LEGISLATION.
The Gender Recognition Act (2015) was brought in by stealth and with no public consultation. Bills like Hate Crime and Anti-“conversion therapy” criminalise dissent from gender ideology. The legal protection of the Equality Acts (2000) must be protected.
The Countess is the first group that we know of in any jurisdiction to seek to amend existing legislation to protect women from the double punishment of being incarcerated with men (Gender Recognition (Amendment) (Prisons) Bill 2023. The Bill was introduced to the Dáil by Peadar Tóibín and passed first stage. We are working hard to progress it through to the next stage.
The Countess was one of the first groups to begin campaigning against the introduction of the Hate Speech and Hate Crime Bill. Although the Hate Speech element has been dropped (as of Sept 2024), the Hate Crime Bill seeks to collapse the gender ground by the inclusion of “transgender and 'gender other than those of male and female'” in the Hate Crime Bill. The definition of gender in the Bill is as follows: “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”.
The majority of people we surveyed do not agree that adults should be allowed to self-identify as the opposite sex without any medical checks and balances, as currently stands in the GRA (2015).
The words woman, mother, and girl, and others used to define us as females are being erased in law, policy and everyday conversation. If we cannot descibe ourselves we cannot fight for our rights.
LANGUAGE.
Across areas of healthcare, sport, public policy and law, the words woman and girl have been redefined to include men who say they are women, or else changed altogether.
It was The Countess who spotted that the words woman and mother were removed from draft maternity legislation. The Free Period Products Act does not include any reference to women or girls.
The term lesbian has been redefined to include males, and women who object are ostracised and chastised, accused of bigotry, and (internationally) being sued if they refuse to comply.
The latest attempt to erase womanhood came in the form of the March 2024, which was roundly defeated by a largely unfunded grassroots campaign. The Countess was the first to declare a No campaign and canvasses and campaigned widely.
An in-depth look at the origins and impacts of this trend can be found in our paper The Erosion of Sex-based Language in Irish Legislation and Public Discourse.
