Trans rights, queer times: In search of a new hope

Using a socio-legal lens, this paper will offer a feminist and queer critique of the development of LBGTQ+ rights discourse in Scotland in the last decade. It offers a reading of recent cases specifically on trans rights, in the areas of gender recognition, and equality-based rights under the Equality Act 2010. I will argue that Scottish government legal and policy interventions have leaned into rights-based identity politics through their attempts at progressive reforms on trans inclusion and gender recognition. Such attempts have been legally challenged by those opposed to reform, and have been adjudicated by courts taking a ‘balancing approach’ to apparently competing rights. While to some degree useful for advancing trans recognition and equality, the competing rights framework has resulted in trans justice claims being narrowed, defeated and/or dismissed. This reliance on rights, with variable results, suggests that the possibility of feminist queer hope for the progressive potential of law seems limited by the scope for its hostile appropriation and transformation. Analysing recent litigation in the UK, with particular focus on Scotland as a case study, this paper explores what hopes for future Scottish queer politics might look like in the shadow of legal rights.