One of Ireland’s leading psychotherapists working with young people has hit out at media reporting on a guide produced by a rights groups which claimed that schools must use the preferred name and pronouns of transgender students – a claim critics say is not backed by legal frameworks guiding Irish schools.
Psychotherapist Stella O’Malley said that the guide produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) “will harm kids” and that “Children First is the core child protection policy guiding Irish school”, adding that the Department of Education and Tusla also offer policies in this context.
The guide was produced by the ICCL in conjunction with the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, and written by controversial transgender organisation Teni and ICCL staff.
Social transitioning includes situations where a child who says they wish to change sex is facilitated in school ahead of or during medical or surgical interventions in regard to name and pronoun changes and use of school facilities such as bathrooms.
The Cass Review in the UK found that social transition is not a neutral act but a major psychosocial intervention – and can be a pipeline to medical transition. Responding to the ICCL’s guide this week, academic Collette Colfer quoted from the Cass Report: “The systematic review showed no clear evidence that social transition in childhood has any positive or negative mental health outcomes, and relatively weak evidence for any effect in adolescence. However, those who had socially transitioned at an earlier age and/or prior to being seen in clinic were more likely to proceed to a medical pathway.”
She also noted that Cass had said regarding social transition that “it is important to view it as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning and longer-term outcomes”.
A video produced by the Irish National Teachers Organisation in 2021 entitled “Facilitating a social transition” focuses on a primary school teacher explaining how to prepare a “child’s social-transition”, beginning by reassuring school children that boys can change into girls and girls can change into boys – and thereby assisting a girl named Lucy to be known as a boy named Liam. “The person we’ve been calling Lucy is really a boy,” the teacher says.
The issue of using schools to socially transition children has become an area of much contention, with parents, educators and campaigners pointing to a lack of evidence and research in the area until two major reviews were recently completed.
“The ICCL has no hold over school policies in Ireland,” Stella O’Malley posted on X, criticising The Irish Times’ coverage of the new guide, which she said “didn’t bother pointing this out”. She contended that if teachers followed the guide they would be “legally vulnerable” – and that schools who follow it would “harm vulnerable kids”.
She was critical of media reporting on the ICCL guide for failing to “highlight the fact that the guide goes against the recommendations in the Cass Review, the largest independent research on this issue in the world.”
“The ICCL is a harmful and inaccurate guide. It will make schools legally vulnerable and it will harm kids. It inaccurately states that the Supreme Court ruling in Britain doesn’t impact Ireland – of course it does, and this will emerge when the first case is taken,” she wrote.
“There are no laws about pronouns in Ireland. Pretending that there are does not make it so,” she also said. Ms O’Malley asked the Irish Times to report on the guide for schools published by Genspect which said “it is not helpful for schools to concretise a young person’s identity while they are in the midst of identity formation as this can foreclose opportunities for exploration and future change. Schools can best respect their students’ search for meaning and personal identity by creating space for uncertainty and exploration and remaining supportively neutral as to outcome or direction.”
In relation to the ICCL guide, The Irish Times had reported this week that: “Schools must use the preferred name and pronouns of transgender students, who should also be allowed to use the bathroom of their preferred gender, according to a new guide on the rights of trans people.”
The guide is produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) with support from the State’s human rights watchdog the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.
It was written by members of Teni and Shoutout, organisations which lobby for trans and LGBTQI+ people, with support from ICCL staff and legal advisers.
It sets out the legal rights of trans people in society, at work, in school, college and in sports. It says if trans rights are not upheld by schools, colleges and businesses, trans people may be able in many cases to take legal action against them.
“Your school must make every effort to update your name and pronoun in relevant systems and documents. It must also use your correct name and pronoun in day-to-day interactions,” the guide says.
However, activist Sandra Adams said that “The logic of the Children First Act 2015 must not be replaced by the magical thinking of the guide to trans rights produced by the ICCL.”
“It is striking that every page of the ICCL guide carries the disclaimer: “Important: this guide is for your information only,” she continued. “It is not intended to be a substitute for legal advice.” That small print protects the authors, but it does not protect schools, boards of management, or principals.”
“Children First is not merely a reporting obligation when harm is suspected. It requires schools and youth services to identify risks in advance, especially in high-vulnerability settings such as toilets, changing rooms and overnight accommodation, and to design systems that reduce opportunity and ambiguity. This is the core logic of safeguarding.
“A school’s first legal duty is not to affirm identities, but to protect all children’s safety, privacy and dignity through proportionate, documented risk management.
“Courts and Tusla will not ask whether an NGO guide was followed; they will ask whether foreseeable risks were identified and reduced.
“Inclusion policies cannot replace risk assessment. Only Children First-compliant safeguarding systems protect children and institutions alike,” Ms Adams wrote.
Women’s rights organisation, The Countess, said that their legal analysis refuted the ICCL’s claims. “The new guidance from ICCL is simply an activist wishlist with no legal standing,” they wrote.
Spokeswoman Laoise de Brún said “We are calling on government to make the law clear, and in the meantime we urge all legal entities, schools, service providers, shops and sport clubs to be aware that the ICCL guidance is not legally binding and may in fact be dangerous for service providers insofar as it is inaccurate, misleading and not legally sound.”
“The gender ground does not include ‘trans’. Trans rights and protections reside in the gender reassignment grounds, which protect trans-identified people from harassment and discrimination. The opposite to what this guide says, is in fact true: a woman or girl who loses her single-sex space or service would have a case against that service provider for direct discrimination.”
Campaigner Jana Lunden, founder of the Natural Women’s Council, pointed to the ICCL’s funding sources and described the organisation as “simply a lobby group, another NGO with a direct line to government that bypasses democracy.”
“They have never put themselves before the people at election, they have absolutely no democratic mandate,” she said.
A 2025 investigation by Gary Kavanagh of Gript found that “since 2020 nearly 90% of the funding of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has come from foreign sources.”
“In 2023, the last year for which records are available, roughly 95% of the ICCL’s funding came from sources outside Ireland,” his analysis showed.
“The three largest sources of funding over that period were the Luminate Group, set up the French / American billionaire Pierre Omidyar; the Open Society Foundation, set up by the Hungarian / American billionaire George Soros; and the Sigrid Rausing Trust, set up by Sigrid Rausing of the Swedish Rausing family – Sigrid’s wealth is unclear but the wealth of the Rausing family is estimated to be over €10 billion. Together these three organisations donated nearly €2 million to the ICCL – 46% of their total funding during the period,” he found.
However, the ICCL said their guide was to tell trans and non-binary persons about their rights in Ireland – and said that it would be useful for professionals, families, community representative organisations and allies.
They said that these rights “arise from a variety of sources that govern services and entitlements. This includes the Constitution of Ireland, domestic Irish laws, European Union (EU) laws, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and international human rights law.”
The ICCL’s guide states that while “non-binary people and young people under 16 do not have the right to legal gender recognition”, “this does not affect your right to transition personally, socially or medically.”
Responding to the controversy online, Irish Times reporter, Pat Leahy, said that their reporting was not “advocating for any side or point of view in this news piece; just telling readers what’s in the report, which is backed by a State body.”
“But of course all sides should feel free to fulminate away to their hearts’ content,” he added.
However, Colette Colfer said her “sense is that the instructions outlined in the piece will be taken as gospel by teachers, principals, employers, administrators, and will inculcate fear, conformity, and censorship.”