He claims he is being penalised for refusing, on religious grounds, to use a student’s preferred pronouns in the school where he taught. ICCL guideIn recent days it emerged in the pages of The Irish Times that schools are not legally obliged to address a student by their preferred pronouns. Dr O’Shea said there has been an explosion in gender questioning among young people since 2010, and anytime you put “must” in this area it will cause problems. “The vast majority of people who are gender questioning who I deal with will not be in the activist space pushing legislation. They will just want to quietly follow their gender journey and get on with their life in their preferred gender.

Source: Irish Examiner January 24, 2026 15:15 UTC