Irelands 2018 ILGA ranking

Ten of Swords

ILGA has rated every country in Europe in terms of LGBT rights and equality for the calendar year 2017. The results have just been released.

Ireland's score is exactly the same as last year, 15th place with a score of 52%

2017 rating (15th place with 52%)
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2016 rating (12th place with 55%)
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2015 rating (18th place with 48%)
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Ireland, Executive summary

Reflection appeared to be a common thread running through many of the developments in LGBTI equality in Ireland during 2017.

The existing legal gender recognition legislation is due to undergo a significant review, and this process began in earnest. The Gender Recognition Act, introduced in 2015, will be assessed by an expert group which includes several prominent LGBTI activists. The review will consider the position of trans people under the age of 16 as well as the experience of non-binary people in Ireland, a move that was encouraged by ILGA-Europe and activists alike in last year’s Annual Review recommendations to policymakers.

Following similar initiatives in other European countries, the Irish Senate (Seanad) also began discussions on a possible pardon and apology for those historically convicted of consensual same-sex sexual acts.

Another major milestone achieved in 2017 was the publication of the results of a consultation with young LGBTI people in Ireland. These reports will form the basis of the country’s first national LGBTI+ Youth Strategy and Ireland is the first country in the world to carry out a national strategy of this kind, focusing on the specific needs of young members of the LGBTI community.

One area of law that continues to be conspicuous by its absence from Ireland’s statute books is hate crime legislation that protects LGBTI people; activists continued to push for its introduction. In June, Irish politics featured in global news headlines as Leo Varadkar became Ireland’s first openly gay Taoiseach (prime minister).

Note: ILGA has not published the detailed summary and analysis of each country yet, only the executive summary. This is due to be made public soon.

Source: https://rainbow-europe.org/

ILGA has 3 recommendations for policymakers in Ireland to consider for the coming year

1) Ensuring that existing legislation is commenced and enforced so that children born to couples (regardless of the partners’ sexual orientation and/or gender identity) are not facing any barriers in order to be recognised legally from birth to their parents (automatic co-parent recognition).

2) Updating the existing legal framework for legal gender recognition, to ensure the process is free from age limits, and explicitly includes intersex and non-binary people.

3) Adopting a comprehensive national action plan on LGBTI equality that expressly mentions all SOGISC (sexual orientation, gender identity, sex characteristics) grounds and launch the planned LGBTI+ Youth Strategy.

L1011

What did they add to the criteria for us to go down from 55% to 52% two years ago? And indeed get such a small increase for SSM and gender recognition.

Malta having such a high % suggests rather a lot of box-ticking for words rather than actions...

Ten of Swords

Honestly to me the most surprising thing on this year's map is that Russia's score showed such an improvement, almost doubling from 6% last year to 11% this year, against the backdrop of what went on in Chechnya.

Regarding Ireland's performance, ILGA's score for each country comes from 6 metrics (further sub divided, it's quite a complex calculation).

Ireland scored very well in 3 areas and surprisingly poorly in the remaining 3 showing there is still work to be done
Equality & non-discrimination 52%
Family 89%
Hate crime & hate speech 13%
Legal gender recognition & bodily integrity 78%
Civil society space 100%
Asylum 17%

A more detailed analysis of these metrics is available at the below link, scroll down to the bottom of the page.

https://rainbow-europe.org/#8639/0/0

Regarding the drop from 55% to 52% in the prior year - the report released in 2017 lists Ireland's numerous achievements but also makes mention specific incidents in the media that year, such as the homophobic attack on a man in Phoenix park who complained that the gardai dealing with his assault asked him if he provoked the attack and the finding by the equality tribunal that a primary school teacher had been discriminated against by her employer who made derogatory remarks about her gay son.

I'm curious to see what will be in the detailed report for this year. Previous reports made use of a lot of statistical data by NGOs such as Glen, BelongTo and Teni. I expect the closure of Glen will be mentioned.

EdgeCase

This really surprises me, as does the Icelandic 47%. Iceland is most certainly not a homophobic place and I do not for one moment buy that it is comparable with Hungary on LGBT issues.

Several of the countries scoring higher, in my experience anyway, are a lot less LGBT friendly than here.

You'd really have to ask some questions about the methodology.

I would assume the hate speech bit is due to lack of specific legislation? Some of that may be clashing of cultures too on freedom of speech.

Hate speech legislation, while very common on the continent, can be a double edge sword and may clash with a culture of freedom of speech and potentially constitutional law here too. We have a general concept of legislation that prevents the incitement if hatred, but it's broad and doesn't specify any particular groups and leaves that open to judicial interpretation.

Then you've also got to ask are you legislating to solve a problem, or tick a box? Do we have a lot of anti LGBTI hate speech? Is the community capable of just speaking back and dealing with it in the context of open debate?
I don’t know the answer to that but, it would seem on the surface of it to me that we don’t have a major issue with hate speech here.

Am I in a bubble and not noticing it? Maybe I am?

We also, have some rights that are not provided in specific legislation, but in case law and legal precedent - I'm wondering are those being noted properly? Ireland, not using civil code type law, can sometimes be harder to analyse, as you'll have to find those precedents to cite.

I'm just very curious as to what exactly they are using in their methodology, as on the surface of it, this survey doesn't seem to add up for several countries.

Also I'm surprised that the UK's ranking is markedly higher; given the situation in Northern Ireland with the DUP and the fact that they're actually de facto in government in Westminster via the confidence and supply arrangement with the Tories.

I assume our asylum system is, as usual, a disaster though and probably fully deserves the low rating:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ireland-refugees-lgbt/lgbt-asylum-seekers-face-hurdles-seeking-dream-life-in-ireland-idUSKBN19D1TQ

It's a bureaucratic, slow moving, human-unfriendly mess across the board though.

However, the UK system gets a lot of criticism for LGBT issues too, more so rejection of application : https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/11/30/the-uk-has-rejected-thousands-of-gay-asylum-seekers/

The agrigated rating is possibly showing that it is a bit of a box ticking exercise in some ways, rather than the experience on the ground.

I'd really like see an analysis of the survey.

JupiterKid

I agree with some of the others here. The scoring seems odd to say the least. Ireland definitely rates a good bit higher than 52%. I'd like to know the scoring criteria and methodology used.