “anyone who disagreed with anything to do with gender ideology would have been ‘outcasted’ by the group.”
“We were definitely all made to feel like we were oppressed. That there was this enemy we had to fight, whether we were gay, bi, or trans. They kind of feed this narrative that our rights are always under attack and we have to constantly defend them.”
Seán said he felt that members of the group who identified as transgender were “taken more seriously” and were “listened to more” than the others.
“We didn’t have as much of a say on things. For example, at one point there was furries showing up identifying as animals, and I took issue with that because I thought this was getting ridiculous – you know, you can’t identify as an animal.
“So when I took an issue with that, everyone was really annoyed at me you. I had the room being like, ‘Let them do what they want to do – they can be what they want to be.’ But then eventually after a few weeks, the trans people took an issue with them being there – and as soon as they took an issue with it then it was taken seriously that they didn’t actually belong there.”
Seán said that on one occasion, an “adult man” showed up to the group saying that his pronouns were ZM. The man, according to Sean, was in his twenties.
“I kind of said, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ [I asked] why are you making us use this ridiculous word and confusing us? But everyone was really annoyed at me for questioning his use of pronouns.”
’WE WERE BASICALLY TRAINED ON HOW TO LOBBY THE GOVT’
Asked about political involvement in the group, he noted the involvement of a People Before Profit representative.
“They feed off people feeling oppressed and scared to get a following,” Seán said, leading him to think, “This isn’t right.”
He said that while it was supposed to be a support group for young people, young people were often used as activists or lobbyists for government policy, and that many proceeded into trans rights activism.
“We were basically trained to do that, and on how to lobby the government – without directly knowing we were doing that.”
He added that lobbying was a “common” aspect of his involvement with Belong To. For instance, he said that members were asked to write statements regarding proposals to lower the age for the gender recognition act.
“They gave us all a piece of paper and said, ‘Write how this would be beneficial for you.'”
Seán also said that if there were any public meetings or anything government related, BelongTo would send one of the young people to give a speech, where “you’d have to follow what BelongTo wanted you to follow.”
Seán’s organisation, Not All Gays Ireland, has raised concerns that young people have been “indoctrinated” and that many who attended such groups were “not in the right frame of mind at the time.”
Annaig Birdy, who is President of the group, previously raised concerns about BelongTo youth meetings, telling the Irish Independent that adults gave “weird advice” not young teens, including how to hide chest binders from their parents.
Seán said that the group have made continuous efforts to notify the State about their concerns, with Birdy having met with the Children’s Ombudsman as well as a young detransitioner.
According to Seán, Birdy has written to multiple politicians and has met with Senators along with other members of the group.
“She wrote to Micheál Martin when he was Taoiseach, and her email, after a while got blocked – he didn’t want to hear about it.”
The young man said that Belong To would “frequently” talk about gender affirmative surgery, and that young women would give presentations about having undergone top surgery to remove their breasts.
They gave presentations about the “pathways” they took when undergoing the surgery, as well as advising on how to access hormones, including through referrals to the UK.
“These were all discussed as reversible things. It was never talked about as something permanent.”
Seán said that on one occasion he asked about detransitioners – those who have undergone a transition either medically or surgically, and then transition back to their biological sex – and was told at the youth group that this was “a far-right myth” and “not real.”
“I knew not to bring that up again. It was just something I’d seen online. All of this was sold as easy, something you could reverse if you changed your mind.”
Seán said that he walked away from the meetings when he began to think that what was happening was “mad” and that he couldn’t relate to others in the group.
“I decided to stop going, and then I eventually did my own research.”
Belong To, the Children’s Ombudsman, and Micheál Martin have been been contacted for comment on the claims, but no responses were received at the time of publication.