Abstract
This chapter explores the intersections of law, identity and discrimination. The author draws from a larger, four-year empirical project—documenting trans narratives of equality in Scotland, Canada and the United States. The focus of this contribution is those responses from participants in the first of these jurisdictions. Through the lens of legal consciousness, and using a “femiqueer” perspective, the author considers the ways in which trans people in Scotland talk about their everyday experiences of discrimination. The chapter presents original findings that increase our understanding of the lives of trans people in that part of the United Kingdom and contributes to socio-legal theoretical literature by suggesting a new strand of “legal consciousness”. It adds to our knowledge of how trans people themselves see the role and relevance of law in their lives: by examining both practical and conceptual understandings and experiences of equality; by contributing to the legal consciousness literature in introducing the new concept of “optimistic legal realism”; and by analysing recent shifts in discourse on equality and trans rights in Scotland. The chapter also highlights how people negotiate being “inside” and “outside” the trans and cisgender communities around them. In light of the particular attention currently being given in the UK to whether gender identity and expression should be regulated, and the policing of gendered spaces, this chapter argues that we must pay attention to trans people’s narratives; their intersectional experiences of equality and life generally in Scotland—and elsewhere—require nuanced and sensitive consideration.
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Notes
- 1.
Gloria E. Anzaldúa, “Bridge, Drawbridge, Sandbar, or Island: Lesbians-of-Color Hacienda Alianzas,” in Bridges of Power: Women’s Multi-cultural Alliances, ed. Lisa D. Albrecht and Rose Brewer (Santa Cruz: New Society Publishers, 1990), 229.
- 2.
Paisley Currah has undertaken empirical research in the US interviewing trans activists about their choice of legal strategies: “Gender Pluralisms Under the Transgender Umbrella,” in Transgender Rights, ed. Paisley Currah, Richard Juang and Shannon Price Minter (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2006). The Scottish Trans Alliance has also completed a survey of trans people asking about their experiences of living in Scotland, but not focusing specifically on inequality and discrimination—Transgender Experiences in Scotland: Research Summary (Edinburgh: Equality Network, 2008); Sally Hines (Sally Hines, Gender Diversity, Recognition and Citizenship: Towards a Politics of Difference [London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013], 11–57) and Flora Renz (Davina Cooper and Flora Renz, “If the State Decertified Gender, What Might Happen to Its Meaning and Value?” Journal of Law and Society 43, no. 4 [2016]) have both conducted research asking trans people in England and Wales about their experiences of encountering the Gender Recognition Act 2004, and, in 2017, Chryssy Hunter completed a doctoral thesis at London Metropolitan University, interviewing trans people about their experiences of the effectiveness of equality legislation in England and Wales. In 2017, Sylvia Morgan completed a PhD thesis examining trans people’s experiences of gender identity in Scotland; and, in 2018, Karen Kaufman completed her MRes dissertation on trans people’s negotiations around identity in Scotland—neither focus on law but both are illuminating and important studies.
- 3.
This term has also been used in the humanities in Rachel Lee, The Exquisite Corpse of Asian America: Biopolitics, Biosociality, and Posthuman Ecologies (New York: NYU Press, 2014), and in Kendal Broad and Mary K. Bloodsworth, “FemiQueer Pedagogies: ‘Lesbian/Gay’ Studies in Postmodern Women’s Studies,” Feminist Teacher 13, no. 2 (2001), and in the scientific context, in Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader, ed. Cyd Cipolla et al. (Washington DC: University of Washington Press, 2017).
- 4.
Sharon Cowan, Chloe Kennedy and Vanessa E. Munro, eds, The Scottish Feminist Judgments Project: (Re)Creating Law from the Outside In (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2019).
- 5.
“Scotland Rated Best Country in Europe for LGBTI Legal Equality,” Equality Network, May 10, 2015, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.equality-network.org/scotland-rated-best-country-in-europe-for-lgbti-legal-equality. Scottish government policy refers to LGBTI rather than LGBT equality.
- 6.
The figures are 66% for the whole of the UK and 73% for Scotland. “Scotland Slips Down International LGBT Rankings,” Pink Saltire, May 13, 2019, accessed March 20, 2020, https://pinksaltire.com/2019/05/13/scotland-slips-down-international-lgbt-rankings.
- 7.
Libby Brooks, “Scotland to Embed LGBTI Teaching Across Curriculum.” The Guardian, November 9, 2018, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/nov/09/scotland-first-country-approve-lgbti-school-lessons.
- 8.
“Trans Troops Return to Era of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ as Trump Policy Takes Effect.” The Guardian, April 13, 2019, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/apr/12/transgender-ban-military-trump-take-effect-dont-ask-dont-tell. The Trump administration also revoked federal guidance, introduced by President Obama under Title IX, that included trans people within the sex discrimination protections, thereby allowing trans students to use school bathrooms that matched their gender identity; however, this attempt to retreat from trans equality has been challenged in various federal courts: Matt Stevens, “Transgender Student in Bathroom Dispute Wins Court Ruling,” New York Times, May 22, 2018, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/us/gavin-grimm-transgender-bathrooms.html. See also Susan G. Mezey, Transgender Rights: From Obama to Trump (New York; London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020) for in-depth discussion.
- 9.
Stonewall. 2017. LGBT in Scotland: Hate Crime and Discrimination available at http://www.stonewallscotland.org.uk//scotlandcomeoutforLGBT/lgbt-in-britain/hate-crime, accessed March 26, 2020. On critiques of the existing gender recognition process, see for example: Stephen Whittle, “The Opposite of Sex Is Politics—The UK Gender Recognition Act and Why It Is Not Perfect, Just Like You and Me,” Journal of Gender Studies 15, no. 3 (2006): 267; Sally Hines, “(Trans)forming Gender: Social Change and Transgender Citizenship,” Sociological Research Online 12, no. 1 (2007), accessed March 23, 2020, https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.1469; Sharon Cowan, Ralph Sandland and Alex Sharpe, “Debate and Dialogue—The Gender Recognition Act 2004,” Social and Legal Studies 18, no. 2 (2009).
- 10.
See Matson Lawrence and Yvette Taylor, “The UK Government LGBT Action Plan: Discourses of Progress, Enduring Stasis, and LGBTQI+ lives ‘Getting Better’,” Critical Social Policy 1, no. 22 (2019).
- 11.
Other jurisdictions have moved to gender self-identification, e.g. Malta, Ireland, Argentina. For discussion see Mitchell Travis and Fae Garland, “Legislating Intersex Equality: Building the Resilience of Intersex People Through Law,” Legal Studies 38, no. 4 (2018): 587–606; Cooper and Renz, supra note 2.
- 12.
For discussion of the situation in England and Wales, see Stephen Whittle and Fiona Simkiss, “A Perfect Storm: The UK Government’s Failed Consultation on the Gender Recognition Act 2004,” in Research Handbook on Gender, Sexuality and the Law, ed. Chris Ashford and Alexander Maine (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2020); for Scotland see the article by James Morton, Scottish Trans Manager, Scottish Trans Alliance: James Morton, “Focus on the Facts When Debating Gender Recognition Act.” Herald, October 20, 2018, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16996220.focus-on-the-facts-when-debating-gender-recognition-act/. The UK government announced in September 2020 that they were no longer proceeding with plans to reform the GRA to allow trans people to self-identify their gender without medical assessment or treatment.
- 13.
See Alex Sharpe, Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity ‘Fraud’ (London: Routledge, 2018).
- 14.
“Rainbow Europe 2019,” ILGA Europe, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.ilga-europe.org/rainboweurope/2019.
- 15.
Susan S. Silbey, “Legal Culture and Consciousness,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 2001), 8626.
- 16.
Simon Halliday and Bronwen Morgan, “I Fought the Law and the Law Won? Legal Consciousness and the Critical Imagination,” Current Legal Problems 66, no. 1 (2013): 2.
- 17.
Simon Halliday, Celia Kitzinger and Jenny Kitzinger, “Law in Everyday Life and Death: A Socio-legal Study of Chronic Disorders of Consciousness,” Legal Studies 35, no. 1 (2015): 69.
- 18.
Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey, The Common Place of Law (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1998).
- 19.
Halliday et al., supra note 17.
- 20.
Halliday et al., supra note 17.
- 21.
Ewick and Silbey’s schema has been refined by Halliday and Morgan (supra note 16), who have suggested a new kind of legal consciousness—“collective dissent”.
- 22.
Marc Hertogh, Nobody’s Law (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018).
- 23.
Zach Richards, “Book Review: Nobody’s Law: Legal Consciousness and Legal Alienation in Everyday Life,” The UK Administrative Justice Institute, October 12, 2018, https://ukaji.org/2018/10/12/book-review-nobodys-law-legal-consciousness-and-legal-alienation-in-everyday-life/. For a full review essay that examines the field, as well as Hertogh’s recent book, see Simon Halliday, “After Hegemony: The Varieties of Legal Consciousness Research,” Social & Legal Studies 28, no. 6 (2019): 859. See Rosie Harding, Regulating Sexuality: Legal Consciousness in Lesbian and Gay Lives (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010) for research with LGBT people that uses the legal consciousness framework and asks how they draw on the concept of equality in relation to same-sex marriage.
- 24.
Susan Silbey, “After Legal Consciousness,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 1 (2005): 323.
- 25.
Silbey, supra note 24, p. 326.
- 26.
Sandra Harding, “Introduction: Is There a Feminist Method?” in Feminism and Methodology, ed. Sandra Harding (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Sandra Harding, Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991).
- 27.
“Research and Data Needs,” National Center for Transgender Equality, accessed March 20, 2020, https://transequality.org/issues/research-data-needs.
- 28.
Sara Ahmed, “An Affinity of Hammers,” Transgender Studies Quarterly 3, no. 1–2 (2016): 22.
- 29.
Andrea Doucet and Natasha S. Mauthner, “Feminist Methodologies and Epistemologies,” in The Handbook of 21st Century Sociology, ed. Dennis. L. Peck and Clifton D. Bryant (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2007); Caroline Fusco, “Critical Feminist/Queer Methodologies: Deconstructing (Hetero)Normative Inscriptions,” in Qualitative Research on Sport and Physical Culture, ed. Kevin Young and Michael Atkinson (Research in the Sociology of Sport, Volume 6) (Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2012), 152.
- 30.
Daniel Warner, “Towards a Queer Research Methodology,” Qualitative Research in Psychology 1, no. 4 (2004): 334.
- 31.
Catherine Nash, “Queer Conversations: Old-time Lesbians, Transmen and the Politics of Queer Research,” in Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research, ed. Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash (London: Routledge, 2010), 133.
- 32.
Fusco, supra note 29.
- 33.
Warner, supra note 30.
- 34.
Warner, supra note 30, p. 335.
- 35.
See for example Stephen Whittle et al., Engendered Penalties: Transgender and Transsexual People’s Experiences of Inequality and Discrimination (A Research Project and Report Commissioned by the Equalities Review, 2007), http://www.pfc.org.uk/files/EngenderedPenalties.pdf; see also Stephen Whittle, “The Trans-Cyberian Mail Way,” Social and Legal Studies 7, no. 3 (1998): 389.
- 36.
Helene Frohard‐Dourlent et al., “I Would Have Preferred More Options”: Accounting for Non‐Binary Youth in Health Research. Nursing Inquiry 24, no. 1 (2017), accessed March 25, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12150. Scottish Trans provides a neat description of non-binary: “Non binary People,” Scottish Trans, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.scottishtrans.org/trans-rights/an-intro-to-trans-terms/non-binary-people/. Sometimes intersex people are also included under the trans umbrella (or the LGBTQ banner), for example by the Scottish Government, but this has proved controversial for some intersex people who do not wish to be labelled in such a way. Garland and Travis discuss this at length in Chapter 7 of this edited collection.
- 37.
Viviane Namaste, Sex Change, Social Change; Reflections on Identity, Institutions and Imperialism (Toronto: Women’s Press, 2005); see also Judith Halberstam, In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 49, 54; See also Jacob Hale, “Suggested Rules for Non-Transsexuals Writing About Transsexuals, Transsexuality, Transsexualism, or Trans_____,” Sandy Stone, Last modified November 18, 2009 https://sandystone.com/hale.rules.html.
- 38.
Julia Serrano, Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism (Oakland: Switch Hitter Press, 2016), 244; see also Julia Serrano, “A Personal History of the ‘T-word’,” Whipping Girl, April 28, 2014, http://juliaserano.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-personal-history-of-t-word-and-some.html#activistlanguage.
- 39.
Brian Tamanaha, “A Non-Essentialist Version of Legal Pluralism,” Journal of Law and Society 27, no. 2 (2000): 313.
- 40.
Dean Spade, Normal Life (Brooklyn: South End Press, 2011), 119; see also Namaste, supra note 37.
- 41.
Carol Smart, Feminism and the Power of Law (London: Routledge, 1989).
- 42.
Peggy Davis, “Law as Microaggression,” Yale Law Journal 98, no. 8 (1989): 1559; see also Derald Wing Sue, Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender and Sexual Orientation (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2010).
- 43.
Davis, supra note 42, pp. 1561–1562.
- 44.
Davis, supra note 42, p. 1565, quoting Pierce et al. 1978 p. 66.
- 45.
Sue, supra note 42.
- 46.
See also Tiffany Chang and Barry Chung, “Transgender Microaggressions: Complexity of the Heterogeneity of Transgender Identities,” Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling 9, no. 3 (2015): 217.
- 47.
Sylvia Morgan, “Constructing Identities, Reclaiming Subjectivities, Reconstructing Selves: An Interpretative Study of Transgender Practices in Scotland” (PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2017).
- 48.
Samia Bano and Jennifer Pierce, “Personal Narratives, Social Justice, and the Law,” Feminist Legal Studies 21, no. 3 (2013): 226.
- 49.
Alistair Thomson, “Memory and Remembering in Oral History,” in The Oxford Handbook of Oral History, ed. Donald A. Ritchie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 81.
- 50.
- 51.
Hines (2007), supra note 9, p. 199. Hines was following in the tradition of Ken Plummer’s ground-breaking work on the social construction of sexual stories, and political role that storytelling plays in carving out space for new kinds of “intimate citizenship”: Ken Plummer, Telling Sexual Stories (London: Routledge, 1995), 6.
- 52.
Ewick and Silbey, supra note 18. In my study a number of questions were asked of all interviewees, such as: “what does the term equality mean to you?”; “Would you say you have faith in law?”; and “What other resources do you feel are available to you, other than law, to address any problems you might encounter in your life?” These questions were, however, left until the end of the interview, so that questions about law did not drive the orientation of the conversation.
- 53.
Morgan, supra note 47, p. 102.
- 54.
House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, Transgender Equality (London: The Stationery Office Limited, 2016), 26–27. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf—though note that the Equality Act’s definition of gender reassignment does not mirror the narrower and more medicalised GRA requirements of gender reassignment.
- 55.
See e.g. Ronald Dworkin, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000); Thomas Nagel, Equality and Partiality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). Of course the “Equality of What” question has also been open to feminist critique—see for example Catharine MacKinnon, Women’s Lives, Men’s Laws (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); Martha Nussbaum, Sex and Social Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Amartya Sen, Inequality Re-examined (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). For feminist analysis of various different approaches to the question, see Davina Cooper, “‘And You Can’t Find Me Nowhere’: Relocating Identity and Structure Within Equality Jurisprudence,” Journal of Law and Society 27, no. 2 (2000): 249.
- 56.
For discussion: see Diane Richardson, Sexuality and Citizenship (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017), Chapter 6.
- 57.
Hines (2013) supra note 2, p. 24.
- 58.
Hines (2013) supra note 2, p. 11.
- 59.
See also: Louis Bailey, Sonja Ellis, and Jay McNeil, “Suicide Risk in the UK Trans Population and The Role of Gender Transition in Decreasing Suicidal Ideation and Suicide Attempt,” Mental Health Review Journal 19, no 4 (2014): 209–220; and Jay McNeil et al., Trans Mental Health Study 2012 available at: https://www.gires.ord.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/trans_mh_study.pdf, accessed March 25, 2020.
- 60.
Morgan, supra note 47, pp. 157, 159, 255; see also Karen Kaufman, “Transgender Voices: How Transgender People Across the Central Belt of Scotland Negotiate Their Identities as Human Beings in the Face of Perceived Disadvantage and Imposed Norms” (Thesis submitted for MRes, University of Glasgow, 2018).
- 61.
Halliday et al., supra note 17.
- 62.
Hines, supra note 2, pp. 22–23.
- 63.
Hines, supra note 2, p. 57.
- 64.
Kathleen E. Hull, “The Cultural Power of Law and the Cultural Enactment of Legality: The Case of Same‐Sex Marriage,” Law & Social Inquiry 28, no. 3 (2003): 629–657.
- 65.
Harding, supra note 23.
- 66.
Hull, supra note 66.
- 67.
Halliday et al., supra note 17.
- 68.
Halliday and Morgan, supra note 16.
- 69.
Hertogh, supra note 22.
- 70.
Halliday, supra note 23, p. 871.
- 71.
Hertogh, supra note 22, p. 59.
- 72.
Halliday, supra note 23, p. 872.
- 73.
Hines, supra note 2, p. 23.
- 74.
In Scotland, excepting those relating to employment, discrimination claims made to tribunals (such as those related to goods or services) are not covered by legal aid. See “Help with Legal Costs,” Citizens Advice Scotland, accessed March 20, 2020, https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/legal-system-s/taking-legal-action-s/help-with-legal-costs-s/#Civillegalaid.
- 75.
Spade, supra note 40; Sarah Lamble, “Queer Necropolitics and the Expanding Carceral State: Interrogating Sexual Investments in Punishment,” Law and Critique 24, no. 3 (2013); see also Angela Dwyer, ‘“It’s Not Like We’re Going to Jump Them’: How Transgressing Heteronormativity Shapes Police Interactions with LGBT Young People,” Youth Justice 11, no. 3 (2011) on the policing of young queer communities.
- 76.
Although none of my participants expressed a desire for gender dysphoria to be classed as a disability, this has been hotly debated in the US where the federal disability law was recently held to include gender dysphoria. See “Breakthrough: Americans with Disabilities Act Can’t Exclude Gender Dysphoria,” Transequality, accessed March 20, 2020, https://transequality.org/blog/breakthrough-americans-with-disabilities-act-can-t-exclude-gender-dysphoria; and Katy Steinmetz, “Being Transgender Is Not a Mental Disorder: Study,” Time, July 26, 2016, accessed March 20, 2020, https://time.com/4424589/being-transgender-is-not-a-mental-disorder-study.
- 77.
Spade, supra note 40, p. 160.
- 78.
Sharon Cowan, “Sex/Gender Equality: Taking a Break from the Legal to Transform the Social,” in Exploring the Legal in Socio-Legal Studies, ed. David Cowan and Daniel Wincott (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), 121–146.
- 79.
Scottish Trans Alliance, personal communication, July 24, 2019. For the Gender reassignment NHS Scotland protocol 2012, see: Health and Social Care Directorate, The protocol is under review but there is interim guidance from 2017 available in Health Performance and Delivery Directorate, Gender Reassignment Protocol: Interim Guidance (Edinburgh: Scottish Government, 2017). For information on waiting lists and survey of gender identity services in 2017, see Scottish Public Health Network, Health Care Needs Assessment of Gender Identity Services (Glasgow: SPHN, 2017).
- 80.
House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee, supra note 56.
- 81.
Whittle and Simkiss, supra note 12, pp. 211–231.
- 82.
Ahmed, supra note 28, p. 27.
- 83.
“Review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004,” The Scottish Government, accessed March 24, 2020, https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Justice/law/17867/gender-recognition-review.
- 84.
Justice Directorate, Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill: Consultation (Edinburgh: The Scottish Government, 2019).
- 85.
Peter Dunne and Tara Hewitt, “Gender Recognition, Self-Determination and Segregated Space,” Oxford Human Rights Hub, January 16, 2018, https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/gender-recognition-self-determination-and-segregated-space/.
- 86.
Ahmed, supra note 28, p. 27.
- 87.
This was most recently at issue for the University of Edinburgh, and one that prompted the whole of the University’s Staff Pride Committee to resign: Hilary Mitchell, “Entire Edinburgh University LGBT committee Quit in Dramatic Protest Against ‘Anti Trans’ Julie Bindel Talk” Edinburgh Live, June 6, 2019, accessed March 24, 2020, https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/entire-edinburgh-university-lgbt-committee-16389812. I have deliberately chosen not to cite the mainstream broadsheet newspaper reporting of this event in e.g. The Guardian or Telegraph because, under the story’s headline, they printed a photograph of Julie Bindel, focusing the story on her and her accusation of assault against one of the protesters outside her event at Edinburgh University, rather than on the committee’s resignation—and reasons for it.
- 88.
Newsroom Reporter, “Scottish Government Accused of Putting Women in Scottish Prisons at Risk,” The Scotsman, May 30, 2019, accessed March 24, 2020, https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-government-accused-of-putting-women-in-scottish-prisons-at-risk-1-4937495. Similar discussions have been taking place in England and Wales – see Whittle and Simkiss, supra note 12.
- 89.
Some writers do express incredulity as to the claim that trans men are “really” men—see e.g. Julian Vigo, “How to Stage a Study: The Transgender Lobby in British Academia.” Medium, July 30, 2019, accessed March 24, 2020, https://medium.com/@julian.vigo/how-to-stage-a-study-the-transgender-lobby-in-british-academia-f196f4f686f1.
- 90.
See the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee, Stage 1 Report on the Census (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill (Edinburgh: The Scottish parliament, February 7, 2019). https://sp-bpr-en-prod-cdnep.azureedge.net/published/CTEEA/2019/2/7/Stage-1-Report-on-the-Census--Amendment---Scotland--Bill/CTEEAS052019R1.pdf, particularly the conclusion, where it is confirmed that the Census will not include a non-binary option in the sex/gender question. For discussion of the Census, as well as the interaction between the Equality Act 2010 and gender recognition processes, see Sharon Cowan et al., ‘“UK Sex and Gender Equality in Law and Policy: A response to Murray and Hunter Blackburn,” Scottish Affairs (forthcoming); and Alex Sharpe, “Will Gender Self-Declaration Undermine Women’s Rights and Lead to an Increase in Harms?,” Modern Law Review 83, no 3, (2020): 539.
- 91.
National Records of Scotland, Scotland’s Census 2021: Sex Question Recommendation Report (Edinburgh, December 2019), 28 and 32. https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/documents/Scotland’s%20Census%202021%20-%20%20Sex%20question%20recommendation%20report%20(2).pdf.
- 92.
In Goodwin v. UK [2002] ECtHR (App. no. 28957/95) 35 ECtHR 447, I v. UK [2002] ECtHR (App. No. 25680/94), the European Ct Human Rights held that the UK’s legal test for sex as gonadal, genital and chromosomal, as set forth in Corbett v. Corbett [1970] 2 All ER 33, was no longer appropriate for determining sex for the purposes of marriage, and that gender—as experienced and identified by the individual themselves—should play an important if not central role. In response to Goodwin, the UK introduced the Gender Recognition Act 2004. For discussion see Cowan, Sandland and Sharpe, supra note 9.
- 93.
Whittle and Simkiss, supra note 12.
- 94.
See Close the Gap, “Scottish Women’s Sector response to the consultation on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act” (February, 2018): [24], available at https://www.closethegap.org.uk/content/resources/Scottish-Womens-Sector-response-to-the-consultation-on-proposed-changes-to-the-Gender-Recognition-Act.pdf.
- 95.
For a fuller discussion of the future of legal gender, see website “The Future of Legal Gender: A Critical Law Reform Project”, accessed March 25, 2020. https://futureoflegalgender.kcl.ac.uk/.
- 96.
BBC Reporter, “Scottish Transgender Reforms Put on Hold,” BBC News, June 20, 2019, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-48702946; Anne Fazackerley, “UK Universities Struggle To Deal With ‘Toxic’ Trans Rights Row.” The Guardian, October 30, 2019, accessed March 25, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/30/uk-universities-struggle-to-deal-with-toxic-trans-rights-row.
- 97.
See, for example, Libby Brooks, “Scottish Government Reaffirms Support for Trans Rights,” The Guardian, April 18, 2019, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/18/minister-reaffirms-scottish-governments-support-for-trans-rights and the subsequent statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People, Shirley-Anne Somerville: Scottish Government, Statement on gender Recognition (Edinburgh: Scottish Government, 2019), accessed March 26, 2020, https://www.gov.scot/publications/statement-gender-recognition/.
- 98.
Scottish Prison Service, Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy for Those in Our Custody (Edinburgh: Scottish Prison Service, 2014); see also Cowan et al., supra note 90.
- 99.
See for example Vic Valentine, “Self-declaration Would Bring Britain into Line with International Best Practice,” The Economist, July 3, 2018, accessed March 25, 2020, https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/07/03/self-declaration-would-bring-britain-into-line-with-international-best-practice.
- 100.
Ahmed, supra note 28, p. 29.
- 101.
See for example “The GRA Consultation and the Fair Play for Women Campaign,” Fair Play for Women, July 27, 2018, accessed March 25, 2020, https://fairplayforwomen.com/full_guide/. See also Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa MacKenzie, “Losing Sight of Women’s Rights: The Unregulated Introduction of Gender Self-identification as a Study of Policy Capture in Scotland,” Scottish Affairs 28, no. 3 (2019): 285, which describes policy making in this area as being “vulnerable” to “single-minded ideologically driven lobbying.”
- 102.
Ahmed, supra note 28, p. 28.
- 103.
Halliday et al., supra note 19.
- 104.
Anna-Maria Marshall and Scott Barclay, “In Their Own Words: How Ordinary People Construct the Legal World,” Law and Social Inquiry 28, no. 3 (2003): 618.
- 105.
Whittle and Simkiss, supra note 12.
- 106.
Morton, supra note 12; for a critique of the unreflective “progress” narrative of the UK government’s policy on LGBTQI+ equality, see Lawrence and Taylor, supra note 10.
- 107.
Ahmed, supra note 28, p. 31.
- 108.
Whittle and Simkiss, supra note 12.
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Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank the inordinately patient editors who invited me to be part of this incredible collection and encouraged me when I was faltering; and my research assistant Shy Zvouloun for helping with references. I have given versions of this paper at many conferences in the last few years and would particularly like to thank the organisers and audiences at the following universities: Birmingham, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Durham and Bristol universities in the UK; Victoria, Dalhousie, McGill and York Universities in Canada and UTS, Australia. I have benefited from funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and from the University of Edinburgh to complete the field work for this project; and from the generosity of the University of Victoria, Canada, and the Centre for the Study of Law and Society, UC Berkeley, who accepted me as a visiting Professor during fieldwork. I am eternally grateful to my very dear and kind friends Mike Adler and Sue Fyvel who gave me quiet time and space to write in their lovely London flat in the summer of 2018. Countless thanks of course are due to those who read early drafts, or with whom I have talked incessantly over the last decade about these issues: Justina Molloy, Helen Buxton, Gillian Calder and the inimitable David Sibbering. Simon Halliday gave me time and space and loaned me parts of his brain when needed. I am also eternally grateful to Jess Penrose and Mel Talyor who stepped in with editorial assistance at the last minute! The biggest debt of gratitude I owe is to the people who agreed to be interviewed for this project, who were incredibly open with me, and trusted me to treat their stories with integrity. Without them, none of this research would be possible. I apologise it has taken me so long to tell these stories, and I hope I have done them some semblance of justice.
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Cowan, S. (2021). The Best Place on the Planet to Be Trans? Transgender Equality and Legal Consciousness in Scotland. In: Raj, S., Dunne, P. (eds) The Queer Outside in Law. Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48830-7_8
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