(LifeSiteNews) — Within four days of beginning his job at community-based childcare center in Letterkenny, Ireland, in 2024, “Aleena” Starshine faced two parental complaints. Starshine, a trans-identifying man, offered an 11-year-old a “free kiss” or a “big kiss” as a prize for winning a game. The child told the mother, who promptly complained. Starshine claimed the comment had been a funny joke. The mother did not share that view.
The second incident also occurred within days. Starshine, who was hired to care for children ages 5-12, handed a child over to an adult at pickup time without checking the adult’s identity or having another staff member present. When confronted, Starshine didn’t see the safeguarding issue. The Craoibhin Community Enterprise Centre first suspended him with pay, but after an investigation fired him in February 2025 over safeguarding awareness, professional judgment, and boundaries.
Starshine’s behavior was obviously egregious; the childcare center even notified the Child and Family Agency of the complaints against him. But Starshine, predictably, decided that his dismissal was actually anti-LGBT discrimination, and in July 2024 he filed a complaint with the Workplace Relations Commission, claiming that he had been a victim of discrimination on the basis of his “gender identity.”
In fact, Starshine went so far as to allege that the mother of the 11-year-old child he had offered to kiss was probably transphobic.
“The letter in the original complaint is highly suggestive of gender discrimination. The author of that letter was _______,” he stated in his complaint. “She is the mother of a child who uses the Respondent’s service. She was the mother of the child who was offered a free kiss.” He also claimed that the process of his dismissal was badly flawed (presumably, unlike his work performance).
Starshine’s behavior was so egregious, however, that not even his transgender identity could save him — even in woke Ireland. The childcare center pointed out that it was not his identity that got him dismissed but the fact that he had offered to kiss an 11-year-old child.
Niamh O’Carroll of the Workplace Relations Commission agreed. “There are no facts before me from which I could conclude that the Complainant’s employment was terminated on discriminatory grounds related to gender,” she wrote in her decision.
“The evidence before me clearly demonstrates that the Complainant did not successfully complete her probationary period due to concerns regarding her professional judgment, safeguarding awareness, and recognition of appropriate professional boundaries, and for no other reason.”
Indeed, the reaction on social media to the story has not been kind to the Craoibhin Community Enterprise Centre for hiring someone who is obviously male and using the ludicrous handle “Aleena Starshine” to begin with.
Reduxx reported that Starshine had made a habit of posting LGBT activist content on his social media. One post, which he published after he was dismissed, read, “Drag Queens are not pedophiles. Trans people are not pedophiles. We have ample evidence of this. We know what the demographics of child predators are. We know that those targeting 2SLGBTQIA+ people are projecting.”
