Florence Ashley, “The Constitutive In/Visibility of the Trans Legal Subject: A Case Study” (2021) 28:1 UCLA Women’s Law Journal 423–57
Abstract: The language of law creates the transgender subject by fabricating a legal conception of sex or gender which, for a long time, excluded trans people. Using Québec law as a case study, the article analyzes the law’s narratives of gender to highlight two conceptual phases. Through these two models – the medical and minoritizing models – Québec law first chronicles the existence of trans people as a transitional and liminal moment between two binary states of being, while the minority model sees transitude as an exceptional reality that is defined by its opposition to the dominant social framework. The two abovementioned visions follow each other historically and reveal the evolution of trans legal subjecthood. Despite recent progress, more remains to be done in order to truly include trans people as usual subjects of law.