Strand Two asked if people no longer had a legal sex or gender, what effect might this have on struggles to advance social equality and justice?
Our key findings developed across four interlinked areas:
- Feminist analysis: understanding decertification and its possible consequences in relation to feminist analyses of discrimination, unequal pay, violence, and definitions of gender and sex.
- Intersectionality: considering the potential effects of sex/gender status reform on other inequalities (including ethnicity, class, nationality, sexuality, and disability).
- Comparing legal protections:evaluating the value of frameworks used for other “protected characteristics” (e.g., religion and sexual orientation) for thinking about the reform of legal sex/ gender status.
- Equality governance: exploring policies and practices to support and recognise gender self-identification, the opposition they encountered, and views on the role of law in supporting and resisting change in how gender categories operate.