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The Legal Status of Intersex Persons provides a basis for discussion regarding all legal aspects concerning persons born with sex characteristics that do not belong strictly to male or female categories, or that belong to both at the same time. It contains contributions from medical, psychological and theological perspectives, as well as national legal perspectives from Germany, Australia, India, the Netherlands, Columbia, Sweden, France and the USA. It explores international human rights aspects of intersex legal recognition and also features chapters on private international law and legal history.The book is a timely one. Until very recently, the legal gender of a person both at birth and later in life in virtually all jurisdictions had to be recorded as either male or female; the laws simply did not allow any other option, and, in many cases, changing the recorded gender was difficult or impossible. However, there are many cases where this gender binary is unable to capture the reality of a persons physical presentation and/or perception of self. Consequently, this gender binary is increasingly being challenged and several jurisdictions have begun to reform their gender status laws.For example, in 2013 Germany became the first Western jurisdiction in modern times to introduce legislation allowing a person's gender to be recorded as 'indeterminate' at birth and thus give them a legal gender status other than male or female for all intents and purposes. However, this legislation has proved problematic in many ways and rightly was subject to pertinent criticism. In 2017 the German Constitutional Court then held that these rules were in violation of the German constitution as they only allowed a non-recognition, as opposed to a positive recognition of a gender other than male or female, and mandated law reform. Similarly, the Austria Constitutional Court held in June 2018 that current civil status laws had to be interpreted to allow registration of alternative gender identities. Therefore, two European jurisdictions will now have legal gender recognition beyond the binary.This book looks at law reform taking place around the world, with diverse perspectives from relevant fields, to provide the reader with a comprehensive analysis of the legal status of intersex persons and related issues.

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9781780684758

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Dr Jens M. Scherpe, M.A. (Cantab), MJur (Oxon) is a Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Cambridge and Director of Cambridge Family Law (https://www.family.law.cam.ac.uk/). He is a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and an Honorary Fellow of St. John's College/ University of Hong Kong. He also is an Academic Door Tenant at the Barristers' chambers Queen Elizabeth Building (QEB) in London. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Aalborg (Denmark), Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and Cheng Yu Tung Visiting Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong.In Cambridge Jens teaches comparative law and family law - and comparative family law. Before taking up his position in Cambridge, he was a Research Fellow and Head of the Department for the Law of the Nordic Countries at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. He has held visiting positions at a number of institutions, including the Australian National University/Canberra, the University of Sydney, the University of Auckland/New Zealand and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona/Spain. In addition he has lectured on a variety of subjects in numerous countries around the world, including Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Singapore, Mauritius and the People's Republic of China. Jens has published widely on a variety of topics. His major publications include several comparative family law studies. His PhD thesis on the out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes (2002) was awarded two prizes, the DIS-Frderpreis 2003/2004 by the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS) and the Otto-Hahn-Medal of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science for outstanding research achievements of young researchers (2002).Jens is the editor of the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family (IJLPF) and member of the international board of the Zeitschrift fr das gesamte Familienrecht (FamRZ). He is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law/Acadmie internationale de droit compare and a member of the Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung fr Familienrecht e.V.

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