Ms Leslie Sherlock:

I would like to pick up on a couple of points. The marriage contract and the marital legal right provide a very useful comparison. In the context of the medical assertion made, I return to the fact that a very small number of medical people in this field have a vested interest in keeping this in the legislation in order to protect their own businesses and incomes. The issue of personality disorders or mental illnesses is irrelevant. Any crazy old individual can enter into a marriage and any person should be able to enter into a recognition of his or her gender identity. It should not matter what mental state the person is in. It is also a useful comparison in terms of the reversal and the fact that we can have divorce which was introduced in Ireland quite late but with good reason. As Deputy Brendan Griffin stated, including this provision in the legislation is not reckless, rather it reflects reality. What is the problem with this?

Sport is probably an subject in respect of which this issue will need to be addressed but probably not by this committee. However, I urge members to consider this matter from the perspective of protecting transgender people, as opposed to further stigmatising and oppressing them.

In the context of the constitutional issues and comparisons with Austria and Germany, I imagine it would be quite difficult for any member of the committee and for us, as activists, to make comparisons with these countries in the absence of both a firm legal opinion and an interpretation of the Constitution. It would be extremely challenging for anybody to make a decision on the point on divorce when there is no firm interpretation or legal opinion on the constitutionality of forced divorce.