Sir, – I take issue with the claim that the LGBT community publicly campaigned for self-ID laws in Ireland. (Letters, March 16th).
If this had been the case, we all would have noticed. It would have looked something like the Marriage Equality Campaign.
The Gender Recognition Act 2015 was the result of efforts conducted largely through lobbying members of the Oireachtas with the odd article from journalists who follow Dáil proceedings.
There was no national discussion and no risk assessment of the impact on women and girls. I was the chair of the Yes Equality campaign in Mayo, self-ID never came up once because nobody knew about it, including the campaigners.
Lesbians and gay men had to go to the people to ask in a referendum if same-sex couples could marry but our politicians decided on their own to abandon biology as the signifier of maleness and femaleness in Ireland and replace it with the concept of “gender”, which is not defined anywhere in the legislation. It is certainly time we talked about the impact of this Act. – Yours, etc,
JEAN CROSS,
Ballinrobe,
Co Mayo.