WHAT’S THE TEA WITH THE T?
A study by the British Sports Medical Journal, which monitored 70 transgender athletes over a 2 year period, found that transgender women had no advantage, on average, over cisgender women 2 years after transitioning, although did detect a small advantage before 2 years. It is approximately 50 years since transgender people were allowed to start competing in professional sports and in that time there has never been a professional transgender champion on an international level. In non-professional sports, just 12 transgender athletes have won medals at the Olympic games in its 127-year history. In short, fear of transgender people in sports is
If the stark statistics above are overwhelming to you, then we’re sorry to report that these are the tip of the iceberg. The landscape is bleak. Conversion practices (also known as conversion therapy) remains legal, political representation of trans folks negligible, books
By Louise O’Donnell & Saoirse Mackin - Co-Founders, Trans+ Pride Cork
a moral panic which hides the reality that transgender people are disadvantaged compared to their peers for a multitude of reasons, both medical and social. In our country, almost 40% of LGBT+ students
are being ripped up in Cork city libraries and online harassment is rife. We hope it is as clear to you that trans people are not the monsters depicted in far-right media; they are members of our community being vilified by the
avoided P.E, only second to bathrooms (44.7%) for spaces in which they didn’t feel safe. Put even simpler, more transgender people are likely to die by violence than compete in elite sport. Which have you heard more about this year? In Ireland, students are a particularly vulnerable group, with three quarters of all LGBT+ students feeling unsafe in schools and 28.1% of LGBT+ students feeling unsafe as a result of their gender identity. A BeLonG To survey of school students found that negative comments about gender identity were prevalent in schools, with half of students saying they often or frequently heard such comments. This report also showed that approximately three quarters of LGBT+ students experienced verbal harassment.
same media who twenty years ago were vilifying gay men during the AIDS crisis. So, what can you do? Let’s allow facts, not fear, to drive transgender policy-making. Although it will not eliminate transphobia, many of the issues facing the transgender community today can be covered in a ban on hate crime. Legislation to ban hate crime in Ireland is currently making its way through the Oireachtas although its passage is some ways away. This piece of legislation does not address conversion practices, either, meaning they will still be legal should the Hate Crime Bill become law. Sporting groups need to consider the wider impact of ‘Trans bans’ - how they can perpetuate misinformation and affirm discrimination. Every school - regardless of ethos - should be supporting all their students and especially those most vulnerable to bullying. More than that, we need you to be an ally. The elders in our community will recognise the tactics used against trans people today. They’ve seen this before; a generation ago these methods were used to harm gay and lesbian communities. The history of Pride is filled with stories of trans people and how their resistance created the movements which mean we can celebrate with Pride today. It’s time to pay it forward. We need to resist the pull of tired imperialist ‘gender critical’ arguments, lazy journalism and online fear mongering. If you look, you’ll see that the LGBTQIA+ community in Cork is hugely enriched by the presence of trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming folks. Or, in the words of the ineffable Marsha P. Johnson, “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.”
While they claim they’re being erased through the popularisation of gender non-specific language, such as ‘person who menstruates’, they happily dismiss a large swathe of people who don’t have the sex characteristics they insist upon. Appropriating language and imagery from feminist movements of the past, such as the suffragettes, they continue a storied tradition of excluding women from the fight for equality with tired, and frankly archaic, justifications. The gender-critical movement flirts with anti-LGBTQ+ activists such as those seeking to ban drag and equating queerness with grooming, worships a billionaire who loves to punch down and lacks true credibility as an intersectional movement due to the domination of middle class, white, cisgender women. TGEU cites that anti-trans organisers are no longer explicitly discussing transgender people, but rather framing their activism as ‘protecting women’s spaces’. This is particularly evident around discussions of transgender people in sports. On Transgender Day of Visibility 2023, World Athletics banned transgender women from participating in sports if they transitioned after puberty despite having no transgender men or women competing at an elite level in the sport. There is currently very little research regarding transgender people in sports and therefore there is a lack of evidence to support the recent ‘Trans bans’ by World Athletics, World Rugby and World Aquatics. A 2022 study by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports found that transgender women athletes had no advantage, on average, over cisgender women in sports.
Trigger Warnings: Violence, Death, Transphobia, Homophobia, Bullying Last year was the deadliest year on record for the Trans community. 327 transgender people globally died violently, of which 65% were people of colour, almost half were sex workers, and over a third migrants. In February, LGBTQIA+ people and allies gathered in Daunt Square, Cork City in their hundreds to mark the life of Brianna Ghey, a transgender girl who tragically lost her life to violence. Her short life was honoured through speech and song as the Trans+ communities paid their respects. With logistical support from Cork Pride, we were able to create a safe space to light candles, wear our flags with pride and mark the extinguishing of another bright light in our community. The rise of anti-trans rhetoric in this country inspired us to organise the first ever Trans+ Pride event in Cork City last year. Everywhere we looked, we saw the platforming of hate and the normalisation of bigotry culminating in days long ‘debate’ on our national broadcaster. Day-by-day, we looked on with horror at the import of talking points from England, particularly so-called ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism’ or ‘Gender Critical’ ideology. We were not alone in these concerns, with Transgender EU (TGEU) in their recent report highlighting that “most gender critical actors are emigrants returning from the UK or people originally from the UK, importing their narratives to Ireland.” Centering their arguments around shaky science, self-identified ‘gender critical feminists’ use arbitrary, and exclusionary, prerequisites for womanhood.
Earlier this year, there was a furore surrounding the pronouns of a student in a Westmeath Secondary School. Untold column inches and broadcast minutes were devoted to the discussion of pronouns, with lines being drawn between “woke” and “anti-woke” parties who were quick to forget the very real teenager at the centre of the storm. The issue of harassment and employment terms were tossed aside in favour of frenzied discussion of free speech, in tactics familiar to anyone looking at the rise of a conspiracist alt-right movement in Ireland. A recent pre-Covid study from Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) show that the majority of trans people surveyed had an annual income of less than €15,000, less than that of the average part time worker, at the same time period, who earns €16,332 according to figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). Almost half of the respondents to this survey felt the need to stay closeted at work due to the fear of experiencing transphobia.
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