Professor Sharpe works at Keele University. Her research interests lie within the fields of social and legal theory, legal history, and gender, sexuality and the law. She has been writing about transgender/law issues for over twenty years. She is the author of Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (Cavendish, 2002) and Foucault’s Monsters and the Challenge of Law (Routledge, 2010) and over 50 other publications. Alex also serves on the International Legal Committee of WPATH (the World Professional Association of Transgender Health), a law reform body that makes third party interventions in litigation worldwide.

This presentation, which will begin with a brief film clip from the 1992 film, the Crying Game, will challenge the notion that non-disclosure of gender history to sexual partners in advance of sexual intimacy is unethical. It will then challenge the legality and public policy interest in prosecuting transgender people on the basis of ‘fraud’ in these circumstances. In doing so, it will (a) highlight inconsistency in judicial constructions of non-consent, (b) contest the view that a right to sexual autonomy necessarily trumps other rights (this will involve a balancing of harms) and (c) highlight how cisgender determination of the materiality of gender history promotes transphobia/homophobia. 

Please see the article for download: Criminalising Sexual Intimacy: Transgender Defendants and the Legal Construction of Non-Consent.

The paper being presented will be

• a truncated version of this article; and
• will develop ethical issues arising that are only touched upon in the article.