Gender Critical in Ireland Part 3

[VaddaABeetch]

I’m watching RTE news. They mentioned the Garda representatives organisation are concerned about Gender Identity in the workplace. It’s been brought in without consultation & without training.

the Garda Commissioner has said that Garda may be disciplined for misgendering.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Presidential means you can vote in all elections - presidential, general, local etc.

Thanks. In that case, wtf doesn't it say 'all elections'? Same number of letters, world of difference in the information conveyed.

There's a hierarchy of voting rights, Presidential means Irish people being able to vote in all types of elections such as local, general, presidential, european and referendums. Only Irish citizens can vote in Presidential elections.

If British or an EU or non EU citizen there's restrictions on which elections they can vote in.

I'm not questioning that, I'm asking why the online form did not make clear what elections I could vote in. No one ever made me learn the hierarchy of voting rights, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Putting 'presidential' on their form rather than 'all elections' meant that I resubmitted my data, adding my PPS and eircode, thereby putting further cloggage into what they claim is an overloaded system.

First rule of designing forms for members of the public to fill in: don't assume they use the same vocabulary the experts use.

If you click on the P for Presidential it shows all that information. Also in the lead up to Presidential elections it's explained repeatedly who's eligible to vote.

If they used the words 'all elections' there would be no need to click on anything. It's a badly designed form. At best it's the product of laziness, at worst it's deliberate obfuscation.

It's not rocket science, one click on the P explains all the different eligibility criteria and if that's too complicated or arduous for someone maybe they'd be better off not voting.

A bad form produced by an arrogant designer who has no right to decide that fellow citizens should be denied their franchise because they don't jump through totally arbitrary extra hoops in order to get the information should be there upfront.

You seem very defensive of it. Why is that?

I'm not defensive of it, I understand it and don't find it complicated in the least.

Bully for you. I found it unhelpful and over elaborate. I am not stupid - I have a PhD, and I had quite a lot of workplace experience designing and redesigning forms for the public.

I have voted in almost every election (missed one referendum) since 1977 and find this whole process of having to check the register problematic - God be with the days when you could call into the post office or the council and deal with a human.

Just lost a post but was supporting Dean. Also think about the hundreds of thousands who are not tech savvy, wouldn't know to click on a word or part of it or have the manual dexterity to do it. They're still perfectly capable of voting. In addition, I had thought it listed all the types of vote you are eligible for not just saying the "highest" one...turns out I remembered right. Rechecked mine and it gives a clear full list of all I can vote in without me having to click anything.
In Dublin so voter.ie is different for us thick dubs.

Also the order they are listed starts with referendum then presidential....so not intuitive or universally known hierarchy for the creators of voter.ie

Thanks BiB.

Phew, I just checked the register and I wasn't on it - then I remembered I use my first and middle name, re-entered and there I am!!

Interesting take from an interesting (and witty) woman:

https://twitter.com/modonnellDL/status/1748119082539315234?t=rTeR4kzV5pnZVKlAqlKDLw&s=19

So now we have the wording of the two changes. The family one is a classic case of asking us to buy a pig in a poke, the other one erases women. I'll be voting no to both.

https://www.electoralcommission.ie/referendums/referendum-information/what-are-you-being-asked-to-decide-on/#CareAmendment

I think that people who are in a durable relationship have the right not to be considered as effectively a married couple. At what point do you have to end a longstanding relationship to avoid taking on the legal responsibilities of marriage if they are not what you want?

wtf is a 'durable relationship' anyway?

I can see lawyers getting rich, forests being felled, oceans of ink used, data centres gobbling all the power from the windmills, airwaves clogged, for years, as that gets debated and disputed through the courts and through future referendums. Have they learned nothing from 1983 etc etc etc about inserting ill-thought-through clauses?

Anyone who wants to be married can be married.

wtf is a 'durable relationship' anyway?

Yes, people need to know exactly what they're voting for.

It’ll all be cloaked in lovely fuzzy language but the reality is durable relationship is a stupid term. If in doubt vote no. It can be revisited when all this is hashed out.

How does it erase women?
On a practical level I mean - I know the words woman and mother are taken out here, but woman is still in the Constitution elsewhere.

But will the new wording have negative implications for women in some way?
I don't get what you mean exactly...

It’s ironic too that the NWCI all of who
are privileged women are shouting that 41.2 disadvantaged women & prevents them having full lives.

including the errrm manly woman they have

There's some excellent questions here re the proportion of public money NWCI are using to support a Yes vote.....x.com/Upsy_Daisy666/status/1747331278125346932?t=a_h7-qUCWhw7k_eatXHixg&s=08

afaik that is the only reference to women in the Constitution. There are some references to equality of the sexes, but since 'sex' is in the process of losing all legal meaning in Ireland that isn't helpful to us. This is the only recognition of women, the only statement of rights arising from our physical reality. And this shower of galloping misogynists want us to vote for its removal.

This is well put.

People make a conscious decision to marry and others decide not to. Sometimes the reason might be you have been married before and want to protect the children’s inheritance or maybe relationship isn’t actually all that great but due to sunk cost fallacy you both just drifting along afraid to make the first move to end it.

Durable relationship is just asking for trouble because it’s so vague.