What the evolving fight for transgender rights reveals about government power, regulations, and the law Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to "F" or "M" (or more recently "X") depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you're dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, noted transgender advocate and scholar Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people. Providing examples from different states, government agencies, and court cases, Currah explains how transgender people struggle to navigate this confusing and contradictory web of legal rules, definitions, and classifications. Unlike most gender scholars, who are concerned with what the concepts of sex and gender really mean, Currah is more interested in what the category of "sex" does for governments. What does "sex" do on our driver's licenses, in how we play sports, in how we access health care, or in the bathroom we use? Why do prisons have very different rules than social service agencies? Why is there such resistance to people changing their sex designation? Or to dropping it from identity documents altogether? In this thought-provoking and original volume, Sex Is as Sex Does reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex classification policies in the United States and shows what the regulation of transgender identity can tell us about society's approach to sex and gender writ large.Ultimately, Currah demonstrates that, because the difficulties transgender people face are not just the result of transphobia but also stem from larger injustices, an identity-based transgender rights movement will not, by itself, be up to the task of resolving them.

While gender-based violence occurs in all societies irrespective of the level of development or cultural setting, whether in conflict or peacetime, the challenges for legal responses to gender-based violence are particularly acute in Asia. This book addresses the lack of academic discourse on gender-based violence in Asia beyond domestic violence, by demonstrating that gendered violence exists within many different contexts and is perpetuated by multiple actors. Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners and human rights advocates, the book examines the intersections between gender, violence and the state in Asian contexts. It considers the role of state institutions in perpetuating and preventing violence based on gender and identity, and thus contributes to growing scholarship around due diligence standards under international law. Analyzing both physical and structural gender-based violence, it scrutinizes how such violence exists within a landscape shaped by distinct cultural norms, laws and policies, and grapples with how to practically translate international human rights standards about state responsibility into these complex domestic environments. Contributors from diverse backgrounds draw on case studies and empirical research to ground this academic scholarship in lived experiences of individuals and their communities in Asia. By bridging the divide between policy, laws and practice to offer a unique insight into both theoretical and practical responses to how gender-based violence is understood within communities and state institutions in Asian countries, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian studies, Gender Studies and Law.

This book offers a multifaceted look at Northeast India and the customs and traditions that underpin its legal framework. The book: charts the transition of traditions from colonial rule to present day, through constitutionalism and the consolidation of autonomous identities, as well as outlines contemporary debates in an increasingly modernising region; explores the theoretical context of legal pluralism and its implications, compares the personal legal systems with that of the mainland, and discusses customary law's continuing popularity (both pragmatic and ideological) and common law; brings together case studies from across the eight states and focuses on the way individual systems and procedures manifest among various tribes and communities in the voices of tribal and non-tribal scholars; and highlights the resilience and relevance of alternative systems of redressal, including conflict resolution and women's rights. Part of the prestigious 'Transition in Northeastern India' series, this book presents an interesting blend of theory and practice, key case studies and examples to study legal pluralism in multicultural contexts. It will be of great interest to students of law and social sciences, anthropology, political science, peace and conflict studies, besides administrators, judicial officers and lawyers in Northeast India, legal scholars and students of tribal law, and members of customary law courts of various tribal communities in Northeast India.

This book explores and challenges common assumptions about gender, conflict, and post-conflict situations. It critically examines the gendered aspects of international and transitional justice processes by subverting traditional understandings of how wars are waged, the power dynamics involved, and the experiences of victims. The book also highlights the gendered stereotypes that underpin the (mis)perceptions about gender and war in order to reveal the multi-dimensional nature of modern conflicts and their aftermaths.Featuring contributions from academics in law, criminology, international relations, politics and psychology, as well as legal practitioners in the field, Gender and War offers a unique and multi-disciplinary insight into contemporary understandings of conflict and explores the potential for international and transitional justice processes to evolve in order to better acknowledge diverse and gendered experiences of modern conflicts.This book provides the reader with international and interdisciplinary perspectives on issues of international law, conflict, gender and transitional justice.

A sequel to Bauer and Dawuni's pioneering study on gender and the judiciary in Africa (Routledge, 2016), International Courts and the African Woman Judge examines questions on gender diversity, representative benches, and international courts by focusing on women judges from the continent of Africa. Drawing from postcolonial feminism, feminist institutionalism, feminist legal theory, and legal narratives, this book provides fresh and detailed narratives of seven women judges that challenge existing discourse on gender diversity in international courts. It answers important questions about how the politics of judicial appointments, gender, geographic location, class, and professional capital combine to shape the lives of women judges who sit on international courts and argues the need to disaggregate gender diversity with a view to understanding intra-group differences. International Courts and the African Woman Judge will be of interest to a variety of audiences including governments, policy makers, civil society organizations, students of gender studies, and feminist activists interested in all questions of gender and judging.

This book addresses a growing area of concern for scholars and development practitioners: discriminatory gender norms in legally plural settings. Focusing specifically on indigenous women, this book analyses how they, often in alliance with supporters and allies, have sought to improve their access to justice. Development practitioners working in the field of access to justice have tended to conceive indigenous legal systems as either inherently incompatible with women's rights or, alternatively, they have emphasised customary law's advantageous features, such as its greater accessibility, familiarity and effectiveness. Against this background - and based on a comparison of six thus far underexplored initiatives of legal and institutional change in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia - Anna Barrera Vivero provides a more nuanced, ethnographic, understanding of how women navigate through context-specific constellations of interlegality in their search for justice. In so doing, moreover, her account of ongoing political debates and local struggles for gender justice grounds the elaboration of a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the legally plural dynamics involved in the contestation of discriminatory gender norms.

While there is no shortage of studies addressing the state's regulation of the sexual, research into the ways in which the sexual governs the state and its attributes is still in its infancy. The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority argues that there are good reasons to suppose that our understandings of state power quiver with erotic undercurrents. The book maintains, more specifically, that the relationship between ideas of political authority and male same-sex desire is especially fraught. Through a series of case studies where a statesman's same-sex desire was put on trial (either literally or metaphorically) as a problem for the good exercise of public powers, the book shows the resilience and adaptability of cultural beliefs in the incompatibility between public office and male same-sex desire. Some of the case studies analysed are familiar ground for both political/constitutional history and the history of sexuality. The Sexual Constitution of Political Authority argues, however, that only by systematically reading questions of institutional politics and questions of sexuality through each other will we have access to the most interesting insights that a study of these trials can generate. Whether they involve obscure public officials or iconic rulers such as Hadrian and James I, these compelling fragments of queer history reveal that the disavowal of male same-sex desire has been, and partly remains, central to mainstream understandings of political authority.

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this book explores how privatization and globalization impact contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminist legal theorists have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, an issue with growing importance in a time when the welfare state is under threat in many parts of the world and private markets and corporations transcend national boundaries. Because vulnerability analysis emphasizes our interdependency within social institutions and the need for public responsibility for our shared vulnerability, it can highlight how neoliberal policies commodify human necessities, channeling unprofitable social relationships, such as caretaking, away from public responsibility and into the individual private family. This book uses comparative analyses to examine how these dynamics manifest across different legal cultures. By highlighting similarities and differences in legal responses to vulnerability, this book provides important insights and arguments against the privatization of social need and for a more responsive state.

Situating privacy within the context of political philosophy, this book highlights the way in which struggles concerning the meaning of privacy have always been political. Different conceptions of privacy are here shown to involve diverse assumptions about ontology: our conceptions of self, culture, society and communication. Privacy theory's debt to Locke, Kant or Mill, and what is at stake in their conceptual frameworks, is examined. The extent to which the term "privacy" has been used to the detriment of - and to create - weaker parties in marriage, in the workplace and now as citizens (or non-citizens) and consumers, as well as employees, is also demonstrated. In contrast, Janice Richardson pursues the relevance of Floridi's philosophy of information, before turning to her application of Spinoza, the philosopher of communication, in order to outline a more useful framework through which to think about privacy today. The book will be of interest to those working in political philosophy, feminist philosophy, law, the philosophy of information, sociology, media, and cultural studies.

This book presents a feminist historical materialist analysis of the ways in which the law, policing and penal regimes have overlapped with social policies to coercively discipline the poor and marginalized sectors of the population throughout the history of capitalism. Roberts argues that capitalism has always been underpinned by the use of state power to discursively construct and materially manage those sectors of the population who are most resistant to and marginalized by the instantiation and deepening of capitalism. The book reveals that the law, along with social welfare regimes, have operated in ways that are highly gendered, as gender - along with race - has been a key axis along which difference has been constructed and regulated. It offers an important theoretical and empirical contribution that disrupts the tendency for mainstream and critical work within IPE to view capitalism primarily as an economic relation. Roberts also provides a feminist critique of the failure of mainstream and critical scholars to analyse the gendered nature of capitalist social relations of production and social reproduction. Exploring a range of issues related to the nature of the capitalist state, the creation and protection of private property, the governance of poverty, the structural compulsions underpinning waged work and the place of women in paid and unpaid labour, this book is of great use to students and scholars of IPE, gender studies, social work, law, sociology, criminology, global development studies, political science and history.

The continuum of exploitation that has historically defined the everyday of domestic work - exclusion from employment and social security standards and precarious migration status - has frequently been neglected. It is primarily the moments of crisis, incidents of human trafficking, slavery or forced labour, that have captured the attention of human rights law. Only recently has human rights law has begun to address the structured inequalities and exclusions that define the domain of domestic work. This book addresses the specific position of domestic workers in the context of evolving human rights norms. Drawing upon a broad range of case studies, this book presents a thorough examination of key issues such as the commodification of care, the impact of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights on 'primary care providers', as well as the effect that trends in migration law have on migrant domestic workers. This volume will be of interest to lawyers, academics and policy makers in the fields of human rights, migration, and gender studies.

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this book explores how privatization and globalization impact contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminist legal theorists have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, an issue with growing importance in a time when the welfare state is under threat in many parts of the world and private markets and corporations transcend national boundaries. Because vulnerability analysis emphasizes our interdependency within social institutions and the need for public responsibility for our shared vulnerability, it can highlight how neoliberal policies commodify human necessities, channeling unprofitable social relationships, such as caretaking, away from public responsibility and into the individual private family. This book uses comparative analyses to examine how these dynamics manifest across different legal cultures. By highlighting similarities and differences in legal responses to vulnerability, this book provides important insights and arguments against the privatization of social need and for a more responsive state.

This book integrates women's history and legal studies within the broader context of modern European history in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sixteen contributions from fourteen countries explore the ways in which the law contributes to the social construction of gender. They analyze questions of family law and international law and highlight the politics of gender in the legal professions in a variety of historical, social and national settings, including Eastern, Southern, Western, Northern and Central Europe. Focusing on different legal cultures, they show us the similarities and differences in the ways the law has shaped the contours of women and men's lives in powerful ways. They also show how women have used legal knowledge to struggle for their equal rights on the national and transnational level. The chapters address the interconnectedness of the history of feminism, legislative reforms, and women's citizenship, and build a foundation for a comparative vision of women's legal history in modern Europe.

In the first book-length treatment of the application of feminist theories of international law, Charlesworth and Chinkin argue that the absence of women in the development of international law has produced a narrow and inadequate jurisprudence that has legitimated the unequal position of women worldwide rather than confronting it. The boundaries of international law provides a feminist perspective on the structure, processes and substance of international law, shedding new light on treaty law, the concept of statehood and the right of self-determination, the role of international institutions and the law of human rights. Concluding with a consideration of whether the inclusion of women in the jurisdiction of international war crimes tribunals represents a significant shift in the boundaries of international law, the book encourages a dramatic rethinking of the discipline of international law. With a new introduction that reflects on the profound changes in international law since the book's first publication in 2000, this provocative volume is essential reading for scholars, practitioners and students alike. -- .

This book considers how a phenomenon as complex as coercive control can be criminalised. The recognition and ensuing criminalisation of coercive control in the UK and Ireland has been the focus of considerable international attention. It has generated complex questions about the "best" way to criminalise domestic abuse. This work reviews recent domestic abuse criminal law reform in the UK and Ireland. In particular, it defines coercive control and explains why using traditional criminal law approaches to prosecute it does not work. Laws passed in England and Wales versus Scotland represent two different approaches to translating coercive control into a criminal offence. This volume explains how and why the jurisdictions have taken different approaches and examines the advantages and disadvantages of each. As jurisdictions around the world review what steps need to be taken to improve national criminal justice responses to domestic abuse, the question of what works, and why, at the intersection of domestic abuse and the criminal law has never been more important. As such, the book will be a vital resource for lawyers, policy-makers and activists with an interest in domestic abuse law reform.

Judicial Education has greatly expanded in common law countries in the past 25 years. More recently it has become a core component in judicial reform programs in developing countries with gender attentiveness as an element required by donor agencies. In civil law jurisdictions judges schools have long played a role in the formation of the career judiciary with a focus on entry to the judicial profession, in some countries judges get an intensive in-service education at judicial academies. Gender questions, however, tend to be neglected in the curricula. These judicial education activities have generated a significant body of material and experience which it is timely to review and disseminate. Questions such as the following require answers. What is the current state of affairs? How is judicial education implemented in developed and developing countries all around the world? Who are the educators? Who is being educated? How is judicial education on gender regarded by judges? How effective are these programs? The chapters in this book deal with these questions. They provide a multiplicity of perspectives. Six countries are represented, of these four are civil law countries (Germany, Argentina, Japan, Bosnia and Herzegovina) and two are common law countries (Canada; Uganda). This book was previously published as a special issue of International Journal of the Legal Profession.

How human rights principles, like the right to gender identity, freedom, integrity and equality, respond to the concerns of different groups of adults and children who experience gender harm due to the binary conception of sexuality and gender identity is the overall theme of this book. The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity are analysed in the light of the dynamic jurisprudence of different human rights treaty bodies. Whether and how the status quo of gender duality is reproduced, in spite of international law's growing recognition of the multiplicity of sexualities and gender identities, is discussed. How transgender men, in countries that permit legal gender change, have been successfully prosecuted for gender fraud by female partners claiming to be unaware of their gender history is given attention. While human rights discourse related to LGBTI persons so far has been moulded on the experiences of adults this book gives voice to the concerns of gender-non confirming children. The jurisprudence of the Child Rights Committee, with focus on the complex social and legal issues faced by gender non-confirming children, is addressed. Through narratives, that give voice to these children's experiences, the book demonstrates how the legal gender assigned at birth impacts on their feeling of recognition, self-confidence and self-respect in the private, social, and legal spheres. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights.

Groups seeking legal equality often take a victory as the end of the line. Once judgment is granted or a law is passed, coalitions disband and life goes on in a new state of equality. Policy makers too may assume that a troublesome file is now closed. This collection arises from the urgent sense that law reforms driven by equality call for fresh lines of inquiry. In unintended ways, reforms may harm their intended beneficiaries. They may also worsen the disadvantage of other groups. Committed to tackling these important issues beyond the boundaries that often confine legal scholarship, this book pursues an interdisciplinary consideration of efforts to advance equality, as it explores the developments, challenges, and consequences that arise from law reforms aiming to deliver equality in the areas of sexuality, kinship, and family relations. With an international array of contributors, After Legal Equality: Family, Sex, Kinship will be an invaluable resource for those with interests in this area.

The Queer/Sexual minority which interalia includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (hereinafter LGBT) people is not a new phenomenon in today's scenario. LGBT share a particular experience of their own sexual desires, as potentially directed toward a person of the same gender. They have transformed these experiences, desires, and practices into a social identity, a sexual orientation, which serves as a marker of individual selves and of a group. This study shows that discrimination and abuse from homophobic/transphobic world in which there is full permission to treat LGBT with cruelty makes it difficult for them to maintain a strong sense of well-being and self-esteem. Study reveals that in India LGBT lives are more secretive as they are suppress to come out easily. This book based on study concludes with some strong and viable recommendations, which are requisite to ensure safe and proper place to LGBT people in society, inculcating humane approach into laws and the criminal justice system. Education and awareness programmes through various means and various places can bring positive changes. Note: T& F does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Arguing that law must be looked at holistically, this book investigates the 'hidden gender' of the so-called neutral or objective legal principles that structure the law addressing violence against women. Adopting an explicitly feminist perspective, it investigates how legal responses to violence against women presuppose, maintain and perpetuate a certain context that may not in fact reflect women's experiences. Carline and Easteal draw upon relevant legislation, case law and secondary studies from a range of territories, including Australia, England and Wales, the United States, Canada and Europe, to contextualize and critique different policy responses. They go on to examine the potential and limits of law, making recommendations for best practice models of policymaking and law reform. Aiming to help improve government, community and legal responses to women who experience violence, Shades of Grey - Domestic and Sexual Violence Against Women: Law Reform and Society will assist law-makers, academics, policymakers and a wider audience in understanding the complexities of violence against women.

Should digital platforms be responsible for intimate images posted without the subject's consent? Could the viewers of such images be liable simply by viewing them? This book answers these questions in the affirmative, while considering the social, legal and technological features of unauthorized dissemination of intimate images, or 'revenge porn'. In doing so, it asks fundamental socio-legal questions about responsibility, causation and apportionment, as well as conceptualizing private information as property. With a focus on private law theory, the book defines the appropriate scope of liability of platforms and viewers, while critiquing both the EU's and US' solutions to the problem. Through its analysis, the book develops a new theory of egalitarian digital privacy.

Explores the relationship between sexuality and politics in Britain's recent political past. Includes four case studies to illustrate the arguments made. Important contribution to the understandings of sexuality, identity and inequalities, as well as of crisis and neoliberalism.

This book addresses a growing area of concern for scholars and development practitioners: discriminatory gender norms in legally plural settings. Focusing specifically on indigenous women, this book analyses how they, often in alliance with supporters and allies, have sought to improve their access to justice. Development practitioners working in the field of access to justice have tended to conceive indigenous legal systems as either inherently incompatible with women's rights or, alternatively, they have emphasised customary law's advantageous features, such as its greater accessibility, familiarity and effectiveness. Against this background - and based on a comparison of six thus far underexplored initiatives of legal and institutional change in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia - Anna Barrera Vivero provides a more nuanced, ethnographic, understanding of how women navigate through context-specific constellations of interlegality in their search for justice. In so doing, moreover, her account of ongoing political debates and local struggles for gender justice grounds the elaboration of a comprehensive conceptual framework for understanding the legally plural dynamics involved in the contestation of discriminatory gender norms.

Questions of gender have strongly influenced the development of international refugee law over the last few decades. This volume assesses the progress toward appropriate recognition of gender-related persecution in refugee law. It documents the advances made following intense advocacy around the world in the 1990s, and evaluates the extent to which gender has been successfully integrated into refugee law. Evaluating the research and advocacy agendas for gender in refugee law ten years beyond the 2002 UNHCR Gender Guidelines, the book investigates the current status of gender in refugee law. It examines gender-related persecution claims of both women and men, including those based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and explores how the development of an anti-refugee agenda in many Western states exponentially increases vulnerability for refugees making gendered claims. The volume includes contributions from scholars and members of the advocacy community that allow the book to examine conceptual and doctrinal themes arising at the intersection of gender and refugee law, and specific case studies across major Western refugee-receiving nations. The book will be of great interest and value to researchers and students of asylum and immigration law, international politics, and gender studies.

Each year, thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seekers apply for asylum in EU Member States.This book considers the position of LGBTI asylum seekers in European asylum law. Developing an encompassing approach to the topic, the book identifies and analyzes the main legal issues arising in relation to LGBTI people seeking asylum including: the underestimation of the relevance of criminalization of sexual orientation as well as the large scale violence against trans people in countries of origin by some European states; the requirement to seek State protection against violence even when they originate from countries where sexual orientation or gender identity is criminalized, or where the authorities are homophobic; the particular hurdles faced during credibility assessment on account of persisting stereotypes; and queer families and refugee law. The book gives a state of the art overview of law in Europe, both at the level of European legislation and at the level of Member State practice. While being largely focused on Europe, the book also takes into account asylum decisions from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States and is of relevance internationally, offering analysis of issues which are not specific to particular legal systems.