Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Social Protection

Gender Recognition Bill 2014: Committee Stage

1:00 pm

Photo of Aengus Ó SnodaighAengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 11:

In page 9, line 18, to delete "18 years" and substitute "16 years".

This relates to what we were discussing earlier in respect of the change by the Minister which some of us supported. So far we have not been able to persuade him to change the age from 18 to 16. As a result, the people in question would not need parental consent and it would not be as onerous. It would be a recognition of the change in society and, in some ways, its maturity. Even the Minister is looking at reducing the age to vote, but can we ask people to vote at age 16 or 17 if we do not recognise who they are? That is a very big statement to make and something about which we have had a big debate over the past two years.

There was a bit of lobbying, not just from those with a vested interest but from young people's organisations, who told me that 18 was too high a threshold for quite a number of rights to kick in. They asked that we advocate that it be reduced to 16, given the maturity that many young people have expressed. Many people who are over 18 are immature, but the key part is that, at the age of 16, the vast majority of people who might benefit from this have already gone through life being recognised in a gender that is not their own. As things stand we are compounding that for an additional two years. Many of them will have struggled against what their bodies are telling them and it is only in their teenage years that they start to understand fully and become able to express to the adults around them that they are not of the gender that was prescribed to them. At the age of 16, most will have become aware, and if we allow them to do many other things at the age of 18 and grant them a whole range of rights and entitlements at 16, another one should be to decide on these issues. It is an onerous decision for a person to make - that this is not who they are but that they are of a different gender. They do not wish to hide it any longer and they want formal recognition by society that the gender on their birth certificate is wrong.

I know Deputies have strongly held opinions. I have received lobbying on this legislation from both sides, in Irish and English, and there are very strong views, but the vast majority of people who have contacted me have gone through the trauma of living their teenage years in a gender that is not their own. It behoves us to look again at this, either now or, if the Minister is not prepared to move, in the next short period of time to change this provision to give proper recognition to the 16 and 17 year olds who are in this position.

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