Ten years of the GRA in Ireland and the concerted effort by the state to force gender ideology on the Irish population has harmed Irish children.
This deep-dive by Safeguarding lead, Judith Murphy, who is a retired social worker with many years of experience working with vulnerable children, exposes the insidious and pervasive nature of gender ideology in Irish schools and clubs, the impact this has on child development and safeguarding, and the implications for Irish children of this wholesale adoption of this unproven ideology. The paper lays outs out how official government policy forces schools to implement policies that harm children and how activists are controlling the narrative. Judith ends by analysing the impact within families when children identify as trans and the impact on children when their parents do.
Although these changes cannot all be laid at the door of the GRA, as many of the developments were already in motion prior to this legislation being passed and may have come to pass without it, the fact that such a law was introduced made the claims of trans activists a legal reality in Ireland. They successfully introduced the idea that “it is a human right to have one’s gender identity acknowledged by the state”. The mantra “transwomen are women and transmen are men!” is officially true. In other words, the Irish state has adopted gender ideology. The state was then, and is now, completely invested in LGBT+ inclusion policies, which are mostly about “trans”.
LGBTQI+ organisations, most prominently TENI and BelongTo, assumed the role of being unquestionable experts on the subject of “transpeople” and especially so called “trans children”. Their views on what “trans” is, how “transpeople” need to be supported, and how everybody else has accommodate their wishes are treated as gospel. Gender ideology has become mandatory in Ireland.
Children are coerced into this belief through the policies, strategies and guidelines presented in this paper, the most insidious of which is the Cineáltas Strategy on Bullying from the Department of Education for primary and secondary schools.
Neither state nor school should have the right to compel anybody to believe something. It is not democratic, it is not constitutional, it is morally wrong, and it is abusive to children.
Gender identity belief or gender ideology is based on a falsehood, a lie that denies the fundamental reality of what it is to be human. There are few facts so basic, observable, and true as the fact that that humans come in two versions: male and female. We know what their roles are in procreation and that sex is important.
Gender ideology denies the fact that this is extremely important for humans, families, and children. It denies all we know about human development but insists that the made-up story that humans have a gender identity which determines whether a person is male or female, a man or a woman, a father or a mother is a fact.
Every basic understanding of life is turned on its head by this ideology. We are asked to pretend somebody we clearly identify as male is female, and vice versa.
We are asked to pretend that some people are so different, and beyond reproach that they do not have to adhere to basic rules, and that their needs and wishes come before everybody else’s.
Child safeguarding principles suddenly do not apply when the word “trans” is involved. Neither children who identify as trans, nor all other children, are being kept safe. Parents are under suspicion by the trans experts that they harm their own so called “trans child” when they don’t agree to affirm a child’s declared gender identity. Parents are expected to surrender their rights and authority over their children to the trans experts. Children are asked to do all of this too, in schools, youth groups, sports clubs….
Young people are harmed when they are told that they can change sex, and that changing sex will resolve their distress. They are told on the one hand that they are the most vulnerable and marginalised group of all, and on the other hand they are so special that they have the right to tell everybody how to address them, what pronouns to use for them, to accept them in the toilets, changing rooms, bedrooms, sports, etc of their choice. They have the right to decide who is allowed to know their new identity and who is not, and if they change their mind the next day, everybody has to accommodate them again. Worst of all is that they are told that everybody who does not pander to their wishes is their enemy and wants to harm them.
These messages are not conducive to their emotional/social development, nor to their mental health because their distress will not resolve. Most people will not accommodate them and “living as their preferred gender” can never make them the opposite sex, both sexes or none. Their wellbeing will depend on validation from other people.
Transgender Ideology is destructive and not sustainable because it is based on a lie! The GRA should not be used to implement it.
The full paper can be downloaded here: