Leaked emails reveal horrific mistruth at the heart of Enoch Burke case

Enoch Burke

Niall Feiritear

Leaked emails in the Enoch Burke case reveal the principal of Wilson's Hospital School said she had parental consent to change a schoolchild's pronouns but this was not true.

As far as anyone with a brain is concerned, this is where this case should begin and end. Let's just repeat ourselves here for the slow ones at the back : the former principal of the school told an untruth that she had parental consent to use 'they/them' pronouns with one of her pupils.

It doesn't matter if the child wanted this nonsense to occur, the parents were unaware and uninformed of what was taking place.

This vindicates Enoch Burke for anyone except the extremely mentally redundant.

Let's break this stupid case down once and for all. The Gender Recognition Act of 2015 states that:

For individuals aged 16 and 17 in Ireland, legal gender recognition, which includes updating official documents like birth certificates to reflect a preferred gender, requires parental or guardian consent and a court order

For younger children (under 16), it is not currently possible to legally change their gender in a way that is recognized by the State ^[1]. This implies that any formal recognition of a child's gender identity, including potentially through pronoun usage in schools, would likely fall under the purview of parental decision-making

The law doesn't specify that a school must have parental permission to change specific gender pronouns for a child but perhaps the law now needs an update?

On the 9 ^th May 2022, staff at the school received an e-mail from the principal of the school, informing them a third year student would be making a "social transition" in their gender identity from the next day and stating that from then the student would become known by a different name and that “ they” should be used in place of the gender-specific pronoun that had been used up to the point.

Enoch Burke immediately objected to the principal's instruction. He emailed the principal the very next day stating:

“Can you confirm to me that parents of students in the school have been informed that their children will be told that one of their classmates is to be referred to as “they” instead of [pronoun] and they must now approve this by referring to the student in this manner? Has the chaplain agreed to this?I am shocked that students in this school are being forced to accept this position.”

The principal replied:

“All due care has been taken.There is no ‘agreement’ required from Chaplain.There is no suggestion of “force” by or for anyone involved.If you are not willing to include [child's name] in your classroom going further, please make an appointment to see me at our mutual convenience.”

Enoch replied to say:

“It is wrong that this belief system would be forced upon students and I will be taking this further.It is an abuse of children and their constitutional rights.”

On 27 ^th May, the principal emailed Enoch stating:

“I am writing to you following on from the meeting last week (Wednesday 19 ^th May) regarding the request by a student and the student's parents that the student be addressed as [name] rather than [name] and that the identifying pronoun of they/their be used going forward.I wish to clarify the approach of Wilson's Hospital to such request. The ethos of our school is inclusive and ensuring the welfare of students is paramount.......

I edited out some boring crap here-

......While I recognise that it may be challenging for you in light of your own religious beliefs, in view of the ethos of the school and the school's obligations under the Equal Status Act 2000, I expect that you will communicate with this student in accordance with the wishes of the student and the student's parents.”

Enoch replied on the 27 ^th May:

“On Monday 9 May you emailed all staff requesting that they address a student with a new name and refer to the student using ‘they’ rather than the [pronoun] used up that point. You also told us that the same demand would be made of all classmates of the student.In the staff meeting the next day on Tuesday 10 May and also the meeting you requested last week on Wednesday 19 May I explained to you clearly where I stand on the matter.”

Now let's jump forward to 17th March 2023 and an article in the Irish Independent by Shane Phelan which states that the parents never gave their consent.

Mr Phelan writes:

"In an email to the school's principal in January, the parent said they only learned "the child in question is my child" after reading a court judgment which outlined what year the unidentified student was in.

"'The school did not inform me.'

"The parent also said their child had never requested they be called by the "they/them pronoun".

So that's it, really, nothing else matters.

Apparently Enoch Burke became upset after these events and raised his voice or broke up a couple of meetings or whatever, but none of that really matters.

Formal consent from parents, in any society, should be the minimum we expect for changes to our children's pronouns.

Burke was just unlucky that he was subordinate.

Power tends to win out in these stupid work environment situations. No matter how pissed off Burke got with his superior, that was righteous anger with someone who he thought had gotten parental consent. Imagine he knew that was not true!

If some teacher ever tried to use different gender pronouns with my kid, without my consent, I can tell you I would become violently angry.

In an affidavit, the school's chairman, John Rogers, said a meeting did take place between the student, their parents and the principal at which the then principal was advised the student wanted to "transition" and to be addressed by a new name and pronoun .

However, the parent said in the email to Mr Milling they wished to be clear that the purpose of the meeting was to "re-engage [their child] back to school". The parent also said that while the child had requested to go by a new name,

"the they/them pronoun came from Wilson's" .

Burke is clearly innocent. It doesn't matter how angry/disruptive whatever he got after this, he is not the one in the wrong here, clearly.

Get him out of prison, give him back his life and his money.

Enoch Burke is doing bird now over 500 days.

For society to function, peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.