Culture wars 'weaponised' against LGBTQI+ community

Ireland a progressive nation but LGBTQI+ people face 'significant barriers to full participation in public life'

Equality Minister Roderic O'Gorman said LGBTQI+ people do not always feel safe in public places. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Imported culture wars are being "weaponised" against gay and trans people, the Dáil has been told.

TDs on Thursday took time to make statements on LGBTQI+ rights and equality ahead of this weekend's Dublin Pride Festival.

The statements were kicked off by Minister for Children and Equality Roderic O'Gorman who said that Ireland has "become a proud, progressive, and modern nation that supports and cherishes all people equally" but that LGBTQI+ people continue to "face significant barriers to full participation in public life" and do not always feel safe in public places.

Mr O'Gorman's party colleague, Waterford TD Marc Ó Cathasaigh said he is "worried and concerned" that Ireland is "beginning to see an importation of culture wars that are being waged elsewhere where debates around these issues are becoming weaponised and are being used to stoke fears and to sow division".

"The debate around trans rights has become increasingly heated in Ireland over the past number of weeks," he said

"It is a debate around somebody’s basic right to exist. We always have to be conscious of that. 

"It seems that the highly divisive and destructive battle lines drawn in the UK on this issue have been imported to Ireland despite the fact that the laws on trans rights have been in place for seven years now and to my mind have had no ill effects on anybody. 

Trans people are like everybody else, like myself. They just want to live their lives and to be left alone. They do not need to hear their right to exist debated.

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy was asked by the Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl to refrain from criticising recent RTÉ Liveline shows which discussed trans issues. 

Mr Murphy went on to say that it was "a lie" to say that the 2015 Gender Recognition Act had been somehow 'snuck' through.

"The problem for the transphobes, of course, is that we have the Gender Recognition Act and clearly the sun and the sky did not fall," he said.

"It was not something that was quietly lobbied for by elites in the corridors of power. It was actually fought for from below by people struggling, particularly personified by the heroic Lydia Foy."