Brave New Ireland

‘Oh brave new world, that has such people in’t’ – Shakespeare, The Tempest 

I’ll be voting ‘no’ in both constitutional referendums taking place in Ireland on International Women’s Day 2024. The referendums, if passed, will see the removal of the words ‘woman’, ‘mother’ and ‘home’ from Article 41.2 of the constitution, and will result in a more expansive definition of ‘family’ in Article 41 to include families founded on ‘durable relationships’. 

I was busy being cancelled by the Irish radio station Dublin City FM on International Women’s Day 2023. They pulled a lengthy pre-recorded interview with me just one hour before broadcast. Women who publicly acknowledge the relevance of sex differences are the heretics of our times, committing the blasphemy of biology. We are often censored from the public sphere but at least we do still have a vote. 

It’s the first time I’m voting the ‘wrong way’ in a gender-related referendum, my debut swim against the popular progressive tide. I voted ‘yes’ in 2015 to same sex marriage, and ‘yes’ in 2018 to legalise abortion. It feels slightly discombobulating to be on the side that is frowned upon, condemned by fashionistas. 

One man who voted ‘no’ to both last referendums has advised me that the chance is slim of me being brought on to TV or radio programmes to speak about the referendums as I’m so reasonable. He said that even if I am invited it would likely be a once-off as I would make the ‘no’ vote too convincing. I think he was trying to soften the blow of ongoing ostracisations.

The Government are spinning the referendums as a chance to get rid of sexist and outdated wording in the constitution, to give wider recognition to carers, and to modernise the definition of family. I am spinning the referendums as the erasure of sex differences. In addition, the proposed redefinition of family, although well-intended, is too expansive and could, for example, see my teenage-era pen pal, who I am still occasionally in touch with, reclassified as family as we have what could arguably be considered a ‘durable relationship’. 

These days, to acknowledge sex differences between males and females is deemed ‘problematic’. This is, paradoxically, at the same time as powerful non-governmental organisations promote ‘sex-change’ or ‘gender-affirming’ practices such as the use of binders to flatten breasts, ‘tucking underwear’ to hide male genitalia, bilateral mastectomies for young women, orchiectomies (removal of testicles) for young men, puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for those whose gender identities do not match their biological sex. 

Transhumanism is a movement that advocates for the enhancement of humans through the use of technology. One of the world’s most famous transhumanists, Martine Rothblatt, who underwent male to female sex reassignment surgery in 1994, has written that male and female terminology should be abolished and that ‘We owe it to the children of tomorrow to free their minds from a linguistic prison of sex’. 

Philosophers down through the ages, however, have stressed the importance of opposites. Dr. Iain McGilchrist who wrote the award winning The Master and his Emissary about left and right brain hemispheres and the divided nature of thought, has pointed out that an electric current does not exist in the positive or the negative terminal but in the whole ensemble, the coming together of both. The proposed amendments to the constitution are an attempt to bring about unity by negating difference but, as McGilchrist says ‘We need the unity of the forces of division and unity’, not their division. 

To even point out that women and men have, in general, different interests and physical abilities is viewed by many as sexist and as enforcing stereotypes. Using the word ‘woman’ rather than ‘person with a cervix’ is perceived as old hat and tiresomely out of touch. The fact that so many politicians and academics seem unable or unwilling to answer the question ‘what is a woman?’ means one easy solution is to simply get rid of the word.

A large part of the justification for holding the referendums comes from recommendations made by the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality. The Citizen’s Assembly was made up of a group of one hundred people who were selected to participate in a series of discussions about the topic. These people were not democratically elected.

Chair of the Assembly, Dr. Catherine Day, wrote in the final report that the Oireachtas resolution authorising the Assembly referred only to ‘women and men, boys and girls’. However, the report points out that the Assembly advised those making submissions as part of the public consultation process to: ‘please understand ‘gender’ to refer to any and all options in terms of gender identity’. Why did the Assembly change the meaning of gender to ‘gender identity’? Does this mean that the Assembly understood ‘gender equality’ as ‘gender identity equality’?

Gender is a protected characteristic under Ireland’s Equal Status Act 2000 where it refers to the sex binary: ‘that one is male and other is female (the “gender ground”)’. Gender identity, on the other hand, is an internal sense of a gendered self. Gender identity is not a protected characteristic in Irish equality legislation. Some websites list as many as 107 gender identities (including ‘genderfuck’, ‘eunuch’, and ‘graygender’) whilst others state there is an infinite number. 

What would ‘gender identity equality’ look like, if achieved? Would it mean men who identify as women would be permitted to: compete in women’s sports; use women’s changing rooms; fill spaces on quotas for women; win women’s awards; be housed in women’s prisons, domestic abuse shelters, women’s hospital wards? Would it mean a sports category for each of the 107 gender identities? Would it mean a whitewashing, an erasure, of the acknowledgement of sex differences? Everyone has a biological sex but not everyone has a gender identity. 

The current wording of the Irish constitution recognises that women and mothers play an important role in the home. This does not negate the vital role that men and fathers play in the home. Nor does it confine women to the home or tie us to the kitchen sink, the dishwasher, or the cooker. We have had a female president in Ireland for twenty-one of the last thirty-three years. Women, thankfully, have the freedom to develop rewarding careers in areas that can be freely chosen. Women can work towards the professional levels that we aspire to, as can men. 

The current wording in the Irish constitution gives women and mothers a solid foundation for wider recognition in Irish society and provides a basis on which to strengthen current laws that support women and mothers and their work, including in the home. In a world of technological advances, AI, sex robots, assisted reproductive technology and gender reassignment surgeries, it can be easy to forget that the heartbeat of humanity begins in the womb. 

Aldous Huxley, in his 1932 novel Brave New World imagined a dystopian future in which technology would standardise the population and iron out inconvenient differences. In the Ireland of today, technology and gender-neutral language are being used to deny differences between the sexes. Deleting the words woman and mother from Article 41.2 of the constitution is a step towards the erasure of sex differences on the path towards a dystopian ‘brave new world’.