 I welcome to the 20th meeting of session 6 of the Qualities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. We have no apologies for this afternoon's meeting. Our first agenda item is to continue to take an evidence on the Gender Recognition Reform Scotland Bill. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the meeting Senator Regina Doherty, leader of the Irish Senate. I refer members to paper 1 of the papers and can I invite Senator Doherty to make a short opening statement, please. Thank you, Joe. Thank you to the members for inviting me here today. Before I suppose at the outset, I just want to wish you every success with the passage of the current legislation that's before you. We are a number of years ahead of you, not that many, but a number of years ahead of you in Ireland. In 2014, the Gender Recognition Bill was published. We started its journey through both houses—the debate, obviously, second stage, committee stage, report stage—seeing it amended through finally being signed into law by our president in July 2015. Arising from that bill, being enacted and being on the statute books for a number of years, the bill was a change in law to recognise the change of gender of a person and to provide gender recognition certificates that were legally binding and to amend the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Acts that were on our statute books from 1956, the Civil Registration Act that was there since 2004 and the Passport Act and the Adoption Act all to reflect the now new law that allowed people, obviously, to change and to be recognised as the gender that they presented in. That act was going well for a number of years and we had reports and reviews at the end of every year of the amount of people that actually engaged with the act. When I became Minister for Social Protection in 2017, I put together a small review group because one of the criticisms that would have been made of the act in 2015 is that it did not do anything for people who were non-binary and it did not do anything to recognise that people under the age of 18, obviously, you do not just wake up at 18 and two weeks and decide. Some of these journeys start much earlier for some of our citizens. To have a look at the confines of the legislation, we put together a review group that encompassed all of the NGOs and the advocacy bodies that would represent the people that we were trying to enact the legislation to the betterment for, but also all of the people that would have had genuine concerns, particularly when we were talking about 16 and 17-year-olds. If we wanted to extend the conversation further to under 16-year-olds, an awful lot more people with an awful lot more concerns reared their hands to be heard. I established that review group in 2018. The body of the group was incredibly professional. I did have a robust debate, and the review lasted a lot longer than I expected it to. By the end of that year, the review group came together with a comprehensive review and recommendation to the act. One of the main findings of the review group was that the legislation that existed and enacted around 16 and 17-year-olds was far too onerous. The people that we were meeting that were trying to navigate through that police legislation as enacted, who were in the 16 and 17-year-olds group, found it far too cumbersome. We proposed a group of measures to reform the process. Reflecting in the legal recognition of a person's gender is distinct from any of the medical interventions that may or may not be available in Ireland or in any of our neighbouring countries. We wanted to find a very clear but simple path for children between the ages of 16 and 17 by introducing an arrangement for self-declaration. The parental consent by both parents, the support mechanisms that were to be introduced to support the parents supporting their children in those decisions was hugely important and was to be established. It was also important that a simple revocation process should anybody find that they had made a mistake or changed their mind or were still navigating the journey of their sexual liberation, that they could change the process, literally by family mediation coming together, changing their mind. As simple as it was, it changed in law through the certificate of recognition. It could be changed back again if the people so wished. We put together those reviews and recommendations, and I put forward at the time that it was towards the end of 2019. I put forward those recommendations to the OPLA, which is our parliamentary drafting people, to come back to me with legislation to enact those recommendations from that review. Unfortunately, from my perspective, and maybe for some of the people that I was trying to advocate for, I lost my seat in the general election of January 2020. The review has sat on a desk since then, unfortunately. There is no sight of it being revived so far. However, to be fair, the enactment of the act in 2015 for 18 years and older is working incredibly well. It is working seamlessly. It was working very unassumedly until very recently. We never had any of the kind of debates, divisive debates, that we would have seen both in the United Kingdom, in America and in Canada. We did not have those types of divisive debates in Ireland during the 2015 enactment or during the review of 2019. We are, for some reason, not driven by any changes or proposed changes in legislation. We are experiencing that divisive debate at starting now. There is a very small but growing campaign looking and seeking for us to repeal the Gender Recognition Act 2015. I fear that we might have a summer of discontent ahead of us, but if we act with the dignity that we have acted with up to date and recognise that every human being, regardless of their gender, serves to be treated with respect, compassion and humanity, we will hold on to the values that will be espoused in the legislation of 2015. We are now going to move to questions starting with Karen Adam, please. Thank you, convener, and welcome, Regina, to the committee. It is lovely to see here today. Thank you for your opening statement and for really helping us to understand the path that the bill had went through. I would just like to take it back a bit to the very beginning of that and ask what was the context of introducing the bill in the first place and what was the case made for it and was there any opposition to it? At the time, the Government at the time was a coalition of the Labour Party and Finnegale, the party that I represent. There had been a small debate, it is the only way I can describe it to you, because I think that you know we are talking about a relatively small community and probably far less so in the Republic of Ireland than we would be in the United Kingdom, but there still was an absolute need to recognise that there were citizens, both young and indeed old, living a lie in so far as the state did not recognise the true people that they were living the lives of. A lot of the people that had come to us to look for advocacy were already living the lives of their new assigned gender, but the state were just making it difficult. The thing that impassioned me so much is that we have an organisation in Ireland called Belong to one of our LGBT groups, they look after children and I met the parents of some of the children who were experiencing enormous difficulties because simple things that you and I would take for granted if you were going through a passport control office and you present yourself as one but your passport says something, it was causing some of our younger people some major difficulties, but actually at the same time it was causing some of our adults to feel that they had been living in the shadow of their true self for so long. Now that they had finally recognised and arrived at the space that they were happy and comfortable with, the state still wasn't recognising that new person for the life that they were living. To us I think it felt like it was such a small thing in law to do because it is distinctly different as to the medical journey that people have to go through for changes of gender if they do want to go through medical interventions. It felt like it's such a small thing to do to allow people in the 21st century to be able to live the life as the gender that they feel that they are, that they know to be true for themselves. When you look at the legal changes that we had to do, first of all it was just a self declaration for an adult to go through the changes of the identification documents that they would have, whether it be a card over here called a PPS card, which is a personal identifier card for people to access with the state services, then obviously you would have your passport. We changed it so that you could go back to your birth certificate and get changed if that journey started for you much, much earlier than it did for some other people. We just looked at the real life stories, albeit of a very small group of people that were coming in to us telling us that those changes would make an enormous difference for the state recognising these people for who they truly were. I suppose like Ireland and Scotland are very similar. We have a lot of centrist politicians. We do have politicians on the left and we have a very small grouping of what we would call politicians to the right of centre. Some of those conservative views did express, you know, change. It wasn't necessary that it actually wasn't—they talked a lot about a theory, a gender identity, whereas an actual fact, it is a reality for the people who were living the experience and so kind of—but the debate that we had was very—it was very respectful, which is not something that I've seen in other jurisdictions and it's not something that—we've a growing debate at the moment in Ireland and it's not respectful. I sometimes look back when we went through that process of enacting the legislation in 2015 and then when I did the review, it really felt like it went under the radar. There was terror debates in the Parliament and both in the Shanadan and the Erachtis. We had to go through all of the stages and every other piece of legislation goes through all of our media we're watching, so it wasn't that we did it on a Sunday evening. We did all of the things that we do with all of the other legislation, but there wasn't that device of negative debate and there was a real humanitarian view that this was such a small thing in legislation but such an enormous thing for the people whose lives that we were helping obviously be better. That's great and when you touched upon there about the state recognition, I did a back reading on this and there were a few people saying that in regards to the amount of people coming forward and coming out, it did increase but it was because they felt more protected and respected by the state and that was incredibly important for them in regards to the equal marriage legislation and the gender recognition legislation so that confirms what you're saying there. In regards to the diagnosis for gender dysphoria, the bill that we're looking at at the moment would be removing that aspect of it and also removing the gender recognition panel. This note has been done by yourselves and I was just wondering how has that progressed, how has that been the whole process without it being connected to a medical diagnosis? I think one of the things that the opposition, the people who oppose the bill at the time were absolutely adamant about was that it needed to have a medical certificate to go along with it so I couldn't just arrive tomorrow and say that I've been struggling and I want to identify as gender X. What I needed to do was to go through what is in Ireland and it may not be true of other jurisdictions, a very protracted, very long waiting list, we have very small numbers of professionals in this area, in fact we only have two in the country and even though we have a small community of people who certainly isn't enough obviously to address the issue but what we were doing in the department that gave rise to the legislation had nothing to do with the provision of medical services or nothing to do with the allocation of a medical diagnosis and so there are some people who are I'd say blessed in so far as that their journey from one gender to another isn't as traumatic as it would be for others or isn't as medically intense as it would be for some to others but this simply was to give legal recognition not to help assist in getting up the queue of the medical interventions if that's what you needed in any way shape or form, you still had to do all of the things that you would have had to do beforehand and that still is a dismay to a lot of us in this country but what this was was just changing the legal process to make it easier for you so to our mind there was no need for an adult there was somebody over the age of 18 to have any recognition from any doctor to say you know your grand I can acknowledge that you need to change you were an adult and you were entitled on and out in this new law to make that decision for yourself and that's why when we first introduced the legislation it was easier for us to say if you weren't an adult if you were 16 and 17 that you did still need that medical intervention and it wasn't because the review isn't a better route to go with just a consent of parents because I believe it actually is and it would be a lot less cumbersome it attempted to give solace to the people who were really railing against the idea of being able to self-determine in law and change for your legal documentation it gave them some connection and some protection as they felt it was that children wouldn't be able to do it the argument was to do it willy nilly as if anybody does anything like this without an enormous journey of top-provoking change and challenge but to be you know on the balance of trying to be you know progressive but also be recognising that there are some concerns there we tried to do both and so the 16 and 17 year olds in the first legislation had to go through that medical certificates it didn't work and that's why the review was so easy to try and come to you know a new recognition which is such a pity why it hasn't passed any progress since 2019 but the thought that an adult as in anybody over the age of 18 would require a medical doctor to say that you are what you are when you know in your heart and soul and you've lived the life and are living and want to live the life that you want to live we didn't feel that they needed to have anything to do with the doctor unless there was a medical intervention journey required and that was a personal choice of the person that's really helpful Regina thank you thank you and if we can I go to Pam Duncan Glancy please thank you convener and good afternoon senator thank you for joining us and for the information you've given us in advance it's invaluable and also the answer so far I've been really helpful I I want to go kind of straight into one of the areas of contention around the bill and I think you've kind of alluded earlier to it but I'm really keen to hear from you as a legislator about how how you navigated this so you'll know that a lot of the contention around the bill as proposed is that it could negatively impact on women's ability to access single sex spaces and so I wondered what your response to that is if you could tell us a little bit about how the legislation in Ireland has interacted with women's rights and their access to single sex spaces and then finally if you could comment on whether or not you've seen any abuse of the self declaration model for bad faith acting men trying to use the self declaration system to for bad faith basically thank you do you know you might find this very hard to believe given the debate that had previously happened in scotland and particularly the debate that started in the united kingdom and still rages on we didn't have that in 2015 I genuinely cannot explain to you why we didn't have it because we did all of the pre-legislative scrutiny that was required all of the advocacy bodies votes for people within the LGBT or trans community or the non-binary community were all there you know living breathing and praying that this got through we didn't have a huge amount of negativity we do have today however in light of we're changing a piece of employment law legislation in the next couple of weeks and we're proposing to change one of the language in the maternity act of the bill I think that the current language is around pregnant women and we're proposing to change the language to pregnant people to be an all-encompassing terminology the same way as you'd have chairperson as opposed to chairwoman chairman and nobody bling tonight and it is the debate in Ireland around those safe spaces for women the fact that you know there's a real fear that's growing because a woman might be fearful of her safety from a trans man or a trans woman who might invade a space in Zara when I'm trying on a new frock whereas the debate is put distinctly separately that all women and I don't mean this to be disrespectful to any of our male colleagues here today or my own colleagues all women have safety issues with regard to male violence and it's something that we talk about a lot we talk about the domestic violence we talk about conversal control all of the changes that we've made to legislation in the last number of years are around the fact that male violence impacts society and it doesn't just impact women you know it impacts men it impacts children and we all recognise that and we do our best to obviously try and mitigate that but the notion that women now have to fear a man dressing up as a woman getting a gender identity certificate so that he can threaten me in a dressing room or if we ever did have single sex toilets I don't know if you have them in Scotland but we certainly don't have them over here yet to me it's kind of fanciful when you recognise that in the Irish state women have issues with regard to safety because of male violence and I don't think a man who wants to be violent towards a woman needs to go to the extent of changing his certificate gender you know through a certificate so that he can get access to me in the dressing room of Zara or wherever it happens to be I think it's a false misnomer a genuine I think we've a debate that happened a number of months ago because we have a number of prisoners in Limerick prison in the south west of our country who are in a female prison who identified as female after they had been arrested and charged and to my mind first of all the law is that they can change their gender if that's what they want to do but any prison warden or officer running a you know an institution or a congregated setting has to mitigate against all risks and if a patron of a prisoner you know facility is a threat or a risk regardless of their gender then mitigating circumstances have to be put in place to protect all of the other prisoners and you don't do that just because a male you know identified as a female so that he could get access if you think that that person is a risk to the other prisoners well then obviously you would expect the authorities to react and to provide safe you know passage and daily activities for the other prisoners regardless of the person's gender and so again to me I think what we're trying to do is to reduce a very very small argument or an example that happens to maybe impact 0 0 0 0.0 percent of society nearly to conflate it with an argument that women have to be fearful of male violence and I don't believe and I think if we handled this correctly in the next couple of weeks because this never came up in the first iteration of the law or the review of the legislation 2019 I don't believe that women need to feel diminished in our gender identity just because there are other genders I don't think my womanhood my femininity my role in society as a mother as a you know I don't think any of those things are diminished by the fact that there are trans women trans men non-binary intersex I don't think any of those things diminish my role and my contribution to society but I do think we need to have a proper conversation with some women who might think yeah hang on a second like being a woman being a female is a really important job in society and it shouldn't be downgraded for want of a better way to put it but it's not being downgraded and so I think the way we have the conversation with women to absolutely assure them the fact that you know generations ago there were two genders you know there were two sexes there still are two sexes but today I think we probably have about nine genders and that doesn't diminish any other gender within the gender identity set I think that's the conversation that we need to have with people and it doesn't particularly women it doesn't make them more at risk or less at risk than they are today but it certainly doesn't protect them by saying that you know a trans female can't access the same spaces as other women if we really believe today that men were going to go to the extent dressing up as women and changing their gender to get access to be violent towards other women but I think we've been even far greater problem than the male violence that we have currently in all of our countries and jurisdictions thank you for that center that that was really clear can I just ask one final question on the similar related note and that's on data collection can you tell us about the impact on data collection of the legislation that you've brought in and in particular data on the representation of women on boards or or anywhere else for that matter again I've probably had very little impact and apologies I tend to go on so please interrupt me if I'm rabid and on for too long and the data that we collect obviously from the GRO which is our general registrations office which handles births debts marriages all of the changes of certificates it's a really small number of people that are presented every year for the last seven years to change their recognition can I ask you if you're asking me have we now got trans women trans men non-binary people on any board in the country that isn't an advocacy group for LGBTI rights the answer unfortunately would be no and so we have very very few people even in the workplace it's a really really tiny community of people that actually even though they may have their certificates actually come to work in the environment so like I think we had a number of years where we were all very compassionate around the same time as the gender recognition we had marriage equality and that was a huge change in the psyche of Irish people given that we were historically very very Catholic and very very conservative for many years there was a kind of euphoria of a recognition that we've finally actually managed to get our act together and to be normal human beings and just accept people you know and to apply the same dignity that we would expect ourselves to be treated by others to others and there was all of that love feeling you know gone around in the country so there was very very little negativity the other was the people who didn't like it but even their tones were framed in a kind of a respectful way we have no data other than the organisations as I said to you are belong to we have an organisation called Tenny which is our trans rights advocacy group we have a Gigsaw which is a mental health advocacy group for young people going through you know changes and their journey of their sexuality all of those people would have very diverse boards and chairs but outside of that I'm sad to say that no there isn't really an awful lot and so even if we did have a data collection mechanism there isn't really an awful lot of data to collect thank you and I'm sorry I'm sorry to hear that that's the situation but thank you for sharing it I guess the other kind of part to my question was about has the the self identification a move to self identification has that affected data about women in what way sorry now so it's been put to the committee that if we move to a self declaration model and don't collect data on both sex and gender that we could not necessarily have the information that we might need to determine whether or not we're making progress in certain areas of women's equality and I just be keen to know if that's something that you considered and I appreciate that some of these questions appear to be coming slightly left field as as you've described because of the experience you had in 2015 but I'm just really keen to to understand how much of that was explored of what you're seeing now no I can really ask anything that you want to ask there's no problem it wasn't and again so when it was the general registrar's office the legislation that we were changing so it's all around legal documentation and so up until that point on your legal documentation you could only be male or female and so these changes allowed you to be trans male trans female it allowed you to be non binary it allowed you to change your gender as opposed to obviously distinctly changing your sex but in a lot of the legal documentation it's the same thing and so if I was born a female I was allowed to go back and change my birth certificate to say that I was born a male and so it effectively changed my sex as opposed to changing or introducing a new gender as distinctly separate as to the sex that I was born the only the only change and this is kind of embarrassing the only change to data collection that we did was that this year we had a census it was a number of years late because of Covid but this year we had a census but the first time ever on our census collection form you were allowed to be either male female or neither of the above and there was a whole debate in Ireland is it why can't you just ask the questions because there's nine genders just put the nine genders in stop trying to be afraid of the fact that there are the genders anyway it was too late and it was taken up it was a small debate and not a negative debate or anything but just to kind of it was an irksome thing given that we have recognised genders just bloody will use them like stop have been afraid to not use something that's legally recognised and there was an agreement that it was too late the census forms had already gone out to our four million homes or whatever we'd make sure we did it right in five years time but that's the only time that we have changed the collection of data in the census to try and capture somebody that may not see themselves as female or male but we lost the opportunity for trying to capture what they do recognise themselves as so the only way we have of knowing is the person that does actually come go through the gender recognition act and actually change change their certificates thank you and rachel hamilton please good afternoon senator dogarty um can i just ask you what you meant in your opening statement by um that there's attempts to repeal the act and we will have a summer of discontent so hi rachel um because we're proposing to change this employment legislation in the next number of weeks one of the amendments from government is to change the terminology of pregnant women and it's around maternity leave rights to change it to pregnant people um there have been a number of organisations that have developed in the last number of weeks um a number of women have come together uh around the idea that first of all you won't just respect women and you won't diminish my role in society by bunching me into pregnant people the whole debate around people can't get pregnant only women can get pregnant that's the narrative that has developed over the last number of weeks and the response to date so far is is that first of all we're not diminishing the role of women in society what we're doing is recognizing that there are other genders in society who can absolutely get pregnant and that's for we're recognizing the fact that there are more than one gender that can get pregnant hence calling you know the catch-all term of pregnant people um but also to extend the legislative um services and rights um from time off work and for um social welfare payments and stuff like that to pregnant people as opposed to just pregnant women we have um non-binary people presenting having babies they're excluded from the legislation and from the state supports at the moment because they're not listed and the the pregnant people terminology was decided by our attorney general as a catch-all phrase because it's been used before when services have been to be for men and women not just men or women and so I think where the conversation of the debate is going Rachel now is that instead of saying pregnant people I think it would be easier for us to define the list of people who can become pregnant and name them all so therefore not diminishing my role as a woman giving birth to my children and not trying to you know um what's the word that was used a number of weeks ago to dilute our contribution yeah and I suppose yeah I suppose just to interrupt you there you did offer us to do that yeah no no yeah so um I just it's really interesting you're saying that because it seems to say you've regretted um that wording within the census because that's something that we've been you know talking about very much um and I just wondered how how do you think the different terms used in data collection impact on the policy development for example in health and criminal justice I think it impacts hugely now I say this to um I'm speaking to you today even though I'm a public representative in a personal capacity I'm not representing any policy from any particular department um the review of the gender recognition act was my policy when I was in the department of social welfare I don't believe it's current minister's policy but I absolutely believe that if you don't recognise um and capture in data sets the identities of the people that we're talking about then you certainly are not going to devise good policy and services for those people and so when we use catch all terms so as not to offend and for it to be all encompassing I sometimes think then you dilute the fact that there are distinct different genders other than male and female and if we accept that there are and that it's not a theory as would be espoused um by some people well then just recognise that they are and name them and collate the data and look at the people that you're serving and then look at the services that they need for those particular genders if they're living different and distinctly separate lives for other genders or their experiences are different and so I think it's a real shame that we didn't capture it in this year's census because we only do one every five years so but it'll absolutely be the next time it'll include all of the genders um so that we can capture where they are in the country who they are what age they are you know we don't have any of that data okay I've got two more questions uh the I noted that um within uh your gender recognition act um there was a reporting process and that was for the minister for social protection to prepare a report on the performance of his or her function under the act in the immediately preceding year um I haven't had time unfortunately to look at that but um is that something that that's laid every year and what did that find did that find that um there were things you could have done better that um that you could recommend this parliament to be doing and things that for example I want to ask you about prison so I'll probably just do that just now because I'm sort of looking at the unintended consequences of um some of the act um I just wondered really in terms of the analysis that you did we you know that not to undermine the number of women who are in prison because of their because of domestic abuse and they weren't able to prove defence um but in Ireland the the cases that you have referred to um with males with glcs being sent to prison did you do any analysis prior to or during the evidence sessions of the bill to work out the impact of males with glcs um being housed in female prisons but what we did do at the time um was look at other jurisdictions that had passed similar legislation to us and the lived experience in that country and again probably because we were one of one of the first and you're nearly one of the first countries to introduce this kind of legislation um there wasn't an awful lot to look at um but what we did do some work um the prison thing the shared dressing room spaces um and the school toilet were the three things that came up in the jurisdictions that we looked at but again the instances were so minute and that when you balanced it against the fact that like do we really believe that there was got like first of all if you can hold in your mind that the the passing of the legislation is a good thing for the people that need it to need the legal recognition to live their lives and if you balance it against a fear of not doing it because somebody might declare themselves as a female to get out of the female sorry sorry senator docty in your answer i think it was to Karen Adams question or in your opening statement you did state that the that it was a great piece of legislation but for it was for a very tiny number of people but now you're arguing that the opposite that the tiny number of people that may be affected for example in a prison setting so it's not like for like in terms of the argument that you're making so i don't i don't think i am so maybe i'm not being clear so apologies so to our mind to change the legislation to have the massive positive impact on a very small community's life was a very good thing for us to do we could help those people in that community whatever of the gender that they were outside of men of female to live a fulfilled life recognized by the state it was a good thing to do but i'm suggesting to you is is that some of the concerns that were raised at the time was those spaces female only spaces and so prisons is one that's used a lot dressing rooms are used particularly around our children the example of a toilet in secondary schools or primary schools are used and when we balanced and looked at other jurisdictions had those problems or issues materialised there were very very little evidence to say that they had having said that in our own country we have two people currently in limrick prison who were born genetically male who have self identified as female and they are now in female confinement in a female a women's only prison in limrick and the argument is is that they only did what they were doing to get access to women and my response back to people was if any prison warden feels that there is a potential risk by any member whether it's a shared prison a male only or a female only prison regardless of the person's whether it's self identified or not it's up to the prison warden to make sure that all of his patrons are safe and so i don't know the reasons behind the journey that the two people who are in the prison in limrick you know have taken but i do know there's a real suspicion that they're not really you know the gender that they've assigned themselves today that they only did what they did to get into a female prison i think that's something that the state obviously needs to be very careful of and very conscious of but absolutely if there are any other risks outside of the gender that presents for the patron body of a prison it's up to the prison warden to make sure that he looks after the safety and the welfare of all of his prisoners you know regardless of how they identify gender-wise if that makes sense thanks okay thank you very much and can i go to Maggie Chapman please good afternoon assembly thank you very much for doing us today and thank you for the evidence and your answers so far i'm interested in exploring along similar lines i suppose to to some of Pam's and Rachel's questions about unintended consequences and lessons and i suppose one of the questions one of the things that we've heard evidence from or people's concerns around are the misaligned other public services particularly i suppose health Rachel that was talking about prison but i suppose questions around health in the irish experience have they been any instances of trans women or trans men who have not been able to access the healthcare they provide because of or gender minor conflicts on health records that that you are aware of so unfortunately Maggie in Ireland we have a very very long waiting list with regard to access to the two professionals that are available in Ireland to people who are trans to try and get access to medical services that they would like to you know incorporate into their life to actually fully change their journey from one gender to another and we've over the last number of years actually we've we've a scheme in Ireland called the national treatment purchase fund whereby if you can't get access to public health in Ireland this fund is available for you to buy access to the health services either in the private sector or elsewhere we doctor for trans people in Ireland and so we have been using the nhs for the last number of years and sending sometimes in some instances children all to the age of 18 in some instances adults over the age of 18 over to the nhs so that they can access the services in the united kingdom and so for us i think it was important and there's an awful lot of work that needs to be done to improve those medical services in Ireland and that's absolutely no doubt but if we had waited and aligned the legal recognition with the medical access which isn't the journey for everybody we wouldn't we wouldn't be passing the gender recognition act for probably centuries and the change in health services is so slow in this regard in Ireland and so that's why we kept them distinctly different and separate so the legal recognition through documentation and access to services arising from that documentation was a relatively simple piece of legislation to change and improve and enhance the medical access is another day's work for the department of health and whilst the same advocacy groups obviously were advocating for votes it's a kind of a two-speech progress so you asked me about regrets with regard to the original legislation the regret that we had that i would have attempted to resolve with the reviewed legislation was that the the initial enactment for 16 and 17 year olds in this country because it was aligned by the medical certification requirement made it absolutely so un-cumbersome or so unattainable as to make that piece of legislation redundant because it wasn't actually workable and when we looked at the review and made the recommendations to get rid of that two-step process and to have the second process step being consent of both parents you know either the both parents were supportive of the child's journey to changing gender or they weren't and then what we would do is make support services available to the mediation services and just support I won't call it counselling but you know I mean anything that was required to help a family unit support the child in whatever journey that that child was undergoing at the moment that thanks that that's really helpful and I mean we we have some of the same issues of avoiding times for for accessing gender identity clinics that that we have and whether that is a you know the medical and surgical routes or in some cases others as well I suppose that is is an issue of of healthcare provision beyond that which is directly related to gender reassignment and one of the one of the questions put to us as a committee has been well how how can we guarantee how can we ensure that trans men will still be on the right registers for cervical screening for those for those kinds of tests and trans women will still be on the right lists for prostate tests and that kind of thing do you have any are there experiences or any processes that we can learn from you around making sure that we don't we don't allow trans people to fall through a health gap that actually has nothing that that isn't about the the medical intervention for them for their reassignment again my game embarrassed to say that we don't have that data and so the opportunity to capture that data so that we could provide better services was in the CSO server that we did only back in April of this year we didn't capture it what we've captured is your male female or other which is absolutely worthless to anybody and so we've a guarantee that we will capture it again in the next census and again so the only and this is the two edge sword the only database for want of a better word that we have is in the GRO so that if if Regina Daherdy presented to change you know my identity and my gender tomorrow to Reginald Daherdy that that data would be collected within the GRO but because of data protection and the GDP or legislation that we've all got from the European Union that data can't be shared with anybody so even if we could you know delve into that data to say actually there are there are 50 women in our in Dublin that changed their gender to men let's make sure we capture them for cervical screening or for breast check or whatever it happens to be we don't have the ability to access that right now and so I would very much hope that in the next census that we will be able to capture all of the data and therefore be able to mine it to provide the better services that we need to for our people okay no no thank you thank you that's helpful I think these are some these are some of the questions that that we are we are trying to grapple with and learning what not to do is is I think as important as learning what to do and another question just so we can we can learn from from your experiences around the criminal offence and its relationship to reverting a GRC are you aware of any instance where somebody has revoked their GRC whether there's been any any hint of criminality in their initial health declaration or hasn't occurred in the Irish example again I'm not sure I'd be able to answer that question on the basis that the only database if we would have a people who have changed their identity is held at the GRO and it isn't shared with anybody for any other purposes other than the report that's laid before the houses of the oracus at the end of every year and literally Maggie but that report does it tells you that under the gender recognition actor 2015 14 people changed their identity this year seven female to male or seven female two to none but you know it doesn't actually tell you anything other than the numbers and that the act is actually working in so far as that it's accessible which is in hindsight is a real shame and if we ever do get to do the review there are other things that need to be done and actually there's a long list of things to be done with regard to language and terminology that we use all across the public service and the civil service but also the collation of data so as to inform future policy and not just healthcare policy but as you say you know coming from a country that doesn't even have a register of domestic violence in Ireland we have a long way to go with a lot of our data to learn and I think this is definitely something that should be collated and then act upon for the people who have changed their identities but as I said to the only report that we get every year is the numbers and what they change from and to. Thank you no no that's fine you mentioned there that there were things that you would change around language as as part of the review you would have a discussion around language can you elaborate are you in a position to elaborate on that for us yeah so one of the things I wanted to do because because the review and the drafting of legislation was all around putting a system of gender recognition for children involving parental consent process just to be an administered process at the third party support there for the family and the kids that was the most important part of the changes of legislation that I felt that we could do relatively quickly but the review group recommended loads of other things around promoting the use and the acceptance of correct pronouns it's something that my children take for absolute granted and anybody in their teens or their 20s on any of their social media buyers or even on their CVs these days you know have she heard it's just a given you know my my own child is younger she's 15 she corrects me when you know I'm talking about some of her friends and I call you know somebody or her or him because that's the sex that they were born and she corrects me and puts her eyes up to heaven it's something that you just take for granted it's absolutely something that's completely alien to the civil and the public services so when you look at all of our legislation it only refers to men or women when you look at all of the services and the public system documents for anything you can access to the social protection system to the welfare system through the health system it only ever relates to men or women and so what I asked to happen that year and again it hasn't was for all of our departments to go away and say show me what you can change show me how you can improve the forms that people have to access by acknowledging and accepting that there are other genders other than men all of that stuff could have been done without legislation but unfortunately as I said to you the government didn't get re-elected in in january of 2020 and we are where we are okay no thanks regime that's that's really really helpful thank you Joe but i'll leave it there thanks thank you Maggie if we could go to Fulton MacGregor please thank you very much convener and good afternoon senator i've really enjoyed the session so far i want to ask about some specific provisions that are that are in the bill that we're looking at and i'll start with the firstly the to live in the acquired gender for three months and the three months reflection period now i'm aware that the irish act didn't include these time periods what i want to understand was was there any discussion around time periods either before or after and what were the those discussions lead to or was it never even on the table we felt at the time particularly for adults as anybody over 18 the evidence that was being presented to us is that nobody nobody woke up on a Tuesday and decided that they weren't going to change their agenda their their unfortunately usually is a very long protracted difficult journey to first of all self you know accept and recognise first of all but then to determine you know how you would tell your family or you know all of that journey and even for the smoothest of journey for the luckiest of peoples that it is smooth because for most people obviously it's not um takes years and so i think we felt at the time that if somebody came to the the state over the age of 18 and wanted to change their gender it wasn't for us to make sure that they had to dance a particular dance before that they would get the legal entitlement that we were putting in the legislation and so because it was administrative and i won't say effectively only a legal document but because there was no other parallel process to go through with it it literally was only changing a legal document and so we were adamant that it was going to be as easy as it needed to be for people to change them but also if the reverse became apparent to a person and so far as that they made a mistake or that their journey of recognition wasn't complete quite yet they could either reverse it or change it as relatively easily as they did in the first place where we got into different opinions was when you became when we started talking about people under the age of 18 and so that's why initially we felt that if we tied it to the medical certificate so therefore we would have some other professional to be able to say yes this 16 year old has gone through a journey and is you know reliably identifying now as a different gender that the gender that they were born with and that doctor gave us you know the okay then the gender could proceed but we know that that just wasn't physically possible because the waiting times for you know gender identity and acknowledgement or acceptance from the doctors was so protracted and the waiting was for so long it nearly made that part of the legislation useless and that's why when we reviewed it we removed the medical part of it and inserted the parental consent we had long discussions around whether we needed both parents or just one parent and I have to be honest with you so the advocacy groups want to just one parent because obviously they felt a child just needed one advocate and in a lot of cases that they have seen this is a reality so it's not and I don't doubt their reality for a second in a lot of cases you'll have a child presenting to change gender and you'll have a very supportive one parent and a very unaccepting other parent and to my mind whilst that might be true I felt that it was easier for us to try and have mediation and support services available for the entire family ultimately I believe we all love our children you might find it difficult to accept something that they're presenting to you but we all love a month what's best for our children and instead of going down the one parent consent route we were planning on confining it to the two persons or two parents consent route we're giving them as much support and co-operation to help them on that acceptance journey I don't know what the proper language is but to help them to help them support their child in their child's journey of gender identity recognition and so the act would have been changed and maybe potentially still will be to introduce the third party support the counselling the mediation if one parent disagreed with the other to try and bridge the gap just to support the family unit as opposed to making legislation that could potentially divide them and so that's the route we took as opposed to putting in time weeks or months before anything could change legally that's what we decided to do. Thanks for explaining that centre and I do think that my colleague Pam Goswell is going to ask a wee bit more about the the 16 to 18 year partial but in terms of not having any time period either before or afterwards and I know from what you've said to colleagues there is an issue with data collection in Ireland and I think you've explained that well but is there any sort of anecdotal evidence that this has been a difficulty or is there any anything that you've been able to pick up over the last seven years that Bill's been in that not not having either a period you know before or a reflection period that has it been something that's been called for for example? No so our again first of all I suppose and it is anecdotal based on their stories of the people that they represent experiences our advocacy groups are the people that I would be continuously in contact with they've just launched an amalgamated campaign for transgender equality in the last number of weeks because of the rise of discourse in Ireland around some of the fears that you would have expected to have been raised back in 2015 but genuinely weren't and so the only thing I can tell you is that since the enactment of the legislation adults have found it incredibly easy to use and whilst we have had a number of reversals they've been absolutely maybe less than 1% of the people who've changed their identity since 2015 but one thing that advocacy groups and parents would have told us is for those under the ages of 18 it simply hasn't worked and simply still isn't working because the law still stands out as it was in action in 2015 and so it's very cumbersome the way to still there and in actual fact what you're seeing is that those young adults who would have been able to change their gender under the age of 18 are literally now having to wait until the day after their 18th birthday and then they can apply. Okay thanks very much for that another bit I want to ask about is a provision in the bill to be ordinarily raised in Scotland and we've heard some concerns that might lead to people coming from other parts of the UK, England, Wales or Northern Ireland to seek a GRC and I know that you've got something similar although there's possible they're looking to expand it but I know there's something similar in in Ireland is that been a concern you're very similar to ourselves and you share a border with another with one other country so people traveling north to south in your case rather than south to north but is that being something that that's happened and is that a concern? You know what it's probably easier for us than it might be for you because in the Republic obviously we only have you know one legal jurisdiction whilst we do share the island of Ireland with another legal jurisdiction their general registration office is your general registration office and mine is distinctly different and so the legislation that we passed can only change Irish certs so it could only change an Irish birth cert, an Irish marriage cert, an Irish passport, somebody from the north of Ireland unless they had an Irish passport even then we wouldn't have the ability to change their birth cert because it would have been given by the general registration office of the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland or Scotland or Wales you know if you have distinct different ones and so our legislation literally only pertains to Irish documentation so we can only change an Irish birth cert, an Irish passport, an Irish driving licence, an Irish marriage licence we can change your pps number that you use with the revenue services from being a he to a she you know so it literally is what we say ordinarily resident if you were living here tomorrow you wouldn't be able to apply for our G or a unless you are an Irish citizen and even then it would be difficult because your probably birth cert is Scottish so it literally can only change Irish legal documents and it can't change anything else yeah thanks for that and thanks for clarifying that and perhaps not as a not as quite a a match-up a as a first thought and I'll I'll take that one on the chin thanks that's me can be up thank you Fulton and Pam Goswell please thank you convener and good afternoon senator docarty there's quite a lot being covered already but i'll try and see that go for an area that's not being covered and go back to some of the areas just to seek a little bit more clarity one of the areas i want to touch on is my colleague Rachel spoke about data collection in relation to health and justice i just want to talk a little bit about the data collection on the basis of gender as opposed to sex and potential impact that will have on equality measures such as gender pay gaps and did the introduction of any self-id policy in Ireland result with similar concerns and do you share those concerns at all as well and are you aware of the policy in Ireland having effect on any other data collection policies but obviously i know you've covered a little bit about justice and health when my colleague asked but just more about the gender pay gap because we have heard this from some of the witnesses that have come forward to talk about that so just a little bit about you know your concerns but and your thoughts on how you tackled this area again embarrassingly so none of these things were identified as issues around the time of the enactment of the legislation and so because of the way the legislation was drafted there is no data collection other than in the general registered office i would present and change my gender and all of my legal documents would go from being a she to whatever i would identify as and so in so far as collecting data to feed into justice legislation employment legislation it's not there and so whilst i did say to you we are in the process of changing employment law it's not we're changing the terminology to reflect the reality of that there are more than one gender but in actual fact we couldn't tell you how many pregnant people there could be in Ireland because what we don't know is how many trans women there are trans men there are how many non-binary people there are how many intersex people we haven't collected that data and so therefore that's up to me and to my mind even speaking to you here today it's a glaring gap in policy formation because you're really you're you're enacting policy be all encompassing without knowing how many people you're actually enacting the policy for and we certainly are palm alluded to it earlier on we or maybe it was my gay apologies that we have no knowledge for the likes of our public services such as prostate check breast check per vital check none of those would include any of our new gendered registered people and that's that's a glaring on mission so learned by our mistakes i'm not even sure we realized it was a mistake until you've told me here today which is for sure but thank you for that senator doctor for being so honest about that because that's an area that obviously looking at the bill now we've got a very good opportunity to look at these kind of areas just going back to talking a little bit about what my colleague Pam Duncan Glancy spoke about some of the groups in the work you've done on single sex spaces and services i just wanted to touch it on women of faith you've probably been following our committee that you know people have raised this personally with me and obviously it's been brought up in the committee as well how did you go about addressing that that did you have other groups of religion women of faith whether they were you know accessing services or single sex spaces that did that come across any of the work you were doing in your 2015 act again to be very honest with you we had very little acrimony we did have concerns that were expressed but they were actually expressed to us in relatively muted tones if i'm to be really honest with you and yes you know we still have some very conservative people we have an enormous faith space particularly Catholic faith and a growing Muslim faith base in Ireland that would have very distinct and opposing views to this the way we try to handle it at the time was that first of all every human being deserves to live with dignity and for me and no life is simple so i don't say this lightly for me i was born female i am now an adult female woman i have four beautiful children i happen to be very happy in my own boots for lots of people they don't get to be that content and so for us as a state i felt and we feel that it was our responsibility to make that transitionary journey for people who've already walked a difficult path through their own you know self-determination and acknowledgement and journey to get to where they are now make that legal process as easy you know and as dignified as possible and again to reassure people that just because there were different genders didn't lessen the genders that we've known for generations or for time and memorial and so for faith-based people the fact that the legislation changed doesn't change their faith or their beliefs and they don't ever have to and i don't mean this sarcastically they don't ever have to change you know their faith or allow that in their own life their own family if that's what they choose but as a nation and as a state we have to be here to serve all of our people and to recognise that there was a small community of Irish people that were not best served by us denying them the life that they absolutely wanted to live in the gender that they believe and recognise themselves to be and so we just try to handle it in that way there's no threat to my gender identity from realising that there are other genders but say that's just not thank you for that senator doctady just on that that obviously you're absolutely right everybody has a right whether you're a trans person or whether you whatever religious background you come from however how can you impose upon people that have certain religious not beliefs but it is their religion especially women going to a doctor i think you've probably heard my example how does that practically work and obviously it's not come up in Ireland yet i hear from you but is it something that when you're looking at the gender equality stuff that you would look at some of this stuff as well maybe because obviously we'll be looking at this as well when we are hearing from witnesses and we need to make sure that we have that fair playing field for everybody to be you know access those services and those spaces as well so excuse me but i'm not aware of your example so maybe if you could just tell me that the example that you mean and then i can see if it has happened in Ireland and if we have how we've responded or reacted to it i think the example that you mean and then i can see if it has happened in Ireland and if we have how we've responded or reacted to it i think there are women presenting i mean we've talked about a little bit with examples when people use changing spaces you've got that you're aware of that the other example is and you know i watch how i use my wording here that if a woman of colour from indian or muslim goes to a doctor and normally they would see that the doctor there they would ask for a maybe a smear test or something like that and ask for a female doctor now if they're in there and it was a trans person into a female trans female and and that person wouldn't know and it's not up to that trans person to tell that person who they are because that's their right which is understandable you know that they don't have to say but it would break the religion of that female if she was to find out later on that that doctor and she didn't have an opportunity to know anything because that trans person has the right to privacy but also that person of religion and belief has the right to religion as well so how do we see you know and it'd be good if you could give you know some kind of answer to this but how do we see that at a happy meeting that we respect both sides and we come out with a balanced view that can help that service be delivered yeah so and apologies i should have known what you were asking me so i'm sorry i didn't um i actually don't need this because maybe i'm in the privileged position of being a woman as opposed to being a minority gender if we are to recognise that there are currently now seven genders or maybe even nine if i'm not as up to date as some of my younger people are let's just take the seven that we know we legally recognise in Ireland if we legally recognise seven genders well then i don't think i should have any problem telling you i'm a trans man trans woman non-binary intersex you know non-gender if i am that gender like i don't have any problem with you asking me my gender i'd tell you i'm a woman if the lads sitting around beside you i'm quite sure that they wouldn't have any problem so therefore if you were a trans woman or a trans man or a intersex you know why would you feel i don't know what the word is marginalized or put upon by having to say what you are because it's in my mind in the scenario that you've just described each person has to be respected and treated with dignity and the person that has religious beliefs has a right to be treated by a woman if she wants to be treated by a woman if she goes in and she picks the non-binary doctor well then she might find it more difficult to find one but you know what i mean i'm not being facetious i think there's nothing wrong with asking to be treated by a female woman doctor because there distinctly is something different between a woman and a trans woman and that brings me back to the debate we're having in Ireland right now like maybe we shouldn't be using the word pregnant people we should be using the word you know pregnant woman pregnant trans male pregnant non-binary person pregnant intersex person it's not okay it might seem clunky but it is the reality of what actually exists in life at the moment and if you are a trans man yes of course you can have a baby because you were born a female sex and if you haven't had any you know medical interventions to remove those parts of your body then of course you can have a baby but you're distinctly different to a woman so no it's obviously it's vice versa it's the same if you're a trans woman then you used you were born physically a man and i think any woman presenting to a doctor in that scenario has a right to know thank you very much sorry thank you very much senator docti i just want one last thing just in the back of my colleague philton speaking about age if you can elaborate a little bit more on that obviously you know that we're looking at changing from the grc 18 to 16 year old and you've heard from many committees that where people are for and some are against the fact that you know at 16 17 you can go ahead and get married you can vote but on the other hand people have concerns that they don't feel that these people are adults yet to make those decisions and the fact that you can't basically go ahead and get credit card certain things that you can't happen in your life what's your kind of balance on that that looking at if it went down to 16 because i know that your age cohort requires both parental consent and medical evidence in order to grant the court order that is required so just a little bit on that touching on that so we're probably not as progressive as scotland is because you can't get married drink get a driver and license any of those things in arland until you're 18 so it was easy for us to keep the cut-off point of being an adult sorry you can't vote either in arland you don't become an adult until you're 18 and when you become 18 then you're making your own choices below that the original legislation as it stands today does need the medical certificate which is cumbersome to get the hope was to change it so that you would just have parental consent and again it was in an environment where you would hope that both parents were you know agreeable and because they've seen the the life that their child has lived and are accepting and supportive of it and in those cases where there was a disagreement between parents then obviously to put in the support mechanisms of family support the mediation the counselling services anything that would help them make that decision easier for them now they may not make the decision and you might but we were absolutely concentrated on the fact that you needed both parents and we would help both parents to arrive on the same page but if they didn't then you respected the fact that we still needed both parents and my mindful um i've four children the youngest is 15 the eldest is 22 so i've done that 16 and 17 year old a couple of times already they know absolutely everything and yet we all know that when we stop being 16 and 17 we realise just how little we did really know and so it's a very it's a very precious space in a person's life um you do want to help but you also need to make sure that everybody is reassured that the state is doing the right thing um by young adults i hope we got the balance even though we haven't changed it yet hope we were getting the balance right um between the parental consent both parents consenting and the support for the family thank you very much centre doctor thank you thank you i'm mindful of time but Maggie Chapman would like to come back in for another question if that's okay thanks very much and thank you for your time Regina i really appreciate it just very quickly one of the proposals in the reform that we are looking at is to include um the option for a person of interest so a person who is associated with um the person who is applying for a gender recognition certificate to to to be able to either um to have a say in that in that whether that person is a spouse or another close family member um and i just wondered whether the irish legislation whether you considered it at the time in 2015 whether you'd have some kind of relationship other than parents fought for 16 and 17 year olds what was there any other capacity for anybody else to have a say around whether somebody should or should not be granted a gender recognition certificate so Maggie we had um we had a long debate during the review much longer than i told it would take um and the reason we did was because we did consider putting an advocate in for the state um there was a belief by some people around the review board that some parents might enact in the best interest of a child excuse me and so therefore we could have a scenario potentially where a child changed their gender the parents were supportive of it but not really knowing of the impact of it and there was a view felt by some people at the table that we needed to have somebody from the state needed to be at the table and so even though we were saying mom and dad needed to make the decision that we needed mom and dad and you know the minister for justice third i don't know would you know what i mean um i have to be honest with you i railed seriously against it i did the advocacy groups to my mind the family unit is is probably one of the most special relationships that exist um and the two people that think more of a child in 99.9% of the cases that i know of are our mom and dad and whilst the experience that we know doesn't mean that mom and dad are always equally accepting um they are certainly the people that love the child the most and so we centered around instead of having the state we're like being a big brother we had the state being the support of mechanism of the mediation and the family support and so what we envisaged and we probably didn't have enough of them in the country to actually establish it but we would have we would have had to put money behind the policy when the law was passed we would have had to set up in each county obviously those mediation family support units probably would have done it through Tusa our child and family agency that we have um in Ireland but they definitely needed to be seen as being helpful as opposed to being controlling okay thanks regina that's helpful and what about what for adults was there any any discussion around espouse having a say or you know a sibling or anything like that you know because again the mindful was is that once you reach adulthood you're making your own decisions um and obviously if you were like there was a discussion around particularly married people that obviously I independently making decision has a massive impact on my family um if I was making that decision I was going to do it anyway and so we didn't feel like we could hinder because again you know for me to give the the power for want of a better way to put it um over me being able to live my true life to somebody else who mightn't be happy about the changes to their life by me living my true life we felt it was unfair so there certainly was discussions about it at the time but again we felt as with all legislation an adult you know Irish person is an adult Irish person and they get the full extent of the law as an independent adult themselves and that's where we ended up with thanks regina that's really helpful and really clear much appreciated thanks very much um I think we could go on regina um for the rest of the afternoon but I know your diary is pressing and um I think we have to get back into the chamber too so huge thank you for for taking the timing and giving us giving us your time um so that concludes the public part of our meeting and we'll move into private session thanks very much