WOMEN'S
PRISONS.
Women and children’s rights, protections, and freedoms are eroded when individuals are treated as if they have changed sex, either in law or policy. Irish women are being subjected to double punishment because men who say they are women are being placed in the women’s estate.
Since the GRA 2015 was enacted, we know of at least four men who have been placed in the women’s estate. We are not aware of any women who say they are men being sent to the men’s estate. The Countess has produced a detailed paper on prisons which has been sent to the Irish Prisons Service. We will engage with IPS until this issue is satisfactorily resolved.
In summer 2023 we ran info stalls and garnered public support for our Prison’s bill, the first of its kind in a jurisdiction with gender self ID in law, which seeks to remove prisons from the scope of the Gender Recognition Act (2015) and immediately protect women in state custody.. The general public are horrified that these men are allowed to self-id as women and be sent to the female estate.
SINGLE-SEX
SPACES.
Irish laws and policy have changed the meaning of sex and women’s rights to privacy, dignity, and safety are under threat from men who say they are women. If these men are allowed and enabled to act as if they have changed sex, women’s spaces become de facto mixed sex. This is happening in prisons, homeless shelters, refuges, hostels, services, sports, toilets, changing rooms, and hospital wards.
Safeguarding of children requires that they be able to identify who is male and who is female. Girls and boys need privacy in their changing rooms and toilets. No child should be forced to change or use the bathroom with members of the opposite sex.
The Countess has campaigned against the use of “gender-neutral” (i.e. mixed sex) toilets in secondary schools. This is being rolled out by the Dept of Education in their plans for new school buildings.
