Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin have been criticised for re-affirming support for the Gender Recognition Act during this year’s Pride month.
Speaking at the Dublin Pride march over the weekend, the Taoiseach described the 2015 law as “an important step forward for legal recognition and inclusion for our trans community.”
“These developments exemplified how Ireland was changing,” he said. “How we were becoming a more understanding, compassionate, and equal society that all people could be a proud member of.”
He also referenced changes to the Junior Cycle SPHE curriculum, the hate offences law passed last year, funding for LGBT+ NGOs, and more widely available STI and HIV treatment options as evidence of progress for LGBT+ people.
“In our local communities, funding has been provided to LGBTIQ+ projects across the country to promote inclusion, protect rights, and improve quality of life and wellbeing for LGBTIQ+ people,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin’s Equality Spokesperson Claire Kerrane was also asked during a media interview whether her party continued to support the legislation.
“Yes, absolutely,” she said.
“For trans people, it’s healthcare a lot of the time. I’ve met with groups. I’ve engaged with them. Healthcare is a major issue. And I think all of us actually as political parties can learn, can educate ourselves, can listen more.”
However, author and gender-critical campaigner Helen Joyce described the law as harmful to women and misleading in how it is framed by politicians.
“Calling a law that allows men to get paperwork saying they are to be counted as women in all interactions with the state is not ‘progress’,” she said.
“It’s a huge step backwards for women’s rights. To play a full part in public life women need to know that no man, no matter how he identifies and no matter whether the government has falsified his birth certificate, can come into women-only spaces that we need for our privacy, safety and dignity.”
She added: “Sweeping this horrible law under the heading of ‘LGBTQ rights’ is deceptive nonsense.”
Meanwhile, gender-critical campaigner Laoise De Brún, of the activist group The Countess, also criticised the law and the remarks by the Taoiseach and Sinn Féin.
“Michael Martin may well view the Gender Recognition Act as an important step forward for ‘our trans community’ but it has been a catastrophic step backwards for women’s rights and child safeguarding,” she said.
“The impact has been both dark and inchoate. Under this regime, men who say they are women are sent to female prison where they threaten to rape and torture female prison guards, men are sent to female homeless shelters where they beat up vulnerable women, and across Ireland women are losing their female-only toilets in the workplace and schoolgirls are being forced to share their changing rooms with teenage boys who say they are girls and the category of sex in sport is under threat.”
She said the law had tipped the balance of rights away from women.
“The rights of the 51% have been eroded to appease the 1%,” she said.
“I have drafted legislation to exclude prisons from the scope of the gender recognition certificates. Ten years on, the unintended consequences of the GRA are now clear and as a result it must be amended to exclude single sex spaces and sport.”
The Gender Recognition Act allows individuals in Ireland to change their legal gender based solely on self-declaration, without the need for medical or psychological assessment.
Under this legislation, individuals who were born male but identify as female can be legally recognised as women in all state documents, or vice versa. This legal recognition has previously resulted in biologically male offenders, such as Barbie Kardashian, being placed in women’s prisons.
The Act was passed by the Oireachtas in 2015 with cross-party support. At the time, Ireland became one of the first countries in the world to adopt a self-ID model without requiring a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or any form of medical intervention.
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