Prefigurative Law Reform and the Controversial Politics of Abolishing Legal Sex in Britain

Prefiguration has become re-popularised as a praxis that embodies, in the present, future-facing political objectives. In this talk, Professor Davina Cooper explores its value as an academic feminist method, where radical, future-oriented, legislative proposals are treated as if they were already viable and, so, worthy of serious consideration.

Professor Cooper will explore the politics of abolishing legal sex/ gender status (described as decertification) – attending to its value, and also to its risks, as a sharply controversial proposal in 21st century Britain. Through this case study, Professor Cooper considers how a speculative legal proposal can advance three progressive objectives: critically analysing what is, rehearsing change, and intervening in the present. More specifically, exploring the abolition of legal sex status illuminates everyday attachments (and anxieties) towards sex and gender categories; directs attention towards the contemporary informalisations already taking place in the shadow of state law; provides a legal structure for imagining, rehearsing, and prototyping change; and, through constructing a controversial legal reform, intervenes in the political struggles over gender categories currently taking place.

Kindly note that this event is only available for University of Oxford students.