‘Not to mention mother, woman would demean and diminish women’ - Cllrs debate maternity protections and women's rights

When members of Meath Co Council discussed whether the words “woman, female, mother” should be included in proposed Government legislation on work-life balance, there was general agreement.

Not when it came to the trickier subject of trans recognition and rights, councillors considered it a minefield and skirted around the subject at their monthly meeting held at the EU Commission offices at Grange on Monday.

Before Monday’s meeting was a motion tabled by Aontú Cllr Emer Tóibín, seconded by Independent Cllr David Gilroy, calling on the council to support the redrafting of the Bill to include the words woman, female and mother in the clauses that relate to maternity protections and she wanted the Government to copperfasten women’s identity in all future legislation pertaining to women’s rights and to make sure that the words she mentioned were always included.

The original draft of the legislation had not included these words but have since been put in. However, Cllr Toibin said that the very idea that they might at one stage have been excluded “raised a red flag” with her. Everyone knew that the purpose of the legislation was to transpose elements of EU work-life balance directive and to entitlements regarding breast feeding and lactation breaks to mothers across the country.

The proposals would complement family leave and other entitlements already in place and provide additional flexibility to ensure that parents and carers could be supported in achieving a balance between working and life. “Like most politicians I try to tread carefully around the debate on transgender issues. I believe that transgender people or anyone struggling with gender issues should have full protection against discrimination and we as a society should always been respectful towards them”, Cllr Tóibín said.

She was “quite perturbed” to learn that all mentions of 'women' and 'mother' were being excluded from the proposed legislation. “We do not wish to see words like woman, girl, mother, motherhood removed from legislation. I think it would be foolish to underestimate the depth of feeling that ordinary Irish women and men have on this issue”.

She did not wish to see any blurring of the lines with regard to her identity, she said. Mothers did not want to be referred to in legislation as “a birthing person”. "Not to mention mother, woman would demean and diminish women." She said that Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik had recently given her support for the words to be included in the Bill and while she (Cllr) welcomed that very much, Ms Bacik had gone on to say that a trans woman was a woman, “If true and if that statement were acted upon it would appear to have implications for the sex-based rights of women. Women’s right to single-sex spaces I prisons, toilets, changing rooms etc would no longer be protected. The right of women and children to a safe space and the right to participate fairly in competitive sports would also be threatened. Under the law anyone can identify as a woman and gain entry to spaces that were designed to keep women safe”.

Conflating bilateral sex and ender identities without safeguarding was a risk too high to take, she said.

Fine Gael Cllr Paddy Meade said the world was changing. He said the well-known journalist Freddy McConnell , who identified as a man, had recently given birth to a child. “And that’s the world we now live in – it’s very complicated. I mean where do people like Freddie stand. I am backing the motion but it is very sensitive. It’s something that should be talked about more and people should feel freer to talk about it without feeling attacked. I suppose as a councillor today you’re afraid to go one way or the other because you’ll have people on facebook or Twitter attacking you”.

Social Democrat Cllr Ronan Moore said he was disappointed the motion had been tabled because the words originally excluded had now been included. They were a county council, not legislators, and he could not understand why the motion was brought. Asking the council to write a letter about a subject over which they no control was not a good use of council time. “I find it hard that a motion that was a supposed call to protect women’s rights came from a party who owed its very existence to the denial of women’s rights.“

He thought the motion was a very transparent attempt to inject a culture wars toxicity that basically had become the norm in other jurisdictions. It was not an issue in his own area. Health, housing jobs were the issues.

Cllr Gilroy said that while they were not the Dail or the Seanad, the council had made representations on many other issues over the years. He said that when it came to questions of sex or gender and the interchangeability of both, some people would feel very strongly about it, some would feel less strongly, and some people would not have an opinion on it at all but in a democratic council there was an onus on councillors to have a conversation at some level.

Labour Party Cllr Elaine McGinty said that the Labour leader Ivana Bacik had talked about having a non-divisive approach when it came to transgender. “This is a topic we’re all having to deal with. We can deal with it in a respectful , non-polarising way. And women are very important. It is important that nobody is excluded. That is the point Cllr Toibin was making – it has to be respectful in the debate. And we are going to have to deal with this. Things are changing all over the world. The Labour Party was the party that brought in gender recognition in 2015.”

Independent Cllr Amanda Smith said that as a female and a woman she fully supported Cllr Tóibín. Fine Gael Cllr Maria Murphy said that we were living in a changing world and they could discuss topics like this. There were bigger forums for topics like this and they were working in a certain direction. There was a greater awareness of gender issues now. In the past there had been a lot of hurt caused to people who didn’t want to be described as women, or male or female.

A proposal that Cllr Tóibín’s motion be referred for discussion to the women’s caucus on the council was not accepted by its chairperson Cllr Murphy. However, the motion was referred to the council protocol committee for possible referral to the caucus.