Last week, I spotted something in The Irish Times relating to a guide produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, with support from the State's human rights watchdog, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC. Basically, it stated that schools must use the preferred name and pronouns of transgender students who should also be allowed to use the bathroom of their preferred gender.

This is all in this guide on the rights of trans people. We all agree that, when it comes to schools, there should be an approach of compassion, gentleness and awareness of the many challenges that children who are confused about their gender face. What concerns me, however, is that two legal advocacy bodies, one of which I understand receives quite a lot of money from foreign sources and the other of which receives a considerable amount of money from the taxpayer, are basically pushing an idea that certain approaches on schools are somehow legally mandated. Their narrative on this is cloaked in the language of legality. In the guide, it states, “your school must make every effort to update your name and pronoun in relevant systems and documents". A layperson reading this would think that the laws in this area are clear, have been passed and that things have changed and everything in the guide is mandated. This is pure dishonesty on the part of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and IHREC to the extent that they stand behind such an approach. They are trying to pretend that the law is clear in this area when in fact our courts have not determined meanings around gender in the way they are leading us all to think. At most, occasional equality officers or minor tribunals have made decisions in particular cases that they may be attempting to point to. I am raising today my objection at the dishonesty of these organisations that are cloaking their advocacy in legal language and pretending the laws of this State require schools or other institutions to act in a particular way. Many of these approaches are highly controversial and not evidence based. The law is certainly not clear in this regard. The courts have not pronounced. Legislation around equal status, for example, was passed long before the whole current gender identity debate started. This is a call for honesty from these State-funded and so-called public interest NGOs. It is also a call for a debate so that we can hear from the relevant Minister about what the law says.

Hear hear.

Everyone is talking about Enoch Burke - there is a lot to criticise about the way he has gone about what he has done - but let us find out what is the law in this area and what kind of law and policy we want to have guiding schools when it comes to dealing with the problems of children with gender dysphoria and, indeed, the needs of their parents and families.