(De)regulating Trans Identities

The field of legal gender regulation across the world has been developing at an ever increasing pace across the last two decades. This chapter aims to consider the development of legal gender regulation by focusing on England and Wales as one specific jurisdiction in which key changes can be observed. In doing so this chapter seeks to chart the key normative underpinnings, particularly concerns about the validity of trans identities, that seem to underpin most, if not all laws focusing on trans people. While charting the development of legal gender regulation in England and Wales since 2003, this chapter questions whether the solution to persisting issues with the existing legal framework can be found in further legal amendments or whether such amendments will simply perpetuate existing inequalities