Gender Chaos

Chaos theory is the idea that tiny actions can have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. A butterfly stirring its wings in Hong Kong causes tiny ripples in the atmosphere that are amplified over time and can, down the line, result in something as extreme as a storm in America. In July 2013, an Oireachtas (parliament) committee meeting in Ireland about transgender health created ripples in Irish society that are still expanding with waves increasing in size. A storm could be coming soon.   

By July 2013 the Irish Government was already committed to bringing in a system of gender recognition so that people could legally change their gender. The major issues being discussed at that point were what requirements should be in place for people applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), and what age limitations should be imposed.   

The Gender Recognition Advisory Group (GRAG) which had been established by the Government in 2010 had the task of advising the Government on the best approach for gender recognition in Ireland. The GRAG’s well-researched and comprehensive report was published in 2011. It had recommended a gender recognition procedure that would be largely based on the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004.  

The GRAG recommendations included that applicants must be at least 18 years old, must have spent a minimum of two years living in the changed gender, and must have either a formal diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) or have undergone gender reassignment surgery. By the time Ireland’s Gender Recognition Act 2015 was passed four years later, however, all of these recommendations had been scrapped. 

Good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. In 1937 America, a chemist named Harold Cole Watkins was working to develop a liquid form of the popular and effective anti-bacterial drug sulfanilamide. This followed a request from parents who said the tablets were difficult for children to swallow. Watkins discovered that sulfanilamide dissolved in diethylene glycol. The medicine was put on the market. Between September and October 1937, Elixir Sulfanilamide caused the deaths of over 100 people including many children. Watkins hadn’t known that diethylene glycol, commonly called antifreeze, was a deadly poison.  

The law of unintended consequences means that actions of people and of governments produce unplanned effects. Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward in 1958 aimed to increase Chinese industrial production, but the movement of workers from agriculture to industry contributed to a famine that killed up to 30 million people. The Great Leap Forward also led to widespread environmental destruction including desertification and soil erosion after huge areas of forest were cut down for wood to fuel furnaces. Policies, even when developed with good intentions, can have unforeseen, negative, and far-reaching consequences.  

On the 4^th of July 2013, an Oireachtas committee meeting took place to discuss transgender health. Several people addressed the committee that day, including Dr Philip Crowley from the Health Service Executive (HSE), the organisation responsible for public healthcare in Ireland. During his speech, Dr Crowley said:  

“The HSE endorses a gender recognition process which places the responsibility for self-declaration on the applicant rather than on the details of a medical certificate or diagnosis.” 

At the time, Dr Crowley was already working closely with the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland (TENI). In 2011 he developed a transgender health working group that included members from both the HSE and TENI. Dr Crowley also said at that July meeting: “A very capable organisation like TENI is an obvious partnership for us because we are, relatively speaking, clueless in regard to the issues.” 

As the legislation for gender recognition was being worked through the Irish houses of parliament, Dr Crowley’s July 2013 statement about self-declaration was reiterated by numerous elected representatives who used his words as an argument for moving away from the requirements recommended by the GRAG and towards a self-declaration model instead. By the time the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2015 was passed, the Irish government had accepted gender self-identification with no requirement for either medical diagnosis or treatments.  

TENI works to support transgender people in Ireland and to alleviate some of the many challenges they face in their day-to-day lives. Understandably, TENI focuses specifically on the needs, wants and wishes of transgender people. It’s not within their remit, and is not their goal, to consider female prisoners, women’s sports, detransitioners, or women who want single-sex changing rooms or other single-sex spaces. The HSE, on the other hand, as a public health organisation, has a duty of care for all the people of Ireland. Changes they initiate in the interest of one group have a knock-on impact on others.  

The impacts of the GRA 2015 are wide-ranging. As of February 2023, there are two male-born transgender prisoners in the women’s wing of Limerick prison – both of them detained for sexual offences; Irish children with gender dysphoria are still being sent to the discredited Tavistock GIDS clinic in London; gender identity theory is being rolled out as fact in Irish schools including in booklets published by the HSE; and the Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) has just introduced a policy allowing males who identify as girls/women to play on women’s teams.  

Of the 1,200 Gender Recognition Certificates issued in Ireland since 2015, over a quarter were issued last year. The 318 GRCs granted in 2022 represents a 66% rise from 2021 when 195 were granted. These numbers compare to the GRAG prediction of 20-25 GRCs a year.  

The number of detransitioners is also rising. Since 2015, five people have applied to change back to their original gender, and two of these applications were last year. Genspect, an international organisation that works to support people with gender-related distress, has confirmed that they are now providing services to assist several detransitioners in Ireland.  

Meanwhile, the close working relationship between TENI and the HSE has deepened even further. Between 2017 and October 2022 the HSE gave TENI over €1.3 million in funding. Their relationship influences healthcare for patients with gender identity issues. One guide published by the Irish College for Gender Practitioners (ICGP) is informed by a HSE report developed by a steering committee chaired by Siobhán Ní Bhriain of the HSE, with Dr Philip Crowley and the then chair of TENI (Sara Phillips) as committee members.  

As recently as August 2022, Siobhán Ní Bhriain of the HSE defended the decision to continue sending Irish children to the Tavistock GIDS clinic which is due to close this year. In an interview on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Ní Bhriain said the Tavistock had not been deemed unsafe and said in relation to concerns about the clinic that “we satisfied ourselves that the evidence wasn’t there to support what we were hearing.” 

American sociologist Robert K. Merton’s article The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action was published in 1936 but is still relevant today. Merton identified ‘ignorance’ and ‘error’ as the two main sources of unanticipated consequences. Another source was “imperious immediacy of interest” – meaning that sometimes people want a specific outcome so badly that they wilfully ignore any unintended consequences.  

Arguably, all three of these factors – ignorance, error, and imperious immediacy of interest – have contributed to the unforeseen consequences of gender self-declaration in Ireland. The purposeful ignoring of these outcomes is perhaps the most dangerous of the three as the implications of the current system become more and more apparent and more widely felt.  

Transgender people in Ireland need care and consideration. It’s good and right that there is an organisation dedicated to their interests. The Irish Government as well as organisations such as the HSE also need to consider transgender people. However, they must balance this with the consideration of all people in Ireland. It’s now time to take off the blinkers and face up to the wider social consequences of the GRA 2015 and the roll-out of gender ideology through all sectors of Irish society. If forecasters cannot see the storm approaching, precautions cannot be taken, and preparations will not be made.