Introduction to Special Issue: Decertifying Legal Sex—Prefigurative Law Reform and the Future of Legal Gender
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: This special issue explores the politics and controversy surrounding the proposal to decertify (or abolish) legal sex status in Britain, focusing on the jurisdiction of England and Wales. Footnote 1 Decertification emerged as a law reform idea, from the confluence of several developments: feminist and transgender politics, intellectual movements in critical and prefigurative research, and the institutionalisation of liberal equality paradigms. However, the immediate story starts with legal measures introduced transnationally to accommodate gender transitioning and in some cases to legally recognise gender identities other than as women and men (e.g., see Sharpe 2007 ; Clarke 2018 ; Holzer 2018 ; Renz 2020a ). These state legislative projects of incorporation, intent on maintaining broader legal sex and gender structures, Footnote 2 provide for some movement away from binary statuses assigned at birth (e.g., Dunne and Mulder 2018 ; Renz 2020b ). Yet, the assumption that minorities should be incorporated within existing classificatory structures, with all the political and administrative difficulties this entails, begs a more foundational question: why retain a structure of legal sex? ‘The Future of Legal Gender’ (FLaG) project, which formally started in 2018 (in design from 2015), decided to research this question, to ask: are there good reasons to continue to accord sex and gender legal status in England and Wales? Footnote 3
Source: Feminist Legal Studies
Authors: Davina Cooper, Flora Renz
Institutions: King's College London, University of Kent
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,890
OpenAlex ID: W4360609108