Column: Why is the government delaying a law to recognise transgender people?

This article published today in The Journal brings up an interesting topic which has not gotten much press on this site. That topic is transgender rights, or LGBT rights in general. Yes, this does include but is not limited to the gay marriage debate.

As the article above points out -

Ireland is now in clear defiance of a High Court judgment that said the law on transgender persons was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. And this country is now one of only a tiny handful of European states that still do not recognise transgender people.

It is now just over 15 years since transgender woman Lydia Foy began a legal action to get a new birth certificate as a woman. Ten years later the High Court ruled in her favour, using a new statute that brought the European Convention on Human Rights into Irish law.

Judge Liam McKechnie, later promoted to the Supreme Court, ruled that Ms Foy’s rights under the European Human Rights Convention had been breached and granted the first ever declaration that Irish law on this issue was incompatible with the Convention.

Our government has been ignoring a high court ruling as well as EU statues for many years now. When asked about the subject our TDs seem to ignore to dance around the topic at every interview. We have witnessed Enda himself almost take out a row of shrubbery in efforts to avoid the topic. Yet not just a few weeks ago our government said this -

“On many previous occasions I have outlined the reasons why it is necessary for us to proceed to sign this Statutory Instrument in order to ensure compliance with our obligations under EU law”

That then brings up the question of why was it so important for the government to force the SI down our throats, quietly, secretly, before the media was even aware what was happening yet when a similar issue arises involving the rights of our own citizens the very same politicians do not take the same stance and in fact ignore the issue.

Is this because they are just against this issue or because they are not getting some financial compensation from the groups involved? Could it be that protecting the rights of American music distributors was higher on the agenda than protecting the rights of a minority group of Irish citizens to our government?

I have emailed a few in my area to see what they have to say. I also have asked them their stance on gay marriage as to have my TDs on the record.

Does anyone else see a discrepancy here? What can be done to get our government to go after the issue with the same due diligence they did when fighting for the rights of American corporations here in Ireland? Why is it our government happily enforces laws when it involves big money corporations in America, yet quietly ignores human rights abuses of Irish citizens?

Its funny that the most sexually repressed countries like Ireland have the worst sex abuse of children, etc.

Yet they still sit high and mighty.

God knows what goes on in Muslim countries.



The same Priests who go around in frocks and whos whole world view is emasculated condem this stuff, shows how mixed up they are.

Have you any figures on the amount of Irish born transgenders? There have been reports on them since at least the early 1970s.

Unions, employers and political parties have also ignored this issue as it is not mainstream and there has not been much call for it. It does not significantly impinge on or affect the general mass of workers, work places or elections.

Before any sectarians attack me, I have been involved in is discussions on this issue and have been more informed than others there for the simple reason that those others, who are paid to be informed, are almost totally uninformed.

Probably because there isn't enough pressure for it. Big businesses make sure they get the legislation they want, as you point out re: music. Afaik 3 Irish people a year seek sex re-assignment surgery, so that's probably not of major importance to the government. Also, LGBT rights groups are ploughing ahead with gay marriage as their primary issue, leaving gender recognition on the back burner. Perhaps once marriage is sorted, they'll put more effort behind gender recognition.

Originally Posted by CptSternn

Why is it our government happily enforces laws when it involves big money corporations in America, yet quietly ignores human rights abuses of Irish citizens?

Oh the irony...

They showed that various big-business groups had become, as early as the turn of the twentieth century, "corporatists" or "corporate liberals," anxious to replace quasi-laissez-faire capitalism by a cartelized corporatist system, directed or even planned by Big Government in intimate partnership with Big Business, and creating Big Unions to participate as junior partners in this new "mixed" economy. The push for the new corporate state was generated by an alliance between corporatist big-business groups and technocratic intellectuals, eager to help run and to apologize for the new system, which promised them a far plusher niche than did a freely competitive economy.

Much of this historiographical battle has now been won. The Progressive Era is now generally seen as a period dominated by just such a coalition, engineered by big-business groups like the National Civic Federation; the "war collectivism" of World War I is now seen as the culmination of the Progressive dream instead of its destruction, as previously believed; and Herbert Hoover is now widely and correctly perceived as one of the first corporatist New Dealers instead of the last champion of laissez-faire.

The Business-Government Alliance by Murray N. Rothbard

Its quite a circular argument, those who claim to have empathy for various oppressed elements of our society are in bed with the above cabal.

We live an increasingly absurd world.

Remove your penis and you are still a man. You can't beat the genetics of it.

Remove apeendages if you wish.
Change your name by deed poll if that is what you want
Live like a member of the opposite gender if that floats your boat.

But to demand a legal right to re-write your birth certificate is a nonsense.

I always wanted to be trapped in a woman's body- Anne Hathaway's.

Originally Posted by Tombo

But to demand a legal right to re-write your birth certificate is a nonsense.

i was wondering that, while I believe no gov has the right to restrict how people live their lives , the clue is in the name of what the document is. Its hard to argue that the doctors made a mistake so I see no valid reason to insist on changing it , only change the rules where having to produce the cert would cause complications or introduce another document that has equal validity

Tombo

The birth certificate is a key testament of our identities. Your identity should be a matter for yourself not the state and where there is a conflict the individual should decide. Why are you happy for people to change their name but not their gender. They are both just words on a document.

Originally Posted by simeongrimes

Tombo

The birth certificate is a key testament of our identities.

but its a document at a point in time. An identity card would be something that is updatable. If someone changes their nationality they dont ask to have their prior passports taken out of the system.