We live in an era where legal rights claims collide daily. One person’s right to one thing, may trample on someone else’s right to something else. Thankfully, we have a functioning courts system to adjudicate on these conflicts. The courts follow the laws our democratically elected leaders have designed to protect the most vulnerable in these conflicts; children in schools, and care settings, and women in recognisably vulnerable situations. These laws stem from balanced advocacy leading to hard-won legislation.
In December, three non-governmental, activist organisations, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL); TENI; and ShoutOut, launched “Know Your Rights: A Guide for Trans and Non-Binary People.” It promises plain-English explanations of protections in education, healthcare, employment for trans identifying people. Recent Irish Times coverage called this collaboration of NGOs the “watchdog” behind the guide. But a watchdog implies an independent State body, not three advocacy groups pushing an ideology-heavy pamphlet dressed up as legal rights, which is what this is.
Admittedly, each page has the disclaimer: “This guide is for information only, it is not intended to be a substitute for legal advice.” Indeed.
The guide conflates activist aspirations with enforceable law, presents non-binding recommendations as obligations, and glosses over conflicts with other rights, especially those of women and girls. In short, it has lost the necessity for balance which all discussions on rights must have. It risks confusing vulnerable people, attempts to bully schools and institutions, and ignores the consequences for anyone beyond trans youth. It seems the ICCL, TENI and ShoutOut are as willing to mislead trans youth about the law as they are about their biology.
The guide states schools “must” use preferred names and pronouns in all interactions and records, suggesting refusal is discrimination under the Equal Status Acts 2000-2018. It vaguely claims the gender ground “typically covers trans and non-binary people” (pp. 73-74) and suggests complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission could succeed. No such case has succeeded yet, and while a case could be taken, implying likely success lacks evidence and is simply not the settled law they say it is.
The guide references the Gender Recognition Act 2015 throughout, yet legal recognition is unavailable under 16 years of age and non-binary identities get no recognition in that Act. A child cannot legally change their gender in Ireland. A school may support a child’s social transition helpfully, but refusal to do so lacks the legal force implied by these activist groups.
The guide also conveniently omits the Constitution: Article 40.6.1 which guarantees freedom of expression, protecting against compelled speech. No school or teacher can be mandated to use specific pronouns. That would breach staff rights. ‘Misgendering’ is flagged as harassment, but the word appears in no Irish law, and free speech protections will safeguard against compelled speech in non-discriminatory settings. The guide interprets gender protections as covering gender identity, but this remains unadjudicated in Irish courts and schools could very reasonably, legally argue otherwise. Again, children have no legal right to change their gender identity in Ireland.
As usual with trans activists, conflicts with genuinely legal, tried and tested, women and girls rights are ignored. The guide advises trans individuals that they have a legal right to access single-sex facilities based on gender identity, warning of discrimination claims if denied. The Equal Status Act prohibits discrimination generally but explicitly exempts gender-segregated areas like bathrooms, changing rooms and refuges for privacy, dignity and practical reasons. It allows single-sex spaces where “embarrassment or breach of privacy could reasonably be expected” from a person of another gender. And again, children can’t change their legal gender.
We owe an equal duty of care to all students, not just trans-identified ones. A trans student’s bathroom preference doesn’t override a girl’s enshrined privacy rights or protections under the same Equal Status Act. It simply doesn’t. Ignoring that our daughters might face embarrassment or a breach of privacy from a biological male in their space is legally wrong, but it also does a disservice to our daughters to ignore their rights, in the interest of ‘being kind’.
The Children First Act of 2015 is the legal framework upon which schools, or any organisation working with children, must be governed. This Act requires schools and others to pre-empt situations where harm might occur to children by identifying risks in advance, particularly in any space where there might be more vulnerability and to work towards minimising risk at all opportunity. The first duty of the school therefore is to protect children, all children, and that is not secondary to affirming the gender of individual children. It is paramount to their role as safekeepers of all of the children in their care.
Schools also face child protection and parental rights obligations under Article 42 of the Constitution which, while being primarily concerned with educational provision, has been linked by courts to broader child welfare duties in the past and the O’Keeffe v Ireland judgment by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ten years ago, found that the State had an obligation to protect the injured party from the sexual abuse that she had suffered in primary school. Sexual harassment, embarrassment protections and the right to privacy would surely follow.
In workplaces, the guide makes the claim that non-binary protections can be inferred from WRC rulings on individual cases, but these are speculative suggestions and untested broadly. No cases have adjudicated this in wider contexts and so claims of expansive, acquired rights by precedent are wildly hopeful.
In terms of access to healthcare the guide overstates access, risking false hope for vulnerable young people. The report fails to mention in its overview of healthcare, the direct conflict with the Cass Review, led by Dr Hilary Cass in the UK, the largest independent review of these issues which found a lack of robust evidence for medical interventions like puberty blockers and recommended a shift to regional care models, focus on mental health support and called for careful consideration of any hormonal intervention for 16-18 year olds.
In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers that “woman,” “man,” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010) refer to biological sex, meaning sex assigned at birth, and that a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) does not change legal sex for the Act’s purposes. The guide would lead readers to believe that we can ignore such UK legal precedents in Ireland and yet our courts have a long common law history of looking to rulings in UK courts when adjudicating potential cases here and ignoring that fact is dishonest, and legally naïve.
Facts don’t care about your feelings — and neither does the law. Competing rights exist, and trans activists must accept that protections for women and children rest on clear statutory foundations with long-adjudicated legal precedent backed by constitutional rights. Saying otherwise in a glossy brochure won’t change this.
If advocacy groups want trust, they must prioritise integrity over ideology. True civil liberties advocacy clarifies law, it doesn’t trample on women and girls protections or mislead vulnerable people with vague, misguided advice based on legal quicksand. You can put lipstick on your rights, but that doesn’t magically transform them into real legal rights.