“By permitting a man to legally become a woman, the GRA destroyed the rights of women and girls to single-sex spaces (toilets and changing rooms), services (domestic violence refuges, rape crisis services) and sports (including contact sports). We’re now in the position of having to fight to regain these hard-won rights.
It takes just one man to make these spaces, services and sports mixed-sex, and all he needs to do is fill out a form and pay €10.
Imagine a law that allowed white people to declare they are black or adults to declare they are children. There would rightly be uproar. Yet women are supposed to accept that any man can say he’s a woman, or be called a bigot.” (letter to The Sunday Independent, 8thJune 2025)
Ten years ago this month the then Government agreed to change the "medical model" of the Gender Recognition Bill to "self-id" and it became law on 15th July 2015. The Gender Recognition Act claims to be able to change the sex of those who believe they have a “gender identity” which differs from their sex simply by filling in a form and having it witnessed. The Act says:
18. (1) Where a gender recognition certificate is issued to a person the person’s gender shall from the date of that issue become for all purposes the preferred gender so that if the preferred gender is the male gender the person’s sex becomes that of a man, and if it is the female gender the person’s sex becomes that of a woman.
A Freedom of Information request as to whether any type of impact assessment was carried out in the planning for the Gender Recognition Act was refused on the grounds that
"The record concerned does not exist or cannot be found after all reasonable steps to ascertain its whereabouts have been taken," (Section 15 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014.
Sex cannot be changed
It isn’t possible to change sex which is determined at conception and can be identified in every cell of the body. Hormones and/or surgery cannot alter it.
A small number of men and women are born with a Variation or Difference in Sex Development (DSD), about 40 or so genetic conditions. Transactivists frequently use the term "intersex" to promote the idea that sex is on a spectrum but this isn't true. Some DSDs affect men e.g. Klinefelter Syndrome, or women such as MRKH syndrome. There is no third type of sex.
"Variations are not a form of sexuality or gender identity; they are about physical differences in a person’s reproductive development and sometimes genital development."
Doctors care for the tiny number of babies noticed at birth with a DSD (see Section 20 (a) in the Draft Combined Fifth and Sixth State Report of Ireland to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in October 2021) and there are support groups like DSD Families in the UK to help. Some variations are not diagnosed until puberty.
Many of those with a DSD have asked not to be used by gender identity activists in their lobbying. DSD Families advise teachers to "avoid imposing terms like 'intersex', which may alienate or further stigmatise pupils."
"Dsdfamilies have heard of children with DSD having panic attacks when finding out that they may be labelled as intersex," says the support group in a guide for schools. "It is important to remember that few who are diagnosed with a DSD uses this term themselves."
Instead they do as the rest of us would, use the correct term for whichever genetic condition they may have e.g. CAIS, PAIS, Turner Syndrome etc. Clearly these have nothing to do with gender identity ideology:
"Teachers also must ensure external agencies are appropriate and their content is in line with schools’ legal responsibilities. Schools should be particularly aware of this if inviting LGBT+ speakers into school. Many of these organisations tack ‘intersex’ onto their training, despite having very little expertise in the area.
Schools should ask external agencies if they plan to include 'intersex' in their materials. If so, they should work with them to ensure content meets with the advice in this guide. If this cannot be done, the speaker should be asked to leave 'intersex' out of their materials, or schools should find a different agency to work with."
How many Gender Recognition Certificates (GRC) have been applied for?
Applicants can also have the GRC issued in a different name to that on their original birth certificate and can apply for a new birth certificate.
"Birth certificates that are issued following the issuance of a Gender Recognition Cert retain their original details except for those relating to sex and forename (where applicable) and are similar in appearance to any other birth certificate. There is nothing to indicate that this certificate is a “re-issue”. Like all certificates it will contain the date of issue and original date of registration/re-registration (re-registration means the entry in the register was updated to include the father’s details, or to show that the parents married, on a date subsequent to the initial registration)."
Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, May 2020
Only 1,582 number of people had applied for a GRC by the end of 2023. A 2014 retrospective study of those with suspected or confirmed gender dysphoria (GD) found that
"The prevalence of GD in the Irish population was 1:10,154 male-to-female (MTF) and 1:27,668 female-to-male (FTM), similar to reported figures in Western Europe. 159 of the patients were MTF and 59 were FTM, accounting for 72.9% and 27.1% of the cohort, respectively."
This represents 0.0098% of men and 0.0036% of women.
Autogynephilia
Dr Ray Blanchard found there were two types of men who identify as women. He coined the term "autogynephilia" to describe an extension of transvestic fetishism in which the majority of these men get sexually aroused imagining themselves as women. Autogynephiles are generally heterosexual. Of those men who identify as women the proportion who are autogynephiles "...had reached 75 percent by 2010, and it might be even higher now," said the adjunct Professor of Psychiatry in 2019. (He doesn't believe autogynephilia exists in women.)
Dr Blanchard says
"The flat denial that autogynephilia exists became a canon of modern trans activism, trans activism become a sub-department of the Social Justice Movement, and the Social Justice Movement became a primary combatant in the ongoing, pervasive Culture Wars."
What are some of the consequences of this Act for women and children?
Others are raising awareness about the effects of this Act as it percolates through our education system, even to the very youngest, with an insistence that children be taught about "gender identity" ideology in schools. Lesbians are finding men are gaining access to their spaces through self declared identities, and they feel unable to prevent it out of fear of being labelled hateful or transphobic.
Use of women’s toilets, changing rooms where women and girls are more vulnerable, in a state of undress or on their own:
Some men and boys are already taking part in women's sports e.g. LGFA, camogie and golf. There was a Head 26 in the general scheme of the Gender Recognition Bill in 2013 which allowed for participants to be excluded in the interests of safety and fairness but this was opposed by TENI, the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland and the Equality Authority as well as the Irish Human Rights Commission (these latter two amalgamated and are now IHREC, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.)
"What is the LGFA saying to women and girls about their value when they tell them they must include males in their sport? That they must undress in front of them and be denied fairness and safety on the pitch? Why do females have so little value in the Gaelic Games 'family'?" asked Gaels for Fair Play last week.
Some women are also complaining about men using women's facilities in the workplace, even where there are “gender neutral” toilets provided. A few boys are also doing so in schools even though under the age of 16 they’re unable to even get a Gender Recognition Certificate.
Our Equal Status Act 2000 provides protection for women and girls by allowing single-sex provision in certain cases e.g. where privacy is an issue, and it defines the “gender ground” for this as being “that one is male and the other is female.” (Sec 3 (2) (a)). No matter what a man believes, he's still male.
Yet asked if the Gender Recognition Act 2015 means that a man who self-identifies as a woman is entitled to access any and all female-only spaces and services former Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys said in 2021 that it was up to the courts to decide.
Although activists have told many organisations and businesses that such men are entitled to use whatever facilities they want to, it’s possible that the courts will find otherwise. For now women are uncertain as to what their rights are if a man comes into a women's changing room or toilets.
e.g. Dublin Bus: “Trans employees will be permitted to use the facilities that correspond to their gender identity.”
Clonturk Community College: “When a person who is transitioning begins to live in the gender in which they identify, they will normally start to use the toilets appropriate for their identified gender.”
IBEC: “Every employee should have the right to use the bathroom/changing facility which aligns with their gender identity regardless of the sex they were assigned at birth.” And in a Sample Gender Identity and Expression Policy policy it goes further and states:
Dublin City Council: “A trans person should be free to use the facilities (toilets, changing rooms, showers) which match their gender.”
In addition, if the planned "hate speech" provisions dropped from the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 are reintroduced then it's possible that any woman calling out a man for entering a women's space such as a changing room may risk being prosecuted for "hate speech" given the novel definition applied to "gender":
The Government also promised to protect "gender identity " in our equality legislation in the 2020 Programme for Government. This hasn't happened yet but it's worth noting that Darren Merager who entered the women's area of the Wi Spa in Los Angeles sparking huge media attention was enabled to do so as "Merager seized on the right to do so as California’s legislature passed gender self-identification in 2018."
Women in refuges put at risk:
A man with a Gender Recognition Certificate was placed in the Novas women’s refuge in Rathmines where he assaulted a woman. He’s also been placed in the Dóchas women’s centre at Mountjoy Prison as well as Limerick women’s prison.
Men in women’s prisons:
The two women’s prisons are repeatedly the most overcrowded in the country yet there have been at least four men identifying as women in our prisons: three were sex offenders and one, Barbie Kardashian, was moved into the men’s prison in Limerick from the women’s section despite having a GRC. It was reported recently that another transgender prisoner is in custody in Cloverhill prison, and it’s understood that there was another in the Dóchas in the last year or so.
Ireland conforms to the statistics found elsewhere which show that "..despite identifying as women the male-born transgender prisoners retain their propensity for male-type crimes."
"Official figures released by the MOJ [Ministry of Justice] in 2018 show that half of all known transgender prisoners counted in April 2017 had at least one previous conviction for sex offences." say Fair Play for Women in the UK.
Media reports in the last decade:
There have been plenty of reports of the risks to women and children in allowing men or boys into women's and girls facilities, including mixed sex changing rooms.
Research by The Sunday Times in 2018 showed that
"Almost 90% of reported sexual assaults, harassment and voyeurism in swimming pool and sports-centre changing rooms happen in unisex facilities, which make up less than half the total."
There are also reports of girls skipping school to avoid sharing mixed sex toilets with boys. A woman said she felt violated when a man used a mixed sex toilet while she was in it. Allowing boys into girls toilets could break the law, the UK's Telegraph reported two years ago but it's reported to be happening here in some schools. In a particularly cruel twist, the new School Design Guide for school toilets says that urinals must not be provided which means that for girls there is the added risk of urine sprayed over toilet seats in schools if only mixed sex toilets are available.
There are also multiple media reports of men who identify as women who have been convicted of sex crimes against women and children such as Karen White (Stephen Wood), Isla Bryson (Adam Graham), Katie Dolatowski, Lexi-Rose Crawford (Dominic Risden), Lexi Secker, Marcia Walker (Mark Walker), Joanna Evans and Andrew Miller (Amy George) who abducted a primary school pupil. The judge
"Lord Arthurson previously described the 'abhorrent crimes' as the 'realisation of every parent's worst nightmare'." and
"He added that Miller being dressed as a woman was an aggravating factor as he doubted that the girl would have gotten into the car if Miller had presented as a man."
Legislators passing the 2015 Gender Recognition Act may not have foreseen the consequences of allowing men to "identify" as women but the results are becoming very obvious now and it's women and children who will continue to pay the price unless legislators take responsibility and #RepealTheGRA.
