Transgender Jurisprudence

This book moves beyond liberal law reform and is the first to interrogate the transgender/law relation in a sustained and critical manner. Its concern is to map contemporary legal regulation of transgender bodies within a common law tradition. The specific focus is upon ideas of transgender that define the terms of this regime. The book deals with the structure, history and institutions of production of this lexicon. In doing so the book makes the reader more aware of the legal enterprise and its relationship with medical science. This book, through an analysis and critique of the transgender/law relation, also considers the excessive work law requires the transgender body to do in furtherance of much wider regulatory strategies around sexual practice and gender performance. That is to say, it demonstrates the ways in which transgender jurisprudence is an important site for wider sexual and gender politics. In this regard, the book compliments/challenges feminist and gay and lesbian legal theory and practice. Finally, the book informs those who engage with the law, within the academy or beyond, of the parameters of the terms of that intervention and of its limitations and possibilities