You can’t have one without the other one: “gender” in hate crime legislation

This article examines the question as to whether gender should be a protected category in hate crime legislation by seeking to understand what gender is, by elaborating its relationship to misogyny, and by placing it in the context of how legislation in both Scotland and England and Wales addresses transphobic hate crime. We argue that the construct of gender is inclusive of the full range of cis and trans gender identities, and the range of manifestations of transphobia and misogyny emanating from the system of power relations which gender signifies. However, we also argue that the current degree of imprecision in the interpretation and operationalisation of the terms gender, gender identity, and indeed sex, in case law and crime statistics, necessitates that we develop a legislative approach which is explicitly inclusive of the three terms.