Reimagining Gender Through Equality Law: What Legal Thoughtways Do Religion and Disability Offer?

British equality law protections for sex and gender reassignment have grown fraught as activists tussle over legal and social categories of gender, gender transitioning, and sex. This article considers the future of gender-related equality protections in relation to ‘decertification’—an imagined ref...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Feminist legal studies 2022-07, Vol.30 (2), p.129-155
Main Authors: Renz, Flora, Cooper, Davina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
Disability
Equality
Gender
Gender equity
Gender Studies
Human Rights
Law
Law and Criminolgy
Legal system
Personhood
Political Theory
Public International Law
Religion
Social categories
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Summary:British equality law protections for sex and gender reassignment have grown fraught as activists tussle over legal and social categories of gender, gender transitioning, and sex. This article considers the future of gender-related equality protections in relation to ‘decertification’—an imagined reform that would detach sex and gender from legal personhood. One criticism of decertification is that de-formalising gender membership would undermine equality law protections. This article explores how gender-based equality law could operate in conditions of decertification, drawing on legal thoughtways developed for two other protected characteristics in equality law—religion and belief, and disability—to explore the legal responses and imaginaries that these two grounds make available. Religious equality law focuses on beliefs, communities, and practices, deemed to be stable, multivarious, and subject to deep personal commitment. Disability equality law focuses on embodied disadvantage, approached as social, relational, and fluctuating. While these two equality frameworks have considerable limitations, they offer legal thoughtways for gender oriented to both its hierarchies and its expression, including as disavowal.
ISSN:0966-3622
1572-8455
DOI:10.1007/s10691-021-09481-3