Last month, Ireland voted by a 2 to 1 majority in a national referendum to repeal its eighth constitutional amendment. Introduced in 1983, the amendment equated the life of a fetus with the life of its mother — thus preventing abortion in Ireland in almost all circumstances for 35 years. This resulted in horrific deaths and violations of human rights; for example, the death of a woman named Savita Halappanavar from sepsis in 2012, and the forcible hydration of a 14-year-old migrant who was pregnant due to rape. After a long wait and many tragedies, abortion is finally legal in Ireland.

Only three years ago, Ireland voted by a similarly large majority in a referendum to allow marriage equality — a political victory that no doubt had considerable influence over last month’s vote. Since then, Ireland’s LGBTQ+ community has had huge influence over the abortion vote, with drag queens, gay club promoters, and gay magazines raising considerable funds and awareness for the abortion rights campaign.

The queer and women’s rights movements have always seemed to battle different forms of the same heteropatriarchal oppression, and links between them are no surprise — the two movements have always been in dialogue. Unsurprisingly, it is queer women themselves who are the locus for this unity, the bridging points between two histories. Since the lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s, queer women have been activist leaders in feminism — in Ireland, this overlap was embodied by Nell McCafferty. And these roots were reflected in Ireland’s battle to repeal the eighth amendment. Many campaign leaders, activists and organizers in Ireland’s abortion rights movement are queer women or queer people capable of getting pregnant.

We met some of the leading queer feminist activists in Ireland to discuss how queer women and people played such a huge role in leading the referendum campaign to victory, and how the close proximity of the marriage equality and abortion referendums brought queer activism to the fore. Read more via them.