Moral panics and legal projects: echoes of Section 28 in United Kingdom transgender discourse and law reform – Gender and Justice
‘A grounding in the queer history of the legal system in the United Kingdom reveals striking parallels between the moral panic leading to the enactment of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, and the current moment’s discourse surrounding the inclusion of transgender people in social spaces and their potential right to self-identification of gender in law. Through use of moral panic theory, this article examines and contextualizes the historical forces at play in the formation of laws around queer and trans lives in the UK, and in particular the instrumentalization of fears over the safety of children and cisgender women. The article also provides a practical example of the influence of the trans moral panic on law reform, by evaluating the debate surrounding the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill 2022. It concludes that there is no ‘gender crisis’ in the UK, but there are powerful social forces at work to stoke a moral panic and, in doing so, stigmatize and alienate trans people in a similar manner to the stigmatization of homosexuality as an illegitimate way of life under Section 28.’
Gender and Justice, 4 March 2025
Source: doi.org
