Sex, Gender Identity and the Law by Michael Foran

Sex, Gender Identity and the Law by Michael Foran

Over the last century, UK law has moved from endorsing, and in some cases mandating, unjust sex discrimination to a robust framework of distinct protections for women and girls. At the same time, our law has extended anti-discrimination protections to people who undergo gender reassignment, culminating in a system where individuals can change their legally recognised sex for some purposes. Sometimes the interests of these two groups conflict, most notably where the law must differentiate based on biological sex in contexts where those with transgender identities wish to be classed by reference to gender identity instead. For a time, there was uncertainty over the precise interaction between these competing interests within equality law. In 2025 this was resolved in a landmark case brought by the feminist organisation For Women Scotland. This book traces the history of how sex changed within our law and what that means for ongoing controversies over single-sex spaces, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, privacy, sport, and sexual intimacy.

Michael Foran is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. His work was cited by the UK Supreme Court in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, which clarified the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010. Previous work of his informed the UK government veto of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill due to the adverse effect that self-identification of sex would have on the operation of the Equality Act 2010. His first book, Equality Before the Law: Equal Dignity, Wrongful Discrimination and the Rule of Law (2023) was based on his PhD thesis, which won the Yorke Prize from the University of Cambridge.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781009646321
ISBN 10	100964632X
Title	Sex, Gender Identity and the Law
Author	Michael Foran
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Year published	2026-04-30
Number of pages	275
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.