Exclusive: Sinn Féin councillors on puberty blocker ban support & Pride bans
On Friday, I travelled for an hour with three others for what was meant to be a meeting with a Sinn Fein MLA. She failed to show, without letting us know, but what was a frustrating start turned into a productive meeting with two Sinn Fein councillors.
Kathleen McGurk, a Sinn Féin councillor for East Derry and Niamh Archibald, a councillor for Coleraine joined us to discuss the party’s position on the Northern Ireland Executive’s decision to ban puberty blockers and the resulting ban of political parties by Prides across Northern Ireland.
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The meeting opened with McGurk stating that she did not believe a Pride ban was the best way forward, and she was keen to emphasise Sinn Féin’s long-standing support for the LGBTQ+ community. That support is not in question. The party was backing Pride long before it was fashionable; I remember them supporting decades ago, standing beside us when others would not. Coming from the ‘other side,’ where ‘our’ politicians led the ‘Save Ulster from Sodomy’ campaign, Sinn Fein’s support stuck with me and went a long way to shifting my politics significantly when I was a lot younger.
No one is accusing Sinn Féin of being transphobic. But they have found themselves used as pawns in a transphobic game orchestrated by the UK government, with the lives of trans young people as collateral. I suspect that accusation may sting just as much.
They made clear early on that they had acted on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer. As I said after meeting Alliance, it is not unreasonable for political parties to trust the Chief Medical Officer’s expertise. The issue is how compromised that advice has become - and how it is being used by Westminster to undermine healthcare for Irish children.
I asked if they were aware of this context - that they were being used by the English to harm Irish kids. I knew it was a sentiment that would register, and it did. It was a point I returned to.
Over the course of a meeting that ran more than an hour, we attempted to change their understanding of the situation. Others in the room spoke with painful precision about the reality for trans children in Northern Ireland. I felt, at moments, like a conspiracy theorist and said as much, as I asked whether they were aware of Wes Streeting’s connections to Christian Concern, the organisation behind the Darlington nurses and multiple ongoing employment tribunals across the UK. They were not. I asked if they knew about the Heritage Foundation and its links to the anti-trans agenda being pushed by Donald Trump in the United States. Again, they did not. There was more.
There is always more.
We listed the countries that had conducted their own independent versions of the Cass Review and came to conclusions diametrically opposed to those reached in England. We pointed out that many of the most harmful policies now being implemented are not even recommended by the Cass Review itself. We highlighted not just the flawed science but the explicit political motivations behind it, motivations that were called out in some of those international reports.
The Sinn Féin councillors did not know any of this. But, unlike the Alliance Party, they did not pretend otherwise. They did not obfuscate or condescend. They listened, took extensive notes, and asked questions.
Crucially, they began to consider what they might actually do.
The Chief Medical Officer’s advice has provided political cover for those looking for it. But where Alliance refused to acknowledge any gaps in their knowledge, the Sinn Féin councillors we met appeared genuinely unaware of the origins and implications of that advice. Naivety? Absolutely. But, at least in this case, little more.
Exclusive: Naomi Long tries to explain why Alliance backed puberty blocker ban
After a month of anticipation, I left my meeting with Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long feeling deeply frustrated and ultimately deflated. The conversation laid bare the reality that even well-intentioned allies can make catastrophic mistakes, and, worse, fail to recognise them when confronted with the harm they have caused.
Many have speculated that Sinn Féin was offered incentives or faced threats from Westminster, the latter a claim allegedly made by a party MLA in a meeting with Sinn Féin’s LGBTQ+ wing following the ban. When this was put to the councillors, it was not denied. Perhaps they did not hear the question.
Politicians are skilled in managing optics and discourse; I am not. But when I walked out of that meeting, I felt that we might have reached someone. Where the meeting with Alliance left me furious, here, for the first time, there was the faint but unmistakable sense that someone with influence was listening. Not performing, not placating, but genuinely listening.
They seemed truly pained by being excluded from Pride. I believe, after this conversation, they better understood why that decision had to be made.
The meeting had been organised by Causeway Pride, the first Pride to ban Executive parties. Riley McCahon, chairperson, told me afterwards, “I was pleasantly surprised by our meeting with Sinn Fein. Going in, I was expecting a typical experience where I would be gaslit or spoken over, as we've often encountered in the past. I had low expectations due to the history of being dismissed or ignored. However, I was happy to find that the councillors present were quite the opposite. They were engaged, attentive, and genuinely willing to listen to our concerns. Although I was disappointed that the MLA didn't show up as expected, the councillors who did attend showed a level of commitment and openness that I didn't anticipate.
“They asked thoughtful questions and appeared invested in understanding the issue at hand. I left the meeting feeling surprisingly optimistic and confident that we might actually have a chance to work collaboratively with this party. With the right approach, it seems possible that we could make meaningful progress towards dismantling this cruel and inhumane ban. For the first time in a while, I feel like our voices are being heard by an executive party, and that gives me hope that change could be on the horizon.”
Faolán Hook, who was also present, felt similarly, “There is still a long way to go before the blocker ban is repealed, but our meeting with Sinn Fein on Friday was a positive start and gave me a bit of hope that there are people in the executive parties who want to fight this ban.
“Due to how the Stormont Executive functions, I have a feeling that things won't be smooth sailing as these things have been before, but I'm hopeful that some resolution can be reached even if it's going to take a lot of work and persistence.
“All we want is for those in power to listen to the community and cast aside misinformation peddled by a transphobic state so the youth in our community can grow up to be happy trans adults.”
Gwen Montgomery of Mams4TransNI, who had driven us all to Coleraine, said it had been ‘rude’ of the MLA to cancel without letting us know before leaving Belfast, but otherwise, “I felt substantially more positive after that meeting with Sinn Fein than either meeting with the Alliance leader and deputy leader. They were willing to listen and learn and that’s a huge start.”
Exclusive: Alliance Deputy Leader leaves trans allies furious with comments on puberty blocker ban
Attendees at a recent Rural Prides meeting in Northern Ireland were left ‘seething’ after the ‘arrogance’ displayed by Alliance Deputy Leader Eóin Tennyson regarding the puberty blocker ban.
Among the parties in the Northern Ireland Executive that backed the ban on puberty blockers, Sinn Féin is the only one for whom I still have hope. They don’t need to issue a full mea culpa, they only need to admit that they were lied to and that, in good faith, they made a mistake.
Will they ever say that? I don’t know.
But I believe they are open to considering it. And in the political landscape we currently inhabit, that might be the most we can ask for.
The others won’t even do that.