Schools are terrified of getting things wrong where transgender students are concerned. Not because they are afraid of another Enoch Burke haunting the gates of their school, or worried about legal consequences, but because this small cohort of students includes many who are vulnerable.

In this context, it is hard to describe how irresponsible it was, and how unfair to schools, to publish a guide claiming it was obligatory to use preferred pronouns and to allow students access to single-sex spaces of their preferred gender. Know Your Rights, produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties in partnership with the Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) and ShoutOut, cost €18,500, funding provided by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Given that an additional €18,500 would be transformative for many schools, particularly primary schools, using it instead to spread misinformation and apprehension among teaching staff was egregious.

The Department of Education, which rarely issues clarifications, confirmed that no such legal obligations exist.

The department has not issued guidelines on transgender students since 2016. These guidelines are under review by Maynooth University, but the landscape has changed greatly since then. The UK Cass Review is central to that change. Not only does the Know Your Rights guide not reference it, but it also acts as if it never happened.........

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