We are extremely disturbed by the news that President Catherine Connolly has been named as a patron of Irish NGO Belong To - an organisation that receives huge tax funding, and has been instrumental in the push for mixed-sex bathrooms in Irish schools, curriculums that teach gender ideology as fact and ask students to sign pledge packs to subscribe to preferred pronoun usage, teaching teachers to hide and lie to parents about their children’s sexuality or gender identity, etc. This organisation was once set up as a gay youth group, but as many of our members and founders experienced, it was not a place for LGB youth to find friends or find community, but rather an youth group that taught young and vulnerable lesbians or bisexual girls how to hide breast binders from parents, silenced questions, encouraged disparaging speak about “c1s” people and created a culture of secrecy and fear. We met with the Children’s Ombudsman to raise our concerns as lesbians, gays and bisexuals who had direct and indirect experience of Belong To, and these concerns were never investigated. It is wholly inappropriate for @PresidentIRL to actively endorse such a controversial NGO, that has and continues to actively harm lesbian, gay and bisexual youth, particularly while she is the president.
