Sir, – I refer to Dr Chryssa Dislis's letter (March 22nd), where it is claimed that the Gender Recognition Act of 2015 was widely debated in Ireland.
In December 2019, a report on the current state of laws and transgender advocacy was published called “Only Adults? Good Practices in Legal Gender Recognition for Youth”.
This report was put together by the international law firm Dentons in conjunction with Thomson Reuters and the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Youth & Student Organisation (IGLYO) and featured contributions from a range of international law firms and trans rights groups, including the Irish trans lobby group BeLonG To Youth Services. The aim of the report was to be “a powerful tool for activists and NGOs working to advance the rights of trans youth across Europe and beyond”.
The section on how gender self-ID was passed in Ireland is illuminating.
It recommends attaching campaigns to other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation because they provide “a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.”
In fact, the report acknowledges that campaigning in Ireland was “under the radar” and that “this was helpful because it meant that they were able to focus on persuading politicians that change was necessary”.
Debate is not encouraged because the more the public learn about, for example, the medical transition of children, the more likely opposition is to grow.
This is why the report acknowledges that in Ireland “activists have directly lobbied individual politicians and tried to keep press coverage to a minimum in order to avoid this issue”.
Dr Dislis says that “anyone claiming that the legislation was somehow snuck in would need to have been living under a rock to have missed this”.
Well, according to the report I refer to, it is actually trans activists who are making this claim.
In fact, it seems to be a deliberate campaign strategy and one that they recommend in their pursuit of extending legislation to minors. – Yours, etc,
ANDREA KING,
Dublin 15 .