Download full text
(external source)
Citation Suggestion
Please use the following Persistent Identifier (PID) to cite this document:
https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v8i3.2876
Exports for your reference manager
Contestations of Transgender Rights and/in the Strasbourg Court
[journal article]
Abstract Transgender rights are a highly contested issue, upsetting the ‘normal’ ordering of society. In Europe, transgender persons continue to suffer discrimination and harassment, and their rights are contested time and again. Eventually they can turn to the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) in S... view more
Transgender rights are a highly contested issue, upsetting the ‘normal’ ordering of society. In Europe, transgender persons continue to suffer discrimination and harassment, and their rights are contested time and again. Eventually they can turn to the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) in Strasbourg. In such politically sensitive matters, how do judges in Strasbourg decide? Do they set European norms bolstering transgender rights, or do they refrain from interference in state affairs? Testing expectations based on rational and sociological institutionalism, this article analyses all 33 Court cases on transgender issues since 1980. As a judge’s low score on trans rights in their home country does not mean that they vote against trans rights, and as judges do no defend their home country but vote with the ‘pro-state’ or ‘pro-trans’ majority, rationalist expectations were not confirmed. Sociological institutionalist processes of widening and narrowing tell us more about the hesitant and uneven strengthening of transgender rights, if within the limits of binary thinking as regards the transgender body, marriage and family.... view less
Keywords
European Court of Justice; human rights; gender; identity; jurisdiction
Classification
Law
Women's Studies, Feminist Studies, Gender Studies
Free Keywords
European Court of Human Rights; transgender
Document language
English
Publication Year
2020
Page/Pages
p. 278-289
Journal
Politics and Governance, 8 (2020) 3
Issue topic
Trans* Politics: Current Challenges and Contestations
ISSN
2183-2463
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed