Ireland’s leading role in pushing European gender identity politics

Ireland has long been a key driver of gender identity policy across Europe, and shows no sign of slowing down.1

It comes with continued “international advocacy”, which is now aided by former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who holds a position as Senior Fellow in the Global LGBTQI+ Human Rights Program at Harvard Kennedy School, leading a project titled „The Future of LGBTQI+ Rights in the European Union“.

At this stage, the transactivist demands transform into policy language and emerge shapeshifted as equality, citizenship, democracy, the rule of law, non-discrimination, inclusion and values.

In this framing, there are three aspects to particularly look out for:

• burying women’s rights and violence against women in a linguistic and conceptual fog of gender and gender-based violence

• a focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights as a policy field, advancing the interests of a male sexual rights movement that disguises the exploitation of women through surrogacy as “equality for rainbow families”

• centring the debate around values and human dignity, using this framing to mobilise programmes, campaigns and resources, while expanding the scope of regulation into areas of justice and rule of law, shifting the issue away from women’s rights and presenting it instead as a priority concern of democracy

Under the banner of “human rights”, high-profile and heavily resourced stakeholders are advancing the interests of a sexual rights industry that profits from the sexual and reproductive exploitation of women while erasing women as a political and legal category altogether.

This may all look grim. And it is. But it is important to understand what we are up against, and to know when, where and why we draw a line.2