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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12528 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 2, 2026

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Let's have some more CW over trans issues, because we can never have enough of those, right?

Now, I've been gently chided by other commenters on here about my attitude regarding transgender activism. It's only a few edge cases and nothing to do with the reality of trans people's lives, I get told.

So here's a story I stumbled across that is happening in my own country. I'm hoping really hard that this is just a legal stratagem and not a guy who is now a gal claiming "I am too the biological mother of this child" for realsies:

A British trans woman, who used her frozen sperm to have a baby with her wife, has been granted permission to bring a High Court challenge against a refusal by the State to grant Irish citizenship to the child on the basis that she is not the biological mother.

The woman – who has Irish citizenship while her wife does not – submits that if she has to claim to be the “father” of the child as part of the application, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity and legal status.

...The woman is seeking a declaration from the High Court that she is legally and genetically a parent of the child.

She is also seeking an order compelling the State to register the child on the Foreign Births Register and for the child to be granted citizenship under Section 7 (1) of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1956.

Persons born outside of Ireland who have an Irish national grandparent born in Ireland may obtain Irish citizenship through registration with the Foreign Births Register, which is maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In submissions to the High Court the woman, who was born male, states that she is a UK resident but with Irish citizenship through her own lineage.

The submissions state that the woman had stored sperm with a UK fertility clinic, intending it to be used at a future date. She changed her name and transitioned from a man to a woman under UK law, receiving a UK gender recognition certificate.

The woman married her female partner and frozen sperm was then used to have a baby with her wife by an IVF procedure at a UK clinic.

The woman says she fears any UK withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights would mean her family could lose its protections and status in that country.

It is submitted by the woman that her child was refused entry into the foreign births registry – thereby denying Irish citizenship – as the woman was not the biological mother of the child and because her wife, who gave birth to the child, was not an Irish citizen.

The woman submitted that the Department of Foreign Affairs informed her that “under Irish law, as applied to date, the mother of the child is the woman who gives birth to the child and therefore the child would derive their citizenship through that mother”.

It is claimed by the woman the department’s position is that, because she is not the biological mother of the child, she therefore does not meet the requirement of an Irish citizen parent and the application cannot proceed.

The woman further submits that she could have claimed to be the “father” of the child and “could have possibly obtained citizenship by descent that way”.

“I feel it would invalidate me as a trans woman, invalidate my legal status as a woman and invalidate my same-sex marriage,” she said.

The woman submits that if she had to claim to be the “father” of the child, it would be an “offensive, discriminatory and unjust attack” on her person, gender identity, legal status and on same-sex marriage.

I'm trying to be sympathetic here, but my well of the milk of human kindness seems to have run dry. If this person applies as the father of the child, the child can be granted Irish citizenship and this will recognise the parent as "legally and genetically a parent of the child". Otherwise, they are asking our High Court for a ruling that (a) the child has two mothers and no father (b) being trans means you are biologically a woman (c) even if she didn't bear and give birth to the child she is still a mother not a father (d) in future such cases, the mother of the child is "whoever wants to call themselves the mother" and not "biological mother".

Remind me again about how, silly normies, gender is not the same as sex and we're not making any claims that biological sex is the same thing as preferred gender, so just shut up and give in on our totally reasonable requests? I don't care if this person calls themself daddy, mommy, or XibablaMakiNooNoo as parent of the child, what I do care about is precedent that "trans gender you identify as is now the same as your biological sex, now if you're a trans woman you're a mother even if you're the father because calling you the father would be offensive, even though you are a father not a mother" for future cases. If the precedent is set, it won't be limited to "parent of child wishing to be identified as legal mother not legal father".

EDIT: I think my main objection here is the twisted logic on show: "You can't call me a 'father', I'm a woman! women are not fathers!" Yeah, but people with functioning male reproductive systems that are capable of getting cis women pregnant can be women. Uh-huh.

Can I just throw in my opinion that this is a totally uninteresting and pointless case?

Everyone involved agrees on what should happen. The intent of the law is for the biological children of Irish citizens to become Irish citizens - both the parents and the state want this to happen. The only objection is that the trans woman (and biological father of the child) doesn't want to check the box that says 'father' on a government form because she doesn't like how it sounds. This is patently ridiculous grandstanding. The reason it says 'father' is because the genetic material for the child comes from a male and female gamete, and the father is the one who provided the male gamete, so for the purposes of the law (whose intent, again, everyone agrees with) it can't say anything else.

What a waste of time for everyone involved.

Disagree.

The "trans" father has engaged in maximum levels of grandstanding and rebellion from the world he exists in.

If he wants his children to benefit from the world, he merely must accept normal rules.

All he has to do is be normal and his kid gets normal rules.

Prioritizing your weird rules over normal rules means you are crazy and people should not want your kids as citizens.

Thus, consequences.

Historically, the whole family is lucky to not be exiled.

"Just be normal" is possibly the worst objection to anything I could think of.

"I am the MOTHER in all contexts except for this particular one where the law requires me to declare I'm a father to act in the best interest of my child" is interesting, but a total nothing burger when you consider literally every other conceivable circumstance of a parent acting in the best interest of their child.

Gleefully posting laughing emojis on the twitter repost is fun and all, but i think the appropriate response to a handwave "lol stop being wierd and you won't have any problems, freak 😜" is "well that's just not how the world works."

Prioritizing your weird rules over normal rules means you are crazy and people should not want your kids as citizens.

Historically, the whole family is lucky to not be exiled.

Historically as in pre-enlightenment? We've spent a couple hundred years trying pretty hard to steer away from this type of ridiculousness for good reason.

"Just be normal" is possibly the worst objection to anything I could think of.

Why? Being normal is how societies form and continue to function. If people just acted on any whim they had we'd live in chaos. Some places now do live in chaos because people do that as a norm. They litter, burn trash, shoot each other.

And before you say, "well those affect other people" so does transing yourself. You become a visual blight, you become a blight on language (demanding people use obviously incorrect pronouns), you demand special dispensations. Its all abnormal and taxing on society.

"I am the MOTHER in all contexts except for this particular one where the law requires me to declare I'm a father to act in the best interest of my child" is interesting, but a total nothing burger when you consider literally every other conceivable circumstance of a parent acting in the best interest of their child.

Pretending to be a mother is directly in contradiction with acting in the best interests of the child. How would we possibly accept any of this person's other actions as being so?

Gleefully posting laughing emojis on the twitter repost is fun and all, but i think the appropriate response to a handwave "lol stop being wierd and you won't have any problems, freak 😜" is "well that's just not how the world works."

Because too many wrong people have won battles such as this. This is a good battle to fight to make the world better.

Historically as in pre-enlightenment? We've spent a couple hundred years trying pretty hard to steer away from this type of ridiculousness for good reason.

It is more recent that exile was used, but exile was a good punishment, if we had more unoccupied land I think it would be good to re-instate it. Its a happy middle ground between the death penalty & long prison sentences and the leniency that plagues modern society with rampant low level criminality and antisocial activities. If these people were in a town in Texas in the 1840s they'd be told they should leave. If they did, they'd go to Mexico or California (and one of those places would probably execute them unless they reformed) but, if they didn't they'd be shot.

Why? Being normal is how societies form and continue to function. If people just acted on any whim they had we'd live in chaos. Some places now do live in chaos because people do that as a norm. They litter, burn trash, shoot each other.

Being abnormal does not equate to "acting on any whim". And being abnormal is definitely not a clear cut negative for society. What is it, like 75% of silicon valley unicorn founders are autistic? People with a propensity to not conform, socially or otherwise, seem to be disproportionately progressing society right now.

Pretending to be a mother is directly in contradiction with acting in the best interests of the child. How would we possibly accept any of this person's other actions as being so?

The law does, generally, accept people who are not optimal parents as the parents of their own children. And in this case, where these two people are undoubtedly the parents of this child, it should definitely accept it also.

Are you arguing that the Irish government should not accept that the actual, biological parent, is a parent, in this case?

Because too many wrong people have won battles such as this. This is a good battle to fight to make the world better.

If they did, they'd go to Mexico or California (and one of those places would probably execute them unless they reformed) but, if they didn't they'd be shot.

An argument that basically goes "Trans people are weird, they should choose not to be, in an ideal world we would exile them or kill them, because I've had enough of losing these arguments" is just not working for me. Maybe you have all this background info that, if included, forms this into some rationale that I could follow. But as presented, this is the same level of "boo outgroup" ranting that the Reddit lefties are doing about everybody who voted for Trump. We can all just pick the political opponents we don't like, call them freaks and wish death on them because we're tired of each other.

I just come from a position where I think that type of rhetoric makes the world a worse place. I think it's a dogshit take, not because I am actually pro trans or anything. I'm pretty moderately to aggressively against the movement. But if you have some total insensitivity towards the specific issues in question, and can't differentiate from a bad expectation and a reasonable expectation (you seem to explicitly state you don't care what the issue is) you're definitely in a position to make the world worse. Which is what you're doing.

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