Get connected in Ireland
Click here to get in touch with our country contact in Ireland.
Gender ID laws:
The Gender Recognition Act 2015 allows people over 18 to self-declare their gender. Young people of 16 and 17 must provide a court order and testimony from a parent or guardian. Full text of the act is available here.
The Countess - Advocating for Women and Girls in Ireland
Jill Nesbitt: Gender recognition in Ireland
Interview with Laoise Uí Aodha de Brún: It's easier to change your legal sex than to be Irish....
Latest news:
November 2022: Irish women held the very first public meeting in a packed out 200 seat venue on 12th November which was kept secret until the night before. The all women panel included WDI Norway’s Christina Ellingsen, barrister Anya Palmer, author Helen Joyce, psychotherapist Stella O’Malley, educator Rev. Prof. Anne Lodge, religion lecturer Colette Colfer and Iseult White, granddaughter of Amnesty International founder Seán MacBride. Iseult spoke about the chilling effect of hate crime legislation in the same week as Ireland’s Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Crime) Bill 2022 began being rushed through the Dáil (lower house of parliament). The new bill says that “gender” means the gender of a person or the gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender or with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female”.
Also covered at the meeting was gender identity ideology being included in the curriculum in Irish schools and what parents can do about it; biology as the new “blasphemy”, why we need to speak freely about gender, and what legal option may be open to Irish women in the wake of the Forstater judgement. The mainstream media largely ignored the event with the exception of The Sunday Times, the Law Society Gazette and the Irish language Tuairisc. Several of the speeches can be found here and some of the recorded talks have been uploaded to Women’s Space Ireland You Tube channel.
March 2022: Ireland is holding a Census on April 3rd and is obliged by the EU to analyse all the information by sex. However the Central Statistics Office (CSO) in online guidance says that "if you are uncomfortable" ticking either male or female "you may signal this by marking both boxes". Despite this all entries will be "assigned a sex, where this is not clearly indicated on a Census form it will be assigned at random." A media report from last year revealed that the CSO informed gender identity lobby groups [2] such as TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) and BeLonG To as well as a Hate and Hostility Research Group of what would be included in this year's census.
"A spokesperson said that the CSO census office engaged with interest groups for the purpose of informing them that the biological sex question would remain, as well as seeking their "views on advice, within these constraints, as to what can be suggested to people filling out the form who do not feel that either category correctly reflects their gender identity". So while the CSO says it's anticipated that a question on gender identity will be included in the next census in four years time gender identity lobbyists have been allowed to influence the collection of accurate data for this one in 2022. Four Irish women's groups are running a joint campaign urging the public to protest by adding "believer in biology" to the religion question on the census.
Also: Ireland's first survey on the public's views regarding 'gender identity' was carried out in June 2021. Fewer than one in five (17%) respondents agreed with Ireland's legislation permitting someone to change their birth certificate as soon as they self-identify as the opposite sex. "This is the first time the public has been given a say on gender self-identification. When the government passed the Gender Recognition Act in 2015 it did so with little thought of the effect it would have on the wider community, let alone consultation with groups that would be most affected, particularly women."
September 2019: Male sex offender placed in Limerick Women's Prison. Click here to read article from the Irish Law Society Gazette.
Spinster
Gettr