Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

For Pride month and indeed Pride week, I want to talk about a key part of my community that continues to be left behind. As much needs to be done to improve the lives of trans people here in Ireland, I will list out some of the ways we can improve trans people's lives in Ireland and there might be something for parties to consider as we are in manifesto-writing season and, perhaps, thinking about programmes for Government the next time around. These are all things which have come up through consultation with the community.

The first issue is trans healthcare. Access to gender-affirming healthcare is very difficult in Ireland and is particularly difficult for trans and non-binary or gender non-conforming people. The waiting time is now estimated to be ten years. That is an excruciating wait and a ten-year wait is, quite frankly, not healthcare. Healthcare provision in ten years' time could be completely different. We need: to implement WHO and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, WPATH, guidelines within the national gender service; to implement a model of informed consent for general practitioners that allows people to begin HRT; to ensure a community care-based approach to ensure that gender transitioning services are local and accessible; to develop a paediatric gender service in line with international best practice; and to establish and develop gender-affirming surgeries within Ireland and within the public health system because, currently, anyone who wants to avail of gender-affirming surgeries must go abroad and fundraise to do so.

On education, we need to ensure that relationships and sexuality education, RSE, is comprehensive, inclusive and age-appropriate regarding issues of gender identity on transgender and non-binary recognition. We need to look at the Gender Recognition Act to allow for non-binary recognition and to allow for 16-year-olds to change their gender without court order or medical referral.

The final issue is around hate crime and safeguarding. We need to ensure that all hate crime or legislation which relates to minority or stigmatised groups is comprehensive and complete in covering trans and non-binary individuals. We need to improve equality legislation to explicitly include gender identity as a protected characteristic. Current legislation allows for interpretation of gender identity as a protected characteristic but it is not explicitly included.

We also need to ensure that in instances where gender segregation is provided for by primary or secondary legislation, for example in the Departments of sport or of justice, that transgender individuals have their gender affirmed and adequately recognised and that in the relevant equality legislation that their human rights are upheld. We also need to implement a ban on the so-called conversion therapy that is trans and non-binary inclusive.

It is important during Pride Week that we not only stand, celebrate and go for our Pride coffee mornings, that we will be marching through the streets over the weekend and that we celebrate how far we have come in politics and in legislation but that we also recognise that there is great deal more we need to do. I have discussed this before in this House and I am sure I will raise it again before this term is up, as we eke our way towards the end of it, that we still need to do so much more for the LGBTQ community, but particularly for the trans community. So, I say happy Pride. Trans rights are always human rights and we need to do a little more on that.