Corporate Activism and Radio Silence

Since 2022, I’ve become increasingly mystified about the almost excruciating silence around the topic of gender identity in Irish broadcasting. Every few months I come back to the issue. During my most recent explorations I came across a link between gender identity, Ireland’s broadcasting regulator, and Ireland’s largest commercial semi-state body – the Electricity Supply Board, more popularly known as the ESB.

Exploring the concept of gender identity in Ireland is like entering a rhododendron forest. The rhododendron is an invasive alien species here. It blocks light and blocks the growth of native plants and trees. It also grows and propagates quickly, forming a dense thicket that dominates large areas if not carefully controlled.

When dipping into the webpages, publications and policies of Ireland’s broadcasting regulator Coimisiún na Meán last year, I found a curious greeny-blue logo on its Equality, Diversity, Inclusion page: ‘Proud to be inclusive: Member, Open Doors’ and a statement saying it had partnered up with the Open Doors Initiative

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Having investigated the organisation in some detail, I think the Open Doors Initiative should more appropriately be called Behind Closed Doors - such is the level of public unawareness about its influence and work. Chief Executive of the ESB, Paddy Hayes, is currently Chairperson of the Open Doors Initiative.

Last year the ESB, which employs over 7,000 people in Ireland and had an operating profit in 2025 of €914 million, funded a 94-page toolkit on LGBTQ+ Inclusion published by the Open Doors Initiative. This publication promotes gender identity belief far beyond the boundaries of just the ESB

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The toolkit has the potential to influence workplace culture across Ireland as the Open Doors Initiative is partnered with lots of high profile Irish organisations including Dublin Bus, Diageo, Irish Rail, AIB, Bank of Ireland, Circle K, the Irish fisheries board (Bord Iascaigh Mhara), the aforementioned Irish broadcasting regulator (Coimisiún na Meán), and the Arts Council amongst many others.

The booklet advocates for many actions, including ‘pronoun normalisation’ in workplaces, the inclusion of gender-affirming care in employee benefits, the celebration of gender identity awareness days, and legal recognition of ‘nonbinary’ identities.

This is corporate activism wrapped up in positive branding as ‘diversity and inclusion’ and salted with the irony that adoption of gender dogma promotes uniformity of philosophical belief and results in excluding consideration of women who want single-sex facilities.

According to a recent report in the Irish Mail on Sunday, the ESB is forcing women to share changing facilities with men who identify as women. In addition, two of the most prominent gender identity lobby groups in Ireland – TENI and Belong To – are listed as ESB partners on the ESB ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ webpage.

Part of the problem is the pressure being put on businesses in Ireland to erase or reduce the ‘gender pay gap’. Any organisation in Ireland with over 50 employees is legally required to report on this gap. However, the relevant legislation does not define ‘gender’, and organisations have interpreted it to refer to identity rather than sex. The Department of Health Report 2025, for example, records the number of employees ‘who identify as male or as female’. Because men can identify as women, this kind of recording skews statistics and makes for unreliable data.

Meanwhile, although the ESB’s 2025 Gender Pay Gap Report stresses the importance of ensuring that women are represented in STEM, the ESB TrailblazHER Scholarship, which is allegedly designed to ‘advancing gender equality’, is open to ‘female-identifying students’. This means that any man who identifies as a woman can apply for a place on the scholarship programme.

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Another issue to consider is that the ESB has a monopoly on distribution and transmission of the electricity network in Ireland. So even if the public were aware that the ESB is pushing this controversial ideology and wanted to signal their dissatisfaction, there is no recourse to object by spending or taking custom elsewhere.

A recent poll in the UK shows that people overwhelmingly favour single-sex toilets and changing rooms. This preference is across people of all ages and all political persuasions. A 2021 poll in Ireland had similar results. Yet the ESB is ploughing on with its plan to erase women-only spaces.

The number of surveys, data, and public debates in Ireland when it comes to gender identity is as scant as oak seedings in a rhododendron maze. The public have effectively been gagged - so much so that no wide-ranging open dialogue on the topic has occurred on Ireland’s national public service broadcaster, RTÉ, since June 2022. Notably, Chairman of the ESB 12-member board, Terence O’Rourke, is also the current chair of RTÉ.

Another factor in the equation is that activist groups and individuals have glued the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity together. This month, Ben Appel, a gay man in America wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal in which he said that was ‘force-teamed with a lot of people whose values were nothing like mine. I didn’t experience my life as a rebellion against reality.’

So where do we go from here? The women in the ESB who bravely spoke to the Irish Mail on Sunday about having to share changing rooms with men might nudge those higher up to pay attention to women’s needs and wishes. It might also encourage more dialogue about what is happening behind closed doors and inspire women in other organisations too. But will the public broadcasting sector pay any attention? The forest of silence is deep.