Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On days like today, when we meet in a space perceived to be safe to discuss my identity and politics, we should be mindful of the fact that many of our brothers and sisters across the globe still literally have to put their lives on the line to do likewise. I refer particularly to members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and intersex, LGBTQI, community in Uganda and Russia who face horrific levels of oppression and violence. I express my solidarity with LGBT Americans who have taken to the streets of their cities. Our brothers and sisters, friends, allies and communities, wherever they are in the world, should know that they are not alone. Their persecutors should also know that we do not accept their violence or hate which we will overcome with love and compassion.

On Friday, 27 June 1969 members of the LGBT community engaged in physical action on the streets of New York City to assert their rights to equality and justice. Contrary to a whitewashed narrative, the Stonewall riots were led initially by women, black, trans and homeless citizens. Seven weeks later, on 14 August 1969, the government in London deployed British troops to the streets of Derry and Belfast and soldiers would soon shoot 26 unarmed civil rights protesters off the streets of Derry. I am a proud beneficiary of the LGBTQI community. I am also a republican, a socialist, an internationalist, a feminist and an environmentalist. These are struggles that interconnect and parallel, sharing a demand for self-determination. When we talk about LGBT rights on this island, we are talking about partitioned rights. The rights of the LGBTQI community, like all other communities which transcend the Border, continue to be partitioned.

Our national outlook is islandwide and global in that it is inclusive of the diaspora across the world. Marriage equality must be extended with immediacy to citizens and residents across the Border. No thinking person in this Chamber could stand over the fact that LGBTQI people can marry in Dundalk but not in Newry. If anyone in this Chamber is in any doubt as to why the lights are off in Stormont, just look this way. All-island marriage equality is alongside a Bill of Rights and an Acht na Gaeilge, as well as respect, diversity and equality. The civil marriage referendum redefined what it meant to be Irish. It told the world that there was no single proposition for Irish identity, only diversity. It is in that spirit we can build a new Ireland, a reunified Ireland, not only at peace from the gun but also one in which citizens would be at peace in their lives, free from scapegoating and the search for the other. We cannot escape from the fact that partition continues to place a ceiling on imagination for this island. It crushed a cultural movement and split the national movement from the labour movement. It triggered a counter-revolution and copperfastened two deeply conservative states in which religious control and censorship were the order of the day. The political establishment in the State facilitated that grip to control our laws, the education system, the health care system and even our consenting sex lives.

In 1993 I was 15 months old when homosexuality was decriminalised. I cannot give personal expression to the impact of criminalisation on the LGBTQI community, but I can understand the taboo it created. It created an unwillingness on the part of establishment politicians to deal with the likes of the Hirschfeld Centre in Dublin city's cultural and social space for lesbian and gay men. One thinks of issues such as giving a real and a genuine response to the HIV crisis, homophobia and public beatings of gay men. One thinks of various sexual offences, including rape, that were allowed through a legal get-out clause because of the laws criminalising gay men and that air of criminality. Both before and since the referendum on civil marriage equality, my boyfriend and I spoke and have spoken about what prospects would be if the referendum were to fail or had failed. Our discussion centred on whether we would stay in Ireland. Thankfully, I cannot answer that question. How many people have we lost to Ireland because of criminalisation? Can anyone tell me how many lesbians and gay men left the State because of that air of criminality?

We still do not seem to consider the consequences of criminalisation. Take, for example, the individual who is addicted to drugs and dealt with in the justice rather than the health system, which plays into the hands of individuals who seek to marginalise and feel comfortable in calling someone a “junkie”. We need to think about the impact of criminalisation on certain sections of our society and the impact it creates for all of us. We need to redefine it in the interests of the public good.

Irish women and the LGBTQI community share, in the most unfortunate commonality, the historical and contemporary criminalisation of their bodies and lives. Today women who seek out what should rightfully be theirs are also considered criminal. Young people, particularly after the marriage referendum, identify with that shared sense of oppression and marginalisation. A message is emerging loud and clear that Irish women and our society deserve better. Older generations are advancing a narrative which lays bare the misogyny and deeply ingrained sense of prejudice faced by women since the foundation of the State. There was the horror of institutional abuse in the industrial schools and the Magdalen laundries, as well as the symphysiotomy scandal, the Neary scandal and the Bethany Home scandal. There were cases like those of Louise O'Keeffe and Senator David Norris which were pursued all the way to the European court by the State which also intimidated other victims to drop their court cases. For me, the referendum on civil marriage equality acted as an apology to the LGBTQI community. I believe the repeal of the eighth amendment would do the same for women.

I welcome the Bill and thank Senator Gerald Nash for bringing it forward. The fearlessness, enthusiasm and energy of LGBTQI people who were forced to endure criminalisation have empowered my activism and others of my generation. In everything I do I attempt to acknowledge their struggle, for which I thank them.