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Notes -
There's something sociolinguistically peculiar about treating government form submissions as in the same class as conversations among peers or speeches in the public square. Reserving judgement, I would venture to say that most people worldwide treat government bureaucracies in a purely utilitarian way, as an alien beast that must be appeased by certain sigils or spells that are otherwise meaningless.
(Presumably there's a statement on this Irish citizenship form like "I swear under penalty of perjury that the above is true and correct", but is the transwoman in this story really worried about the Gardai busting down their door on charges that they lied about their gender identity? I strongly doubt it.)
It seems like this attitude towards paperwork is a relic from an earlier time, when the State really was "just the things we do together" and not something imposed from above. Which is not the case anywhere anymore, but it's nice to be nostalgic about.
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