Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)

I wish a happy Pride to everybody who is lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning or intersex and anybody who has diverse ranges of sexual identity, gender expression, gender identity and sex characteristics. I would like to focus my comments on one particular community within that, and that is the trans community. I missed the Minister of State's speech but I will look back at it. I want to focus my comments on that community for two reasons. First, it is an area I know about. I was lucky enough to do some work with Transgender Equality Network Ireland in helping it develop its strategic plan a number of years ago. Second, this is one community who need more than any other our allyship as a population and our leadership as politicians. The reality is that for trans people in Ireland, although we have progressive gender recognition legislation, the outcomes for people in the transgender community are far more challenging than for those of us in the cis community. Employment is harder to access; education is harder to access; and healthcare, of course, is critical and, unfortunately, very difficult for people in the trans community to access.

The reality is that trans people face discrimination daily. My trans friends tell me about trying to enter restaurants and other public spaces where they are routinely refused entry, shamed and stigmatised in different ways. That is simply not good enough. More than that, there is a hugely problematic toxicity around the discussion of trans rights now. People are politicising certain areas like access to public bathrooms, trans athletes and trans participation in sports, and the safety of trans women and the dangers they face. Unfortunately, what we lose in that is people's ability to simply show that leadership and allyship. People are too scared. I say to all politicians: if you do not understand trans rights, learn; if you do not know enough about this, find out, look for that information and seek the support groups and the representative groups, who will tell you. Unfortunately, within all this, when it becomes so toxic to simply discuss trans rights and their realisation, we lose the celebration of the trans community. We fail to see the joy and happiness that is experienced by a trans person who is able to be their full selves in this world and participate fully in society. As long as we lose that, we are failing that community as political leaders and as a population of allies. That is something I intend and commit to do throughout my term as a politician. At every juncture possible, including on the committee on culture, communications and sport, where I will seek to talk about trans participation in sport, I want to promote the rights of trans people and I want to remove this toxicity and stop the weaponisation and the politicisation of trans rights as a recruitment ground for far-right ideologies and get us back to a point where we treasure, cherish and nurture one of the most marginalised communities in Irish society.

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