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This paper presents the findings from the first qualitative study to consider the relationship between intersex experience and law, representing a significant contribution to a currently under-researched area of law. Since 2013 there has been a global move towards the legal recognition of intersex, with Australia, Germany and Malta all using different techniques to construct and regulate intersex embodiment. This paper is the first to compare and problematise these differing legal approaches in the legal literature. In doing so it demonstrates that many of these approaches are grounded in ideas of formal equality that lead to the entrenchment of vulnerability and fail to build resilience for the intersex community. Through engagement with the intersex community a more contextual account of substantive equality is enabled, encouraging new approaches to law and social justice. Our qualitative study revealed that prevention of non-therapeutic medical interventions on the bodies of children was understood to be the key method to achieving equality for intersex embodied people. Whilst this is the cornerstone of intersex-led legislative reform, such an approach necessitates support through a mixture of formal and substantive equality methods such as anti-discrimination law, education and enforcement procedures. This paper concludes by offering a series of recommendations to legislators capable of enabling substantive intersex equality.

Non-therapeutic medical interventions on the bodies of children born with disorders of sex development (DSD)/intersex variations have been subject to increasing critical scrutiny. In response to recent criticism directed at the United Kingdom, and early moves to consider reform, we report on a freedom of information exercise that sought to evaluate whether National Health Service England is meeting international standards on optimal clinical management of DSD/intersex variations. The study explored what medical protocols are being followed to help inform potential reform, particularly with regard to non-therapeutic surgery. While the exercise revealed limited examples of promising practice, current protocols in the majority of Trusts appear unlikely to meet the complex needs of these children. We identify areas where significant improvement is needed, including data management, consistency in guideline use, composition of multidisciplinary teams and addressing disciplinary hierarchies within teams. These concerns sharpen criticisms of the lack of recognition of children’s rights in this context.

There has been little discussion to date of the impact of the new criminal case management system enshrined in the Criminal Procedure Rules for England and Wales upon the judges and practising lawyers who are expected to operate it. Detailed interviews were conducted with a number of these criminal law professionals in order to explore what, if any, problems they were experiencing in this context. It transpires that a number of practical problems confront them, and that defence lawyers may have difficulty reconciling their ethical obligations to the client with their considerably enhanced duties to the court. The issues that emerge from this small sample of interviews provide useful material to be taken into account in the design of any larger project to investigate the efficacy of case management or to compare local variations in practice. They also offer guidance to those developing the new criminal procedures in what obstacles to the desired cooperative culture need to be addressed.•

Section 28 of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 provides a system of financial provision for cohabitants upon separation that centres on redressing economic imbalances to ensure no-one is dramatically better or worse off financially than the other as a result of the relationship. Designed to be similar yet different to the marital regime, this section fundamentally sought to balance the need to protect the financially vulnerable against the need to respect the privacy of those who have chosen not to marry. Yet how far has s 28's balancing act protected the economically vulnerable in practice? Moreover, given that research has consistently demonstrated that it is women who are most frequently left in an economically vulnerable position upon separation, has s 28 reduced the gendered imbalances that can manifest themselves upon separation? To answer these questions, this article explores the gendered impact of s 28 and considers how effectively this section has operated in practice.