Fragmented Recognition: Gender Identity between Moral and Legal Spheres

With the growing recognition of transgender individuals, gender identity laws are slowly embracing a paradigm in which self-determination becomes an entitlement. As the possibilities for either abolishing or registering multiple genders now seem politically plausible, this article examines global developments and identifies different legal models of identity recognition via a comparison of the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Nepal. Drawing on Axel Honneth’s notion of spheres of recognition and Nancy Fraser’s critique of the identity model of recognition, it is argued that not only does identity recognition implicate misrecognition but also that different forms of recognition work in ways that produce fragmentation and disjunction.