Transgender children and young people in Ireland: Socio-legal challenges to selfidentification and expression of gender

Drawing on M. Fineman’s theory of vulnerability, this chapter assesses the ways in which the Irish Gender Recognition Act creates vulnerabilities for trans children and youth and considers what legal and statutory responses are required to provide this cohort with resources that scaffold resilience. The current legislation reifies the vulnerability of their legal positioning and reinforces the notion of childhood as a transitionary period where young people’s self-knowledge and self-awareness is considered incomplete, lacking sophistication and vulnerable. The responsibility for exploring, identifying and responding to the vulnerabilities of gender-variant youth lies with the State and the institutions and service provision organisations it overseas. Scaffolding equality and social justice for this cohort requires systemic State-led inquiry informed by consultation with gender-variant children and youth, and those that care and advocate for them, into all elements of the socio-legal structures and practices that shape the embodied vulnerabilities experienced by this cohort.