It is not unlawful to refuse to use a person’s preferred pronouns, the Justice Minister has said.

Helen McEntee was speaking after a university lecturer spoke out against a new gender identity policy in her workplace which tells staff that it is unlawful to refuse to address a person by their correct gender pronoun or new preferred name.

On Newstalk Breakfast this week, South East Technological University (SETU) lecturer Colette Colfer said the university’s new Gender Identity and Expression policy was effectively ‘policing language’.

She said she fully supports the aims of the document and believes it is really important that everybody is treated with dignity and respect – but she has “huge concerns” about the claim that refusing to use preferred pronouns is illegal.

The document states that refusing to address a person by their correct gender pronoun or new preferred name is an “example of unlawful discrimination or harassment”.

Hate Crime Bill

On the show this morning, Minister McEntee said refusing to use pronouns is not illegal – and it will not be illegal under the new Hate Crime legislation she is currently bringing through the Oireachtas.

“As many people will be aware, I am bringing through legislation to introduce hate crime legislation for the first time and hate crime laws and to update incitement to hatred legislation that we already have but that is quite ineffective, essentially,” she said.

“What I've been clear about is that misgendering somebody will not be a crime.

“What we're talking about is inciting hatred or violence about another group of people, and that is a very different threshold.”

When it was put to her that the university’s statement is incorrect, she said: “What a university decides to do is separate to what the law may or may not be”.

“At the moment it is not unlawful and I'm clear about that,” she said. “If we introduce this law, it won't be.

“[The new Hate Crime law] is where people are inciting hatred and violence against another group of people and that is a much higher threshold.”

Gender identity policy

The SETU policy notes that violating a person's dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive workplace environment for a person is prohibited under The Employment Equality Acts 1998-2015.

Under the act, it is illegal to discriminate against a person under nine different grounds, including gender.

Discrimination is defined as treating someone less favourably than another and is outlawed under a wide range of employment areas including:

• Equal pay
• Recruitment
• Training and work experience
• Promotion or re-grading
• Terms and conditions of employment
• Classification of posts
• Collective agreements
• Dismissal

The act makes no specific reference to the use of preferred pronouns.