July-December 2016
ISSN 2050-005X (Online); 978-1535124478 (ISBN-13); 1535124474 (ISBN-10)
Whilst trans issues have been explored in political, medical, queer theory and US legal literature, the UK’s legal literature remains more limited. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) marked a shift in the debate on trans issues from academia to implementation. This article attempts to go some way in filling the legal lacuna by engaging in a socio-legal analysis of English law’s ability to provide gender justice by giving full legal recognition to all trans and non-discriminatory access to rights based on this. First, drawing upon the foundations provided by feminist discourse on what constitutes ‘sex’, ‘gender’, ‘male’ and ‘female’, we can analyse the historical development of English law. Secondly, the law is historically conceptually limited by its privileging of sex over gender and its affirmation of the male/female binary as epitomised in Corbett v Corbett. Thirdly, an analysis of the GRA and its relationship with key civil law legislations demonstrates that English law remains conceptually limited because of an incomplete shift from sex to gender and reaffirmation of the binary. Finally, a reflection upon the relationship between social progress, the law’s theoretical limitations and implementation leads to the conclusion that, although the law contributes to trans gender justice, social change is fundamental to shaping more conceptually progressive legislation that can itself have a transformative role on society and the law’s effective implementation through social compliance. Neither the law nor public policy and politics may be neglected when contemplating greater gender justice for trans individuals.
Keywords: transgender, Corbett v Corbett, Gender Recognition Act 2004, Equality Act 2010.
1. Silvan Agius and Christa Tobler, Trans and Intersex People: Discrimination on the Grounds of Sex, Gender Identity and Gender Expression (2012) European Commission Report 5, 12.
2. Dylan Vade, ‘Expanding Gender and Expanding the Law: Toward a Social and Legal Conceptualization of Gender That Is More Inclusive of Transgender People’ (2004) 11 Michigan Journal of Gender and Law 253, 261, 267, 271; Home Office, ‘Transgender Equality’ (The National Archives) http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130128141739/http://homeoffice.gov.uk/equalities/lgbt/transgender-equality/ accessed 20 March 2015.
3. See: Michelle Goldberg, ‘What is a Woman?: The Dispute Between Radical Feminism and Transgenderism’ (The New Yorker, 4 August 2014) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/04/woman-2 accessed 25 March 2015; Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism (Routledge 2014) 3, 36–40.
4. Ralph Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’ [2005] Feminist Legal Studies 43, 44–45, 59. See also: Julie Greenberg, Marybeth Herald and Mark Strasser, ‘Beyond the Binary: What Can Feminists Learn from Intersex Transgender Jurisprudence’ [2010] Michigan Journal of Gender & Law 13, 16; Sheila Jeffreys, ‘They Know It When They See It: The UK Gender Recognition Act 2004’ [2008] British Journal of Politics & International Relations 328, 330–331.
5. Toril Moi, What is a Woman? (OUP 2001) 21.
6. Ibid., 23, 24.
7. Ibid., 21–25; Jeffreys, Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism; Moya Lloyd, ‘Judith Butler’ in George Ritzer and Jeffrey Stepnisky (eds), Major Social Theorists: Volume II Contemporary Social Theorists (Blackwell Publishing 2011) 545; Sharon Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’ [2005] Feminist Legal Studies 67, 70–73.
8. Talia Betcher, ‘Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues’ (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 8 January 2014) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-trans/ accessed 28 March 2015; Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (Routledge 1990) 13; Lloyd, ‘Judith Butler’, 548; Goldberg.
9. Corbett v Corbett (otherwise Ashley) (No. 1) [1971] P 83, [1970] 2 WLR 1306 (HC); Sharon Cowan, ‘“That Woman is a Woman!” The Case of Bellinger v Bellinger and the Mysterious (Dis)appearance of Sex’ [2004] Feminist Legal Studies 79, 82.
10. See e.g.: R v Tan (Moira) [1983] QB 1053, [1983] 3 WLR 361 (CA).
11. Corbett.
12. Cowan, ‘“That Woman is a Woman!” The Case of Bellinger v Bellinger and the Mysterious (Dis)appearance of Sex’, 81–83.
13. Corbett, 106–107 (Ormrod J).
14. Blu Tirohl and Imogen Ruth Bowers, ‘Opposite Sex – A Discussion of Rights Under the Gender Recognition Act’ [2006] Journal of Gender Studies 83, 84.
15. Corbett, 106–107 (Ormrod J).
16. Corbett, 102 (Ormrod J); Lisa Fishbayn, ‘“Not Quite One Gender or the Other”: Marriage Law and the Containment of Gender Trouble in the United Kingdom’ [2007] Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 412, 420, 428.
17. Bellinger v Bellinger [2003] UKHL 21, [2003] 2 AC 467.
18. Goodwin v United Kingdom (2002) 35 EHRR 18.
19. Ibid., para 71–72, 90, 101, 120.
20. Ibid., para 82–83; Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’, 74; Alex Harris, ‘Non-Binary Gender Concepts and the Evolving Legal Treatment of UK Transsexed Individuals: A Practical Consideration of the Possibilities of Butler’ [2012] Journal of International Women’s Studies 5, 57, 59.
21. Goodwin, para 53, 82, 91.
22. Bellinger UKHL.
23. Bellinger v Bellinger [2001] EWCA Civ 1140, [2003] 2 AC 467 para 47, 54–55, 65; Fishbayn, 429.
24. Bellinger EWCA, para 117, 128, 132, 156–160.
25. Goodwin, para 82–83.
26. Fishbayn, 432.
27. Goodwin, para 81–85, 100.
28. Ibid., para 73, 85, 93, 120.
29. Goodwin; Bellinger EWCA; Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’ 44–45. See also: Stephen Whittle, ‘The Opposite of Sex is Politics – The UK Gender Recognition Act and Why it is Not Perfect, Just Like You and Me’ [2006] Journal of Gender Studies 267; Andrew Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’ [2007] Bioethical Inquiry 42, 42; Jeffreys, ‘They Know It When They See It: The UK Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 329.
30. Andrew Sharpe, ‘Gender Recognition in the UK: A Great Leap Forward’ [2009] Social & Legal Studies 241, 242.
31. Corbett.
32. Goodwin.
33. Bellinger UKHL.
34. Corbett.
35. Cowan, ‘“That Woman is a Woman!” The Case of Bellinger v Bellinger and the Mysterious (Dis)appearance of Sex’, 81; Ralph Sandland, ‘Crossing and not Crossing: Gender, Sexuality and Melancholy in the European Court of Human Rights, Christine Goodwin v United Kingdom (Application no. 28957/95), I. v. United Kingdom (Application no. 25680/94) (ECHR)’ [2003] Feminist Legal Studies 191, 192 referring to Andrew Sharpe, ‘English Transgender Law Reform and the Spectre of Corbett’, [2002] Feminist Legal Studies 65 in Cowan, ‘“That Woman is a Woman!” The Case of Bellinger v Bellinger and the Mysterious (Dis)appearance of Sex’, 81. See also: Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity.’
36. Sex Discrimination Act 1975; Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) 1999, SI 1999/1102; Case C‑13/94 P v S and Cornwall CC [1996] 2 CMLR 247; Chessington World of Adventures Ltd v Reed [1998] ICR 97; Aileen McColgan, ‘Transgender Discrimination’ (Westlaw Insight, 19 February 2014) link accessed 20 March 2015. See also: Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’, 77; Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’ 57–58, 60.
37. National Legal Services Authority v Union of India and Others, Supreme Court of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 400 of 2012, No. 604 of 2013, 29–48 (K.S. Radhakrishnan J); Sharpe, ‘Gender Recognition in the UK: A Great Leap Forward’, 243–244.
38. Gender Recognition Act 2004, s 9.
39. Ibid., ss 1 and 2; HM Courts & Tribunals Service, ‘Gender Recognition Panel Guidance’ (23 December 2014) link accessed 10 March 2015; Stephen Gilmore, ‘The Gender Recognition Act 2004’ [2004] Family Law 741, 742–743; The National Archives, ‘Tribunals Service: Gender Recognition Panel’ (12 April 2015) link accessed 12 April 2015.
40. Agius and Tobler, 12; Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 47, 65, 79; Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’, 75; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 37; Andrew Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’ [2007] Feminist Legal Studies 57, 70. See also: Cowan, ‘“That Woman is a Woman!” The Case of Bellinger v Bellinger and the Mysterious (Dis)appearance of Sex’, 90.
41. Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 47, 61.
42. Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 60–61; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 39; Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 62–63, 65; Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’, 72, 79, 91; Fishbayn, 441; Harris, 68.
43. Joanne Conaghan, Law and Gender (OUP 2013) 102–103.
44. Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 58, 71–72; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 37, 39.
45. Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 72; HC Deb 2004, vol 45, col 19 (The Honourable David Lammy); HC Deb 2004, vol 45, col 18 (The Honourable David Lammy).
46. Sandland, ‘Running to Stand Still’, 256; Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 70.
47. Ministry of Justice ‘Gender Recognition Certificate Statistics’ (The National Archives, 24 January 2013) link accessed 1 March 2014; Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 73; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 39.
48. Gender Recognition Act 2004, s 3(1).
49. Ibid., s 3(3).
50. Carpenter v Secretary of State for Justice [2015] EWHC 464, 2015 WL 849489.
51. Gender Recognition Act 2004, ss 3(1) and (3).
52. Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights, as amended) (ECHR) arts 8 and 14.
53. Carpenter v Secretary of State for Justice [2015] EWHC 464, 2015 WL 849489 para 14, 23–24, 27–28, 33–35 (Thirwall J); Goodwin.
54. Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 73–74, 76; Alex Sharpe, ‘Transgender Marriage and the Legal Obligation to Disclose Gender History’ [2012] The Modern Law Review 33, 41–42.
55. Gender Recognition Act 2004, Schedule 4, paras 4 and 5; Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 12; Explanatory Notes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, para 42; Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 73–74.
56. Andrew N. Sharpe, ‘A Return to the ‘Truth’ of the Past’ [2009] Social & Legal Studies 259, 262; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 40.
57. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 12(1)(a) and (b).
58. Sandland, ‘Running to Stand Still’, 255; Corbett.
59. See also: Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, s 12(2).
60. Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 39; Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 62–63, 65; Cowan, ‘“Gender is No Substitute for Sex”: A Comparative Human Rights Analysis of the Legal Regulation of Sexual Identity’, 72, 79, 91; Fishbayn, 441; Harris, 68.
61. Sandland, ‘Feminism and the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 50; Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category’, 60, 71; Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 39–40; Emily Grabham, ‘Governing Permanence: Trans Subjects, Time and the Gender Recognition Act’ [2010] Social & Legal Studies 107, 109. See also: Whittle, 267.
62. Gender Recognition Act 2004, ss 1 and 2; Equality Act 2010, ss 4 and 7.
63. Explanatory Notes to the Equality Act 2010, paras 41–43.
64. Sally Hines, ‘Recognising Diversity?: The Gender Recognition Act and Transgender Citizenship’ in Sally Hines and Tam Sanger (eds), Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity (Routledge 2010) 99–101.
65. Ibid., 96–97.
66. Fishbayn, 437–440. See also: Sharon Cowan, ‘Looking Back (To)wards the Body: Medicalization and the GRA’ [2009] Social & Legal Studies 247.
67. Sara Davidmann, ‘Beyond Borders: Lived Experiences of Atypically Gendered Transsexual People’ in Sally Hines and Tam Sanger (eds), Transgender Identities: Towards a Social Analysis of Gender Diversity (Routledge 2010) 199–201.
68. Hines, 102–103.
69. Marriages (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013; Gender Recognition Act 2004 s 4A. Previously see: Sharpe, ‘A Critique of the Gender Recognition Act 2004’, 38; Sharpe, ‘Endless Sex: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Persistence of a Legal Category.’
70. McColgan.
71. Goodwin, para 73, 81–85, 93, 100, 120.
72. UK Parliament ‘Equality Bill Committee Debates–Associated Memoranda’ link accessed 15 March 2015; Press for Change Homepage http://www.pfc.org.uk accessed 1 March 2015; Press for Change Homepage, ‘Trans Research’ link accessed 1 March 2015.
73. See e.g.: HM Government ‘Advancing Transgender Equality: a Plan For Action’ (December 2011) link accessed 14 March 2015; Home Office, ‘Hate crime action plan: Challenge it, Report it, Stop it’ (1 May 2014) link accessed 14 March 2014; Equality and Human Rights Commission, ‘Private and Public Sector Guidance’ link accessed 10 March 2015; Home Office, ‘Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people and the law’ (The National Archives) link accessed 1 March 2015; Press for Change Homepage, ‘Hate Crime Literature’ link accessed 14 March 2015; Eleanor Ross ‘Transgender: Is there still fear in the workplace?’ The Guardian (London, 5 March 2015) link accessed 10 March 2015.
74. MB v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2014] EWCA Civ 1112, [2015] 1 All ER 920; R (on the application of Green) v Secretary of State for Justice [2013] EWHC 3491, [2014] ACD 63; R. (on the application of C) v Berkshire West Primary Care Trust [2011] EWCA Civ 247, [2011] Eq LR 499; M v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2010] UKFTT 356; Timbrell v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2010] EWCA Civ 701, [2010] 3 CMLR 42.
75. Brook v Tasker County Court [2014] (Halifax) (unreported).
76. Siobhan Fenton, ‘Are Universities Doing Enough to Support Transgender Students?’ The Guardian (London, 2 February 2015) link accessed 14 March 2015; Abby Young‑Powell and Libby Page, ‘One in five LGBT students have been bullied or harassed on campus’ The Guardian (London, 15 May 2014) link accessed 13 March 2014.
77. Corbett.
† School of Law, University of Warwick (2012–2015). 1
(2016). Trans Gender Justice: Critical Reflections on the Conceptual Limitations of English Law, Implementation of the Law, and the Relationship with Social Progress. Legal issues Journal, 4 (2), https://www.legalissuesjournal.com/article/04-02-10072016/
