On 27th November 2021, Radicailín, alongside the Irish Women’s Lobby, The Countess, The Irish Resistance, Socialist Democracy, LGB Alliance Ireland, Women’s Rights Network NI, and Deep Green Resistance Ireland, gathered outside Dáil Éireann to call for the rights of women and girls to female-only, single-sex spaces and services in line with the public consultation of the Equality Acts proposed by Minister Roderic O’Gorman.
Attended by people from various backgrounds, the demonstration asserted the importance of having single-sex provisions and services, including medical care, intimate care, nursing homes, rape crisis centres, domestic violence and homeless shelters. The protest ultimately called for a clear definition and distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ in Irish legislation. We also wanted to highlight the lack of safeguards to protect biological women from male violence as well as distinguishing their sex-based rights.
‘Sex’ refers to whether one is male or female, man or woman, boy or girl. ‘Gender’ refers to the social roles and stereotypes assigned to each of the sexes. Sex is the basis on which women have been oppressed throughout history and across the world. Women could not avoid being placed in a Mother and Baby home simply by verbally denouncing the reality of their femaleness. Little girls facing FGM in Somalia cannot do this either.
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