In light of Sinn Féin’s recent actions, Aoife Kilbane McGowan traces the party’s evolution from supporting trans rights to backpedalling on gender-affirming care.
In 1997, Dr Lydia Foy launched the first legal battle for the right to gender recognition for trans people in Ireland. She lost her case in the High Court in 2002, just days before the European Court on Human Rights would rule on a similar case brought by a British transgender woman, finding that the right to gender recognition was protected by Articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This decision served as the legal basis for Lydia’s second lawsuit against the state, which she won in 2007.
Despite the ruling compelling the Irish state to create a formal pathway for legal gender recognition for transgender individuals, five years later, no substantial progress had been made. In response to this lack of action, Sinn Féin Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh, then party spokesperson on Social Protection, introduced a Gender Recognition Bill into the Dáil.
This was a groundbreaking piece of legislation in Ireland, which proposed adopting a self-ID model for gender recognition, more progressive than many European countries, which still require trans individuals to submit invasive psychiatric or medical evaluations to prove their identity. The bill did not pass, but would serve as a model for the 2015 Gender Recognition Act, which Sinn Féin supported.
In a 2013 opinion column for The Journal, Ó Snodaigh said: “There is no need to be conservative on this issue, in fact to be anything less than progressive is a fundamental breach of human rights. Transgender people have suffered from ignorance and prejudice for far too long.”
Compare this statement with comments made in late 2024 by current Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane TD, declaring a UK Supreme Court ruling that would exclude transgender women from protections as women under the Equality Act as “common sense”, suggesting that the decision should be reviewed in Irish courts.
Party Whip, Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, would go on Highlands Radio shortly thereafter and make further comments on the decision: “A woman is an adult female and a man is an adult male.”
Mac Lochlainn’s comments echo the rhetoric of the gender critical movement in the UK, where the phrase “adult human female” has been adopted widely as a transphobic dogwhistle. Both later apologised for any offence they may have caused, but these comments suggest that there is an underlying tension within the party on trans and queer rights.
Then, at what point over the past 12 years did the party begin, in Ó Snodaigh’s words, to shift right on these issues and fundamentally breach the human rights of trans people?
In 2014, Seán Crowe TD spoke in the Dáil following a report on the development of what would become the Gender Recognition Act (2015), pushing for the government to include trans youth and make provisions so people who married before transitioning would not be forced into unwanted divorce proceedings.
Over the next two years, the party continued vocally supporting the LGBTQ+ community, on social media and in Leinster House.
On Trans Day of Visibility in 2017, then Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield introduced an amendment to the GRA which would have extended self-recognition to 16 and 17-year-olds, created a pathway for gender recognition for under-16s, and granted non-binary individuals legal recognition. He argued that Ireland must “continue to strengthen our global standing as a leader for Trans rights and extend that recognition to young people.” The next summer, Warfield attended Dublin’s first Trans & Intersex Pride and starred in a video for the party’s social media, once again calling for the reforms in his amendment.
Later that year, Deputy Mary Lou McDonald was elected party leader, preparing for the fast-approaching 2020 General Election. During this time, Sinn Féin significantly expanded its organising base in the Republic of Ireland, establishing themselves as the leaders of the opposition and the largest progressive alternative to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Continuing their vocal allyship, Sinn Féin’s 2020 manifesto included a dedicated section on LGBTQ+ policy, reiterating their support for expanding gender recognition to young and non-binary people, and calling for reform of our trans healthcare system to an informed consent model.
One month on from Sinn Féin’s unprecedented success at the 2020 General Election, the Covid-19 pandemic shut the world down. In response to the uncertainty of life under lockdown, a global political shift rightward began, and in the UK, transphobic rhetoric began to seep more and more into the public discourse.
Post-election, Sinn Féin introduced no new legislation on expanding gender recognition or reforming trans healthcare. Then, the first real challenge to the party’s policies on trans rights came: the UK government had passed a ban on puberty blockers for under-18s, based on the widely discredited Cass Review.
Under Sinn Féin First Minister Michelle O’Neill, the ban was extended to Northern Ireland in May 2024. This resulted in the party being banned from both Belfast Pride and Trans & Intersex Pride Dublin in 2025.
In Sinn Féin’s 2024 Local Election Manifesto, there was no mention of the LGBTQ+ community. In the General Election Manifesto, LGBTQ+ issues were absorbed into a larger social rights policy section, and demands for extending gender recognition and reforming trans healthcare were both dropped.
In the wake of these shifts rightward, Sinn Féin held a members-only conference in Dublin in early July to discuss where their policy on trans rights will move going forward. It is unclear what the outcome of the conference was, but for now, the party still presides over restrictions on gender-affirming care in the North and has failed to engage with the public letter calling for support from Trans & Intersex Pride Dublin following their largest demonstration to date.
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