@christineburns At one level, yes, property matters more than hate.
But at another level, it's an Irish instance of the global problem that #techbros have made sane public discourse impossible. There's big money in systematic #lies through corporate #socialmedia.
The Irish state has mostly been well-intended wrt #trans people. The 5 biggest political parties are strongly pro-trans; the biggest 2 parties have v senior ppl with trans family. But I see no strategy for challenging hate.
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@christineburns Mainstream Irish media's coverage of the #EnochBurke drama has been fairly good.
It's a huge contrast to the UK, where the #SandiePeggie drama has turned the #HeraldScotland into a hyperpartisan single-issue transphobic campaign. Its Facebook feed is now an order of magnitude worse than even the #DailyTelegraph and #TheTimes. In Ireland, only alt-right newmedia goes anywhere near that stance.
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@christineburns The most interesting development in Ireland has been Mr Justice Brian Cregan's taking over of the High Court #IEHC case.
#CreganJ has adapted to the social media age, after explicitly identifying the case as a sustained atrack on the rule of law. He has taken a zero-tolerance to abuse of the court, and prevented the exploitation of the courts as a stage for theatrics.
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@christineburns in every one of his 3 judgments, #CreganJ has very carefully written clearly structured judgments in plain English. They are written to be readable as self-contained texts, with no need to refer to other documents, and they are all easily clipped for social media. There is no slip in legal standards, but Cregan has massively raised the court's standard of public communications.
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@christineburns #CreganJ's three judgments on #EnochBurke are well worth reading. I think they are exceptionally fine. See
1/ https://tinyurl.com/Cregan18Nov2025,
2/ https://tinyurl.com/Cregan28Nov2025,
3/ https://tinyurl.com/Cregan9Dec2025.
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@christineburns I do take your important point about the focus on property rights rather than hate. To be fair, the judgments in #EnochBurke have taken a much broader view of #trespass as an inujry to the whole school community rather than just to property rights; but it's true that trespass is a concept founded in property law rather than civil liberty or personal safety. Not a great starting point.
But it's still an interesting approach.
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@christineburns In most European countries, current law privileges religious conscience. That has a sound historical basis, after centuries of Europeans persecuting and slaughtering each other over religious differences.
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@christineburns But law hasn't really caught up with the 21st-century phenomenon of the christian taliban campaigns of #mirrorpropaganda. They regard freedom of conscience as a shield only for themselves and a sword only for themselves. There is no live-and-let-live in the ##BurkeFamily's crusader worldview, no trace of reciprocity.
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@christineburns LGBT people lack any equivalent fundamental legal shields of freedom of gender and sexual identity and expression. In the UK, there has been a huge conceptual setback with the acceptance of #transphobia as a #protectedbelief under the "#gendercritical" label, granting huge privileges to secular hatemongers to match the privileges of religious hatemonger.
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@christineburns And that's why I admire the jurisprudence of #Cregan . Given the huge holes in legal frameworks, he has used a rather Tory approach to property rights as a basis of liberty.
He has labelled the offence as #trespass, but his application of it protects secular freedom of conscience and freedom from harassment. I reckon that #JusticeCregan has done a good job with inadequate tools.
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Sorry this reply turned out to be so long. I got a bit carried away thinking out loud.
Claire McNab