Woke White Men
The Consequences of Queer and Trans Wokeism for Women
By Sorcha Ní Bhraonáin
Galway, Ireland - I never thought I’d see the day when women in Ireland would have to fight for the right to call ourselves women. But here we are.
Growing up in Ireland, I was raised to believe in fairness. Women fought hard for our rights in this country—we fought for the right to work, to own property, to access contraception, to have a say in our own bodies. We fought to be recognised as full citizens, not just the daughters, wives, and mothers of men. And yet, in the last decade, I have watched as everything we built has been quietly stripped away under the banner of "inclusion."
When Ireland passed self-identification laws in 2015, there was barely a discussion. No debate, no referendum, no public scrutiny—just a law that allowed any man to declare himself a woman with no medical transition, no safeguards, and no regard for what this would mean for actual women. I remember feeling uneasy at the time, but like many others, I trusted that it wouldn’t go too far. After all, women’s rights were hard-won in this country. Surely, we wouldn’t be expected to erase ourselves for the sake of men’s feelings?
I was wrong.
In the years since, I have watched as trans-identified males have taken over women’s spaces, women’s sports, and even women’s language. In Limerick women’s prison, a violent male offender was housed with female inmates, putting vulnerable women at risk. Women’s refuges—once a place of safety for victims of male violence—are now being told they must accept trans-identified males, regardless of how the women inside feel. Women’s toilets, changing rooms, and hospital wards are no longer single-sex. We are told to ignore our discomfort, to silence our instincts, to simply accept that any man who says he is a woman must be treated as one.
It is not just spaces we are losing, but the very words to describe our experiences. I have seen government documents erase the word “woman,” replacing it with terms like “pregnant person” and “chest-feeder.” I have watched as organisations like the National Women’s Council of Ireland refuse to defend us, instead prioritising “gender identity” over the reality of biological sex. Even rape crisis centres, which should be a refuge for women traumatised by male violence, are now expected to include males who identify as women. And if we object? We are vilified, threatened, called bigots.
The worst part is, the men who pushed these laws—mostly privileged white men who will never have to suffer the consequences—sit back and call it "progress." They will never experience the fear of being trapped in a hospital ward with a violent male. They will never know what it feels like to lose a job opportunity because the company is prioritising a man who calls himself a woman. They will never feel the humiliation of being told that the word "mother" is offensive because it excludes men.
This is not progress. This is a betrayal of Irish women. The rise of queer and trans wokeism has been framed as a progressive movement, but at its core, it is a luxury ideology—one crafted and promoted largely by white males who have had the privilege of philosophizing about “gender identity” without facing the real-world consequences of its enforcement. While they sip tea and debate abstract ideas about self-identification, women—particularly those without social or financial power—are left to bear the brunt of these ideological shifts as they seep into law and everyday life.
The reality is that trans wokeism erases the significance of sex and, in doing so, dismantles hard-won protections for women. Under the guise of inclusivity, society is being restructured to accommodate trans-identified males at the direct expense of women’s safety, dignity, and rights. Women are expected to step aside, to deny their own reality, and to accept the intrusion of males into their spaces under the unchallengeable assertion that “gender identity” supersedes biological sex.
This ideology is not only abstract but deeply harmful. Policies that allow self-identification have led to violent male offenders being housed in women’s prisons, the erasure of female-only spaces in shelters, and the dismantling of fair competition in sports. The consequences are not theoretical; they are lived experiences of women being assaulted, losing opportunities, and having their voices silenced when they try to object.
White males who advocate for these policies do not have to worry about what it means when women’s concerns are dismissed as bigotry. They do not have to deal with the consequences of male violence in spaces that were once reserved for women’s protection. They do not have to navigate medical systems that prioritize the feelings of trans-identified males over the realities of female biology. They are not the ones who must contend with the loss of language to describe their oppression—words like “mother,” “woman,” and “female” replaced by dehumanizing phrases such as “uterus-haver” or “chest-feeder.”
This is not progress; it is regression under the illusion of enlightenment. Women fought for centuries to have their rights recognized based on the immutable reality of sex. The push for self-identification undoes that work, placing women back in a position where their boundaries are dictated by male desires. The men who drive this movement do not have to endure the threats, harassment, and violence faced by women. Their privilege allows them to play with identity as an intellectual exercise, while women face the fallout in courtrooms, hospitals, and prisons. The only way forward is to reject the notion that gender identity is more important than sex. If not, the cycle will continue—where white men define the rules, and women suffer the consequences.