This book challenges law’s reliance on neurology’s brain-sex binary. The brain has become the latest candidate in a historical search for a reliable and fixed biological marker of ‘true sex’ that has permeated every aspect of Western culture, including law. As definitions of the sexed and gendered body have become ever more contentious, the development and dissemination of brain-sex theories have come to dominate popular understanding of LGBTI+ identities. But, this book argues, the brain is no more helpful than earlier biological measures in ensuring just outcomes. Examining how law determines and differentiates ‘male’ and ‘female’ in two contested areas of sexed identity –through a discussion of Australian cases authorising medical interventions to alter the embodied sex characteristics of transgender minors and intersex minors –the book demonstrates an incoherence in the legal understanding of gender identity development. As the brain too fails as a convincing biological anchor for the binary sex categories of male and female, law must, it is argued, retreat from its aspiration to create, define, and regulate artificially bounded sex categories of male and female. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in a range of disciplines who are working at the intersection of law, gender, and sexuality.

This book presents a developed theory of how national lawyers can approach, understand, and make use of foreign law. Its theme is pursued through a set of detailed essays which look at the courts as well as business practice and, with the help of statistics, demonstrate what type of academic work has any impact on the 'real' world. Engaging with Foreign Law thus aims to carve out a new niche for comparative law in this era of globalisation, and may also be the only book which deals in some depth with both private and public law in countries such as England, Germany, France, South Africa, and the United States.

Studies in Law, Politics, and Society provides a vehicle for the publication of scholarly articles within the broad parameters of interdisciplinary legal scholarship. In this latest edition of this highly successful research series, articles examine a diverse range of legal issues and their impact on and intersections with society.