Irish Woman who was Refused Entry to NWC’s Annual Meeting has Lost her Discrimination Case

An Irish woman who was refused entry to the National Women’s  Council of Ireland Annual General Meeting in June 2022 has lost her case for discrimination that she brought before the Workplace Relations Commission. Article in the Sunday Times 5th November 2023

On the 9th of June 2022 Sarah Holmes attended the National Women’s Council AGM but was denied entry despite having a ticket. She had previously emailed the NWC asking questions about their policy shift to prioritize the rights of males who identify as women over biological women and girls. On the day of the event an organisation ‘The Countess’  a non-profit, volunteer-led organisation formed to promote the rights and interests of women and children in Ireland staged a peaceful protest across the road from the event. The Countess had issued a press release in advance. On the basis of this press release the NWC decided to refuse entry  to members of “The Countess” and to those who aligned themselves with its views.

The NWC incident prompted a national debate for three days on a popular radio show, Liveline, on the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ. Sarah took a case against the NWC, citing discrimination, to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), the state body responsible for enforcing equality legislation. Sarah approached the Free Legal Advice Centre (FLAC) to represent her in the case. FLAC listened to Sarah’s summation but then refused to help her. FLAC went on to represent the NWC in the case which was adjudicated over the course of two hearings, and submissions from both sides, between March and September of 2023. In October 2023 the WRC ruled in favor of NWC. 

This is Sarah’s statement:

I brought this case because our Equal Status Act does not provide protection for beliefs.This should be of concern to everyone in Ireland. Gender identity theory, a new and unevidenced belief system, has been foisted upon the Irish people by government agencies, education curricula and non-governmental organizations. Individuals must embrace this belief system or risk facing discrimination. The cases reported in the media of men such as Barbie Kardashian in Limerick women’s prison and Shauna Kavanagh who assaulted a woman in a women’s homeless shelter and was on remand in the Dóchas women’s prison demonstrate that this is not a moral panic, these are legitimate concerns that need to be discussed.

The National Women’s Council has failed to address widespread concerns about the impact of the 2015 Gender Recognition Act on the lives of women and girls in Ireland. In fact, it has embraced gender identity theory. Their website states: ‘By ‘woman’ we refer to any person who identifies as a woman’. This is a controversial point. I don’t believe that any man who identifies as a woman can suddenly become a woman. I’m an atheist, I respect the rights of others to believe what they wish to believe but this does not extend to complying with any demand that puts women at risk and undermines safeguarding. I don’t believe people can identify out of the body they are born in and suddenly become the opposite sex. No man should have the power to force women to go along with their demands in this regard.

The NWC has sought to silence women who understand the societal implications of allowing men who simply ‘identify’ as women to freely access any and all spaces created for women and girls. A direct consequence of this approach is that men are being, and have been, housed in the female wing of Limerick prison.  These men have been convicted of violent and sexual offences that are statistically far more likely to be committed by males than females including: threats to torture, rape and murder, multiple counts of sexual assault and cruelty against a child and assault causing harm. This is a women’s rights issue. 

In 2020, the National Women’s Council signed a letter that called for people who believe in biology (i.e. people who believed that human beings cannot change sex) to have their right to political and media representation removed. This action, by a state funded organisation founded fifty years ago to fight for women’s equality, prompted me to email them with my questions and concerns. 

My questions remain unanswered, I wanted to attend their event in order to raise the issue of the dropping of the word ‘woman’ from the 1994 Maternity Protection Act. I had a valid ticket on the day but was denied entry because my views aligned with other women who were holding a peaceful protest outside. The only risk I posed was that I would have asked difficult questions. Are we now in a position that anyone who might ask difficult questions should be barred?

I was horrified when the NWC made the decision to deny me admission to the event. I wanted to attend their event and ask my questions in a calm and reasonable manner should the opportunity have arisen.I had asked similar questions in an event where the NWC were in attendance 6 weeks prior and received a round of applause. But as I found out during the WRC case they had already flagged me as a ‘risk’ prior to my arrival, they created a ‘risk assessment’ the day after my registration on the 3rd of June 2022, 6 days before the event. I’m a 5’3” married mother of three with no history of violence. It is unacceptable that the NWC could present me as a ‘risk’ simply because I may have asked questions they did not want to answer.

Men and women are different biologically. The decision of the NWC to believe that men can identify as women is controversial. I don’t hold that belief, nor do millions of people.  According to the NWC, men can identify as women without any hormones or surgery or even a Gender Recognition Certificate. Consequently, we now have a man who identifies as a woman sitting on the board of the women’s council. Meanwhile ordinary women like me are banned from their events if we question the reality of this belief.

What has been demonstrated here is that there is no mechanism to raise valid concerns with the National Women’s Council about the safeguarding and wellbeing of women and girls, whose rights they are funded by the taxpayer to promote and defend. They have never responded to my emails on the risks and consequences of men accessing women’s sports, prisons and single sex spaces.

The WRC decision cites one of the NWC witnesses from the hearing, quoting ‘she said she had no evidence that the Complainant was a risk and no evidence that the Complainant was not a risk.’ That statement can be made about any other woman who was allowed into the event on the day. Hence it is clear that I was not allowed to enter due to my beliefs which I had manifested in my emails. The WRC cited case law Mongan v. The Firhouse Inn, DEC-S2003-034-35, where there was recurrent destruction of property, when making their decision. The questions and valid concerns of women are now likened to actual violence. 

It is my view that the WRC went this route to avoid being faced with the actual issue at hand: do women have the right to reject gender ideology without facing repercussions? Are our beliefs protected?

It is important to note that the NWC attempted to get me to drop my case by engaging outside the WRC process using a file which they later admitted had been altered in preparation for the WRC case. The original ‘risk assessment’ document, which the WRC requested the NWC hand over, does not align with the evidence that was provided by their witnesses under oath.In their verbal testimony the NWC claimed that they classified people who presented a risk to the AGM as “anti-NWCI” and they defined this term at length. Within their evidence they claimed it was a generic risk assessment to assess anyone who might be against any NWC policy. In fact the actual term used by NWC in their risk assessment was “anti-trans” not “anti-NWCI”, showing the NWC can tolerate dissent on any policy apart from their policy of prioritising men who identify as women over actual women. The NWC edited the risk-assessment to change “anti-trans” to “anti-NWCI” months after the AGM when NWC were contacted by the WRC notifying them I was bringing this case and then tried to conceal this from the WRC. It is my belief that this file was altered to mislead the WRC and hide the contempt that women who question gender identity theory are held in. The second version of the document was only finally handed over after my insistence at the second hearing because I refused to accept a document that was created four months after the event. In their judgment, the WRC admitted it was ‘regrettable that the correct and original Risk Assessment was not provided to the Complainant and the WRC’

The National Women’s Council also consistently ignored WRC guidelines on providing submissions in advance and they brought data into the hearings which they did not have permission to retain. There is now a case ongoing with the Data Protection Commission to investigate the GDPR breach and I await a decision.

Over the course of the case the NWCI admitted they had not followed the response process recommended to them by the WRC, they stated that instead they chose to ‘ignore me in the hope I would go away’.

The NWC uses the tagline ‘no woman left behind’ but this is a lie.Thousands of us have been left behind. The NWC cannot fight for women whilst simultaneously trampling on our rights. The NWC would do well to remember Audre Lorde famous words ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House’.