What is the Relevance of one’s Legal Gender?
Hey all – sorry for the large hiatus. Due to personal family reasons there isn’t likely to be much activity for the immediate future, but I will be back to writing regularly eventually. In particular there are lots of new book reviews lined up.
Whilst I haven’t written anything *new* per se, for those who have an interest in gender through an academic lens, I am posting one of my essays from my Master’s Degree in Multi-Disciplinary Gender Studies. Sorry about the lack of pictures, I don’t think the examining panel would’ve approved. This was written in May 2011.
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What is the relevance of one’s legal gender?
When asking about the relevance of one’s legal gender, one must address various questions that immediately lead from this. Some of these questions are legal in nature and others examine the social context within which the laws are made and executed. The most obvious place to start when asking about the relevance of one’s legal gender is to ask how does the law define one’s gender, and how does it distinguish this (if indeed it does at all) from one’s ‘sex’? One then needs to ask both how and when it is relevant for an individual to be placed in one legal category or another. How does the law deal with individuals whose categorisation is unobvious or contested for the purposes of making a decision for which the outcome varies based on the gender category of the individual in question? How are people who have changed legal category then treated by the law? And finally, is legal gender always relevant when scrutinised in legal proceedings, or indeed is legal gender ever ignored when it should not be? By addressing each of these questions in turn, not only are the factual ‘word of the law’ and the subjective way in which it is interpreted addressed, but the bigger picture of how legal, social and medical hegemony affect each other and come to shape what is accepted and therefore what is legislated is understood.
So how are sex and gender defined under the law? Under present UK law, the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are recognised, and are indicated on UK birth certificates under the heading of ‘sex’ as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’. This is used to define a person’s legal sex and gender. Whilst it is a legal requirement that births are registered within forty two days in England and Wales (Directgov, 2011) and that a child’s ‘sex’ is given, it is assumed rather than explicitly outlined that ‘boy’ and ‘girl’ are the acceptable possible responses. It is worth nothing that whilst it is common for the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ to be used interchangeably in any given context, it is also common particularly in scholarly parlance for ‘sex’ to be used to refer to a person’s categorisation based on biology (broadly understood to refer to a composite understanding based on genital, gonadal and chromosomal sex, which has been increasingly recognised as problematic when considering intersex individuals in particular) and ‘gender’ to refer to a person’s social categorisation, which may rest more on self-definition and social visibility, that which is presented for others to see.
An important legal precedent was established by the case Corbett vs. Corbett heard in 1970. In this case, the husband of the male-to-female (MTF) transsexual April Ashley petitioned for nullity upon the breakdown of their marriage on the basis that as April was legally male the marriage was void (Whittle, 1999). Whilst at the time it was held for the purposes of matrimonial law that hormone treatment and surgery did not result in a legal change of sex, which was then cited in many forthcoming legal cases, this changed with the advent of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.Interestingly, whilst the entirety of this act is written in terms of gender, the terms gender and sex are not formally defined as part of the Act. However, it is specified that “Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman)” (Gender Recognition Act 2004). One might think therefore that once an individual has received a gender recognition certificate, they would be legally indistinguishable from members of the same sex who were born as such. However there are exceptions to this which means that some individuals can problematically find themselves with a currently legal and previously legal gender that are both still legally relevant. Specific examples of where this may occur will be discussed later.
The law then, in its current form rests upon a binary understanding of sex and gender. There are a wide range of different scenarios where membership of a particular category results in different treatment under the law, thus demonstrating legal relevance. Before discussing these scenarios it is important to establish the difference between legal and social relevance. It is well established that the treatment of men and women is socially unequal, as can be evidenced from observing pay gaps that endure between men and women by occupational group (Browne, 2006). These inequalities exist as a result of how individuals are observed, socially categorised and treated by others rather than by a word present on their birth certificate which affects their treatment under particular legal circumstances. Individuals who are observed as ‘woman’ are treated differently to those who are observed as ‘man’, but may or may not be treated in the same way under the law. For instance a male-to-female transsexual who ‘passes’ is likely to have on average ‘a woman’s’ social experiences (the precise meaning of which could receive detailed treatment but is not the focus here), which must therefore be independent of their legal gender – if they remain technically, legally, a man.
Therefore, legal gender is not particularly relevant when considering many questions of women’s rights and women’s treatment under the law. This rather is the relevance of one’s social gender in legal contexts. An example of this would be the treatment of women as flight attendants during the late 1960s and 1970s. Female employees were restricted in ways that male employees were not, which could include not wearing glasses, being unmarried, physical attractiveness, and being under the age of thirty-two (Rhode, 1989). The age and marriage rules resulted in many women leaving their jobs each year, preventing a fair proportion of women from reaching senior positions, thus being unable to reach higher pay brackets and senior staff pension schemes. This discrimination is clearly based on female aesthetic rather than legal gender, and whilst clearly unacceptable under modern legal frameworks, if legally challenged would not need to consider legal gender in successfully arguing illegal sexism. Women are considerably more likely to be the victims of domestic violence, sexual assaults and rape (Walker, A., Kershaw, C., and Nicholas, S., 2006), but this is crime against individuals that is a product of their social rather than legal category as demonstrable by the successful socialisation within the desired gender by transsexuals (who successfully ‘pass’, and are not criminally targeted as a result of their trans status). If a female plaintiff makes a legal case of sexual harassment, it would not be usual practice to scrutinise her legal gender in order to ascertain whether the case was valid. It is chiefly where social and legal genders are not the same, or were once not the same (in the case of transsexual and transgendered people) and where sex does not readily fit into the binary (intersex people) that scrutiny of legal gender becomes most relevant.
There are still many important ways in which legal decisions vary based on a person’s legal gender, and a case with many relevant examples is that of Christine Goodwin v. The United Kingdom, at the European Court of Human Rights in 2002. Whilst this case occurred before the major change seen by the instigation of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, the case still highlights the relevance of legal gender in several key ways than can be related to current law and to social theory.
In this case, Ms. Goodwin was successful in claiming breaches occurred of articles 8 and 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which are respectively the rights to respect for one’s private and family life, home and correspondence, and the right to marry and found a family. There were three key claims that were the basis of her case. Firstly,that the UK Government had not taken any steps to address the suffering experienced by post-operative transsexuals despite international court warnings to keep this under review. Secondly, rapid changes in regards to the social attitude towards transsexuals were taking place worldwide, and thirdly that discriminatory legislature regarding pension age and access to her NI number by her employee lead to significant distress and difficulty (Council of Europe, 2002). The European court’s response shows agreement that aspects of UK legislature were unsatisfactory by this time at dealing with social reality relative to trans people’s legal gender. By making the points that: “The stress and alienation arising from a discordance between the position in society assumed by a post-operative transsexual and the status imposed by law which refused to recognise the change of gender cannot, in the Court’s view, be regarded as a minor inconvenience arising from a formality”, “The Court is struck by the fact that nonetheless the gender re-assignment which is lawfully provided is not met with full recognition in the law” and “it appears illogical to refuse to recognise the legal implications of the result to which the treatment leads” (Council of Europe, 2002), demonstrates the necessity for legal gender to be harmonious with an individual’s (chosen and observed) social gender in all ways in order to avoid obvious inconsistencies leading to unequal treatment. Legal gender then, is highly relevant in the sense that there are many medical and professional contexts where one can be demanded to provide one’s legal gender. How necessary this is may be controversial, but due to being the reality which may impact heavily on an individual’s right to privacy, the relevance is undisputable. Yet, the requirements and responsibilities of individuals remain poorly defined. This point is well made by Whittle when he says: “If the trans man were born outside of Britain then his identity in each of these areas of the law would be dependent upon the nation state he was born in. yet the trans man would be classified on his driving licence (through the codification system) as a man. But what if the trans man is required to give his ‘sex’ to the court as he is facing a driving disqualification? Presumably the purpose of that disclosure is to ensure that the driving licence records of the correct person are marked up. Should he say he is a man or male, or should he say he is a woman or female? What is the requirement of the law, which would ensure that the correct person has his or her driving records amended? It is no defence to a criminal act to argue that you had no knowledge of the law or that you did not understand it” (Whittle, 1999). This also raises the question of how ‘relevant’ does legal gender have to be in order to justify a requirement for disclosure? There is no simple answer to this, but one could potentially argue that in the case of a driving offence, simpler alternative ‘non-gendered’ alternative records of identification could be used.
The Court also considered the potential significance of medical and scientific perspectives in the legal recognition of transsexuals. Whilst it was concluded that medical science did not offer any determining argument (Council of Europe, 2002) it highlights the fact that the law uses the medical and scientific perspective, and may offer this perspective a position of privilege in making judgements that then impact upon the social world. Certainly this method was used by Judge Ormrod in the creation of his sex determination text used in the Corbett vs. Corbett case, consisting of a consideration of the chromosomal, gonadal and genital features of an individual at birth (Whittle, 1999). This reflects the Foucaultian point made in The History of Sexuality that society regards minority issues of sexual orientation and identity through a medical lens (literally and figuratively), and that ‘knowledge’ of what ‘legal gender’ in this case is not set in terms of law and repression, but of power. The law does not look to sociologists for potential ‘truths’ to aid decisions which find legal gender to be relevant, but it is increasingly recognised that whilst hard science can present molecular fact about bodies, the social processing of such does not give a rational reason to infer decisive significance to that information. It can be argued therefore, that the Court in this case supported Ms. Goodwin’s claims of breaches of articles 8 and 12 due to her social experience as a trans-woman, and the behaviour of others as a result of this social experience resulting in the breaching of these articles, in spite of her legal gender at the time.
The difficulty that medical science can encounter when attempting to establish what an individual’s ‘real’ sex is for the purposes of treatment, law, and ultimately identity can be readily problematized. This is seen most clearly in the story of Agnes, whose treatment and narrative was published by Stoller and Garfinkel in the 1960s. Upon physical medical examination Agnes was seen to have female secondary sexual characteristics (hair pattern, breasts, fat distribution) but with male external genitalia, which resulted in her being identified as ‘male’ on her birth certificate, and treated and raised as male until late adolescence. She was found to have no uterus or ovaries, some atrophy of the testes, and moderately high female hormone activity.Agnes was also observed to present as a “120 per cent female” in terms of behaviour and identity, with a history suggesting not only typical but stereotypical female behaviours and attitudes such as passivity, coyness, avoidance of rough games, etc. (Garfinkel, 1967). It was concluded that Agnes was suffering from an unusual case of an already very rare condition, ‘testicular feminization syndrome’, whereby the testes produce oestrogen and ‘feminize’ the genetically male foetus – however in this case the possession of Agnes of a normal sized penis and testes remained present and relatively unexplained.
The fact that Agnes presented as she did convinced the medical establishment to allow and perform surgery in 1959 where: “the penis and scrotum were skinned, the penis and testes amputated, and the skin of the amputated penis used for a vagina where the labia was constructed from the skin of the scrotum”. This was incredibly unusual for the time given both social and legal contexts, and rested heavily upon Agnes’ ‘gendered performance’. It is interesting that in scrutinising whether Agnes was to be considered a ‘real’ woman and deserving of surgery, it was explicit that she must’ve experienced no sense of homosexual desire – that is, attraction to women, despite the irony that based on her legal gender, attraction to men would be homosexual, of course illegal at this time. It was still true once homosexuality was legalised that the medical establishment looked for “a distain or repugnance for homosexual behaviour” in trying to identify the ‘true transsexual’ (Billings and Urban, 1996). This attitude would be characterised by Butler as “the heterosexualisation of desire” (Butler, 1990). Individuals can be considered to be trapped by the social sex and sexuality chosen for, and required of them.It was also a matter of concern that it was unable to be ascertained that her penis was not used with erotic purpose (Garfinkel, 1967), as this would be seen as evidence with identifying with a ‘male’ sexuality. This is evidence that Agnes’ legal gender was not of huge relevance to the doctors, which makes sense given that it would be implicitly understood that given her unique physiology, this would provide a shallow understanding of her sex/gender that would not usefully allow them to ascertain a deeper ‘truth’. As said by Whittle: “A quick glance at birth determines whether a child has a penis of appropriate length. If it has, it is designated as a boy/man, if not, it is designated a girl/woman. Here in the UK, that cursory glance and the decision made as a consequence is transcribed onto the record of birth, and will remain with the child for ever more. The sighting at birth will be the ‘citing’ for the remainder of life” (Whittle 2002). It may be considered somewhat worrying that being labelled with a legal identity that may have very real and complex consequences for a significant minority can be routinely made in such a fleeting and inexpert manner. That said, this is assuming that the categories available are even satisfactory in the first place!
The most crucial element to Agnes’ narrative is that she was able to receive legitimisation of her gender identity and be granted privileged access to the treatment required to ‘match’ the category of female as she so wished – by the fact that she lied. Agnes later revealed to her doctors that she had been taking oestrogens since the age of 12 (Garfinkel, 1967). By withholding this information, Agnes was capable of manipulating the medical establishment into providing her with social legitimisation. Given social context, people ‘suffering’ from intersex conditions were treated (both with pity, and medically), whilst ‘transsexuals’ and ‘transvestites’, whilst also pathologised, were degraded, blamed, and considered perverse. Social legitimisation, gained through passing in the desired category (of man or woman, strictly) was the chief goal, and has been the holy grail for trans people for longer than the term trans has even existed. This was far more relevant to Agnes’ experiences than her legal gender, as highlighted by the report of the attitude of Agnes’ family regarding her performance of her gender as female before and after medical legitimisation: “The aunt, said Agnes, reflected the attitude of other family members. This attitude, said Agnes, was one of gender acceptance prior to the trip to Midwest city [when she had lived as a boy], consternation and severe disapproval after the return [she ran away to attempt to live as a girl], and relieved acceptance and treatment of her as a “real woman after all” (Agnes’ quotation of the aunt’s remark) following the operation” (Garfinkel, 1967).
It can be said then, that Agnes was (really) a transsexual who was able to be successfully accepted as having indeed ‘always’ been a girl as she so claimed, rather than a boy who ‘became’ a girl. To have the sex/gender of desire accepted as the individual’s only reality is a common desire of many trans people. It has been pointed out that for many trans people, ‘success’ in one’s gender is to become entirely removed from the ‘trans identity’ – one is not a man who feels they are a woman, one is not a trans woman, one is a woman (or vice versa)! The limitation of legal gender as strictly relevant (it wasn’t for Agnes, as despite her success it was legally impossible at the time for the sex on her birth certificate to be altered)is challenged by Roz Kaveny who asks: “how does changing our birth certificates and passing and disappearing into the wider community free us from discrimination and oppression? Some bigots, some of the time, will spot us, or think they spot us, and be able to discriminate against us, or anyone else they think is one of us, with impunity, arguing in self-defence that they were doing no such thing. If there is no document that states who we are, our right not to be discriminated against as TS disappears. The possibility, or even probability, that someone passes most of the time is no defence for them on the rare occasions when they do not. You are only as safe as your roughest day” (Kaveny, 1999).
How relevant then is possession of a legal gender that does not accurately reflect one’s gendered life experience, especially when this problem is equally true for those who may indeed embrace their trans identity as more than transitional, and those who feel their intersexuality is not something that can be ‘vanished’ by ‘correction’ to one of the two available legal categories. This is concordant with the conclusions from the Goodwin case, in that it can be argued that to truly live without fear of judgement one needs a concurrency between legal and socially identified gender which can at best only be partially achieved within current legal categorisation.In her social discourse, Butler points out that “The binary regulation of sexuality suppresses the subversive multiplicity of a sexuality that disrupts heterosexual, reproductive, and medicojuridical hegemonies” (Butler, 1990). Indeed, as it is increasingly recognised that to be transgender and have one’s legal gender recognised as independent from one’s ‘birth biology’, the monopoly held by medical practitioners on what gender variance means is lessened. It is now no longer the case (in theory) that one under UK law must receive surgery to have one’s legal gender change recognised. However in practice a review board will take this into account when considering whether to approve an application for a gender recognition certificate particularly in the case of trans women (the surgery that may be undertaken by trans men is recognised as more complex with greater risk).The trans advocate group ‘Press for Change’ states that in regards to having reassignment surgery: “unless for reasons of health, it is not a good idea to simply say you do not want it. Better to state that you intend to have it in the future when the surgical waiting list has spaces” (Press for Change, 2011)
What is the relevance of one’s legal gender when possessing an intersex condition? Unless an individual can be placed into one legal gender category or another, one may encounter difficulties in receiving the rights of both or either categories. Within western culture, there has been a prevailing view that being ambiguous in sex is a dramatic problem, as highlighted by this quotation from a textbook on intersexual disorders published in 1969: “One can only attempt to imagine the anguish of the parents. That a newborn should have a deformity…[affecting] so fundamental an issue as the very sex of the child…it is a tragic event which immediately conjures up visions of a hopeless psychological misfit doomed to live always as a sexual freak in loneliness and frustration” (quoted in Fausto-Sterling, 2000). Given the incredibly dramatic language, it is somewhat surprising that this account does not directly justify its purple prose by mentioning that intersex disorders may be associated with some serious medical dysfunction. This is not always the case by any means, and it is worth saying that the term ‘intersex’ is used to refer to a wide range of conditions, many of which may remain undetected for an entire lifespan.
The American Academy of Pediatrics is quoted as having said “The reasoning behind this [early ‘corrective’] genital surgery is the need for a clear and unambiguous sex assignment to save intersex children from being ostracized and to enable parents to bond with their baby girl or boy” (quoted in Benatar, 2006). The assignment of intersex children to one legal gender category or another, and modifying surgery to better justify this regardless of whether or not there is a physiological need for this in terms of medical wellbeing is thus justified on social grounds, and reinforced by the legal requirement for a child’s sex to be declared.
The relevance of one’s legal gender can therefore be said to rest heavily on how social genders are viewed, because it is the view of society that is used to form legislature. Alison Shaw makes the point that “Sex and gender are not always either mutually exclusive or corresponding categories because ideas about the nature and significance of anatomical and physiological sex differences vary and can influence the rigidity or flexibility of gender categories and, conversely, the social significance of gender in any given context may in turn influence the ways in which biological differences are perceived” (Shaw, A., 2005). The fact that there is no straightforward biological test to show a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ that can’t be problematized through social discourse means that likewise a legal difference between ‘father’ and ‘mother’ is also problematic.
When it comes to parental status of trans people in the UK, there is no obvious or simple answer to the range of questions that may be asked. UK law maintains the categories of ‘mother’ and ‘father’ as distinct legal terms. Whilst both parents receive joint responsibility of a child that is born or adopted if the couple are married (or civilly partnered), should partners not have their relationship legally recognised parental responsibility is always given entirely to the ‘mother’. This presents the obvious problem of trans parents being registered as the ‘parent type’ that does not match their legal gender, and thus compromises their social treatment by the lack of the total recognition of their (new) legal gender as their only legal gender. The argument that the mother is defined by ‘that parent which carries the child’ is rendered insufficient by the existence of both adoption and surrogacy. Parenthood is a scenario whereby legal gender is afforded more attention than can be justified – parental aptitude is not strictly sex/gender dependent nor would any court following equality frameworks claim such in the modern day. The legal categories of mother and father are arguably linguistic artefacts stemming from the social and psychological need of most individuals to categorise people by the binary gender system upon sight, or upon receiving information concerning a given individual.
Another example of where current legal gender and past legal gender may both be brought into question is in the context of military service. Whether a trans man would be called up on the basis of a new legal gender or a trans woman could be called on the basis of an old or unchanged one would depend upon the legal systems (and of course, social attitudes) of the country in question, but the most obvious problematisation would again be in a visible context. How would a barracks deal with an individual who appears and is judged to be female in every visible capacity, only contested actively by documentation? There is an interaction between the social and the legal in that, as we have seen, social categories lead to legislation, but the legislation leads to problematisation of the social, and vice versa. There will always be some level of problem with legislation on categories of sex and gender, due to the necessary black-and-white nature of the law. As Judith Butler puts it: “the notion that there might be a “truth” of sex, as Foucault ironically terms it, is produced precisely through the regulatory practices that generate coherent identities through the matrix of coherent gender norms…the cultural matrix through which gender identity has become intelligible requires that certain kinds of “identities” cannot “exist” – that is, those in which gender does not follow from sex and those in which the practices of desire do not “ follow” from either sex or gender” (Butler, 1990). Would the creation of further legal categories (trans, intersex, ‘other’, etc.) make legal gender more relevant to more individuals? Only in the sense that this logically goes hand in hand with social recognition. Legal recognition is quite separate from acceptance, as can be historically considered from the comments of Lord Arran at the third reading of the Sexual Offenses Bill in 1967 decriminalising homosexuality in the UK: “let me remind them that no amount of legislation will prevent homosexuals from being the subject of dislike and derision, or at best of pity. We shall always, I fear, resent the odd man out. That is their burden for all time” (Hansard, 1967). Whilst obviously discussing a different variation, Kaveny makes the related point that “It is less important to pass than to be accepted. If being transgendered is valued as a human variation, then many problems disappear. And it is more likely to be valued if we value it ourselves – being out and proud and prepared to defend ourselves is probably rather less risky than being in the closet, ashamed of our pasts and relying on a piece of paper” (Kaveny 1999). Legislation is an extension of social acceptance, affording people the rights afforded to others regardless of gender identity based on a liberal and rational society. This does not compromise the special protection and needs that individuals may require (for example, maternity leave for birth mothers who experience physical stress that requires remit and recovery time), as this may be provided in a manner that does not dictate and limit in a manner that restricts based on category but provides based on need.
To conclude then, what is the relevance of one’s legal gender? It is nothing if not dependent on a web of factors including location, personal identity, circumstances, and perhaps most importantly social context. Individuals are not ‘invisibled’ through lack of adequate legal category when there is no-one contesting those individuals legitimacy – often not merely to rights, but to existence, or at least visibility. An entirely positivist approach to answering questions of gender conclusively have been considered flawed as it has been “shown to be driven by the value-laden but unexamined presumptions of scientists themselves in numerous fields, especially medicine and human biology” (Carver 2007). As this medical justification was used for body policing in a thoroughly Foucaultian power-play, legal concession resulted in order for those outside of the gender hegemony to be silenced by inclusion in ‘normality’ and normativity. This ironically allowed a defence of gendered variance from within the normative system, which moves with social progression as further legal rights are demanded worldwide to solve questions of gender injustice. Legal gender will be relevant for as long as there are questions where legal (and therefore social) outcomes are contested by individuals based on personal rights and freedoms. It must be understood however that the impact of legal gender as a defence from social repression is limited, and does not have the impact on day to day existence as the willingness of the general public to accept difference.
References:
Benatar, D., 2006, ‘Cutting to the Core: Exploring the Issues of Contested Surgeries’, p. 80
Billings, D. B. and Urban, T., 1996, ‘The socio-medical construction of transsexualism – an interpretation and critique’, in Ekins, R. and King, D., ‘Blending Genders – social aspects of cross-dressing and sex-changing’, p. 105
Browne, J. 2006, ‘Sex segregation and inequality in the modern labour market’, p. 11
Butler, J., 1990, ‘Gender Trouble’, p. 17
Butler, J., 1990, ‘Gender Trouble’, p. 19
Butler, J., 1990, ‘Gender Trouble’, p. 17
Carver, T., ‘‘Trans’ trouble – trans-sexuality and the end of gender’ in Browne, J., ‘The future of gender’, p. 129
Council of Europe, 2002, ‘Case of Christine Goodwin v. The United Kingdom’, p. 17-18
Council of Europe, 2002, ‘Case of Christine Goodwin v. The United Kingdom’, p. 22-23
Council of Europe, 2002, ‘Case of Christine Goodwin v. The United Kingdom’, p. 24
Directgov website, legal information on registering and naming one’s baby: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Registeringlifeevents/Birthandadoptionrecords/Registeringorchangingabirthrecord/DG_175608
Fausto-Sterling, A., 2000, ‘Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality’, p. 47
Garfinkel, H., 1967, ‘Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an “intersexed” person part 1’ (in collaboration with Stoller), in Garfinkel, Studies in ethnomethodology, chapter 5, p. 3
Garfinkel, H., 1967, ‘Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an “intersexed” person part 1’ (in collaboration with Stoller), in Garfinkel, Studies in ethnomethodology, chapter 5, p. 24
Garfinkel, H., 1967, ‘Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an “intersexed” person part 1’ (in collaboration with Stoller), in Garfinkel, Studies in ethnomethodology, chapter 5, p. 36
Garfinkel, H., 1967, ‘Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an “intersexed” person part 1’ (in collaboration with Stoller), in Garfinkel, Studies in ethnomethodology, chapter 5, p. 7
Gender Recognition Act, 2004, section 9, subsection 1. Accessed at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/crossheading/consequences-of-issue-of-gender-recognition-certificate-etc
Hansard, The parliamentary debates, House of Lords official report, volume 285, p. 523
Kaveny, R., 1999, ‘Talking Transgender Politics’, in More, K. and Whittle, S. ‘Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siècle’, p. 148-149
Ibid.
Press for Change website, accessed last on 2/5/11: http://transequality.co.uk/Legislation.aspx
Rhode, D., 1989, ‘Justice and Gender – Sex discrimination and the law’, p. 94
Shaw, A., 2005, ‘Changing Sex and Bending Gender: An Introduction’ in Shaw, A., and Ardener, S., ‘Changing Sex and Bending Gender’ – p. 3
Walker, A., Kershaw, C. and Nicholas, S. (2006) ‘Crime in England and Wales 2005-6’
Whittle, S., 1999, ‘The Becoming Man: The Law’s Ass Brays’ in More, K. and Whittle, S. ‘Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siècle’, p. 18
Whittle, S., 1999, ‘The Becoming Man: The Law’s Ass Brays’ in More, K. and Whittle, S. ‘Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siècle’, p. 19
Whittle, S., 2002, ‘Respect and Equality, Transsexual and Transgender Rights’, p. 5
Whittle, S., 1999, ‘The Becoming Man: The Law’s Ass Brays’ in More, K. and Whittle, S. ‘Reclaiming Genders: Transsexual Grammars at the Fin de Siècle’, p. 28-9
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