“Sinn Féin health spokesman apologises for praising biological definition of women as ‘common sense’” ran a headline in the Irish Independent last week as its Waterford TD (MP) flip-flopped in his reaction to the UK Supreme Court ruling this week on the meaning of the word “woman” in the 2010 Equality Act.
Five years ago David Cullinane was reported as defending shouting “up the Ra” (IRA) in the “excitement of the night” when celebrating Sinn Féin’s sweeping victory in first preference votes in the General Election.
Then Cullinane said “I certainly don’t set out to offend anyone, that’s not my style.” But today it seems Sinn Fein has no problem offending women.
A day after tweeting his welcome of the ruling by the Supreme Court Cullinane was apologising. As one woman tweeter put it: “They prefer to give a man a dressing down than upset the ones dressing up.”
Sinn Féin has form on this. Another TD Chris Andrews also found himself in hot water a few years ago when he dared to like tweets which supported women’s sports being for women only. The trans-identifying Sara Phillips, then chair of the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) expressed “hope to at some point get some context from him and discuss with him as to why he feels he should be liking and sharing those tweets.”
Many NGOs promoting the ideology are largely funded by the State
TENI, a beneficiary of funding from the US Rowan Foundation, said this week’s clarification on the law was “a “step back” for human rights” and that it was “encouraged by the fact that this narrative has not made its way to Ireland.” The heavily State funded National Women’s Council of Ireland posted on social media that it was “Standing in solidarity with our trans sisters and trans community in the UK.” This morning in The Irish Times the leading letter was from a woman pointing out that the courts decriminalised homosexuality after previously upholding it. “Sometimes the law takes a while to catch up,” she said.
It’s further proof, if any was needed, that the gender identity lobby brooks no dissent. The carapace so carefully constructed here with a generally compliant media to shield Irish people from Terf Island’s contaminating thoughts hasn’t prevented gender identity activists importing their ideological thinking from abroad, with generous foreign funding to go with it. Many NGOs promoting the ideology are largely funded by the State.
Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE found its TV licence revenue dropped by €20m two years ago in the wake of “payments, financial and pay-off scandals”. Last year we learnt RTE will get a guaranteed €725m in a public funding bailout over three years. Two months ago it was reported that €5.7 million from State media regulator Coimisiún na Meán was being provided to media outlets “as part of its new journalism schemes, which intend to ‘support high-quality independent journalism’.”
Despite the attempts to silence or ignore women critical of gender ideology, most notably in the infamous letter signed by various NGOs including the NWCI, Amnesty International and the Irish Penal Reform Trust which called “on media, and politicians to no longer provide legitimate representation for those that share bigoted beliefs” the resistance by grassroots women is growing.
The Countess advocacy group, the largest of these, which emerged in 2020 commissioned a poll in 2021 which provided “clear evidence that Irish law is out of step with public opinion.” A majority of adults were in favour of single-sex facilities and care provision and the figures are likely to be even higher now that the effects of the law are more visible, with men in women’s prisons and in women’s sport and changing rooms.
Former Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys responded to a parliamentary question four years ago about whether the 2015 Act “means that a man who self-identifies as a woman is entitled to access any and all female-only spaces and services” by saying:
These questions seek an interpretation of the law. The Deputy will appreciate that, as Minister, I am not in a position to offer any such interpretation, as such matters are reserved for the courts.
The group Gaels for Fair Play has pointed out already this week that the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA):
…has adopted a policy that allows biological males to participate in women’s teams and access female-only changing facilities. That policy is now in direct conflict with UK law, which explicitly protects the right of women to single-sex sport and single-sex spaces.
Although the 2010 Act does not apply in Northern Ireland, where equality law is fully devolved, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland has said its initial view is that the judgment would be considered “highly persuasive” in the jurisdiction and “likely to be followed in cases where similar issues arise.”
In Ireland south it looks like it’s going to be left to ordinary women, like the thousands who gave a few pounds or more to For Women Scotland’s crowdfunder, to try to challenge the consequences of the Gender Recognition Act which an 84 per cent male Dáil (lower house) passed ten years ago yet doesn’t appear to be able to explain what it means in practice.
One glimmer of hope is that our 2000 Equal Status Act protects single-sex provision, with no mention of “gender identity”. Should a challenge be taken by one or several of the increasing numbers of women here who object to policies and practices that are resulting in men using women’s facilities in the workplace or changing rooms then the definition of the “gender ground” provided in this Act may prove significant. The Act makes clear that the protections are based on sex:
As between any two persons, the discriminatory grounds (and the descriptions of those grounds for the purposes of this Act) are (a) that one is male and the other is female.
One significant fly in the ointment however is that the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) whose advice the Government has signalled it will be informed by has been championing the addition of “gender identity” (and other word concoctions) yet the term is strangely absent from the recently published general scheme of the Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2024.
In February the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth said there were “a number of areas still under consideration, and the current Government may choose to progress these in addition to the proposed Bill.”
Of course it’s possible that the Government took fright after the decisive defeat of the two referenda last year which were clearly gender ideology or queer theory informed and which was followed by the rapid resignation of former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. It might also have something to do with the 84 per cent of responses to the public consultation on our equality legislation which related to the topic of “gender”. The 2023 Equality Acts Review reported that “Throughout the submissions, the proposal to specifically include gender identity within the Equality Acts was contentious”
But it would be a mistake to think that the activists inside and outside of Government circles will give up easily. Women, and those who care about the safeguarding of children, need to be on guard for what happens next.
