To Örebro University

In this article, I explore how trans* citizens are recognized in Iranian society by analysing the production of knowledge within jurisprudential, legal, and medical systems. I use the concept of epistemic misrecognition as my theoretical tool drawing on Miranda Fricker’s (2007) notion of epistemic injustice in consolidation with Nancy Fraser’s (2001) work on status misrecognition. Addressing interviews with trans* people, surgeons, activists, and a jurist in Iran, I discuss how the limited knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence, coupled with the medical system’s narrow understanding of gender, establish an authoritative sources of knowledge that perpetuate various forms of harm against trans* people at individual, institutional and structural levels in society. Nevertheless, trans* people understand and embody gender independently of this knowledge, struggling for status recognition as equal citizens.

Feminist approaches to citizenship have for a long time problematized the traditional view of male, white, heterosexual, and able-bodied citizenship. Nonetheless, many feminist theories on citizenship are based on the gender binary system and the idea of universal rights for all, which tend to erase differences and structural inequalities (Monro and Warren, Sexualities 7(3):345–362, 2004; Monro, The limits of gendered citizenship: contexts and complexities, Routledge, 2010; Monro and Van der Ros, Crit Soc Policy 38(1):57–78, 2018; Kuhar et al., Crit Soc Policy 38(1):99–120, 2018). In this chapter, I discuss how feminist politics address trans* people’s citizenship using the concept of trans* citizenship developed by Surya Monro (Crit Soc Policy 23(4):433–452, 2003), Monro (The limits of gendered citizenship: contexts and complexities, Routledge, 2010), while engaging with Nancy Fraser’s understanding of recognition (Fraser, New Left Rev 1(3):107–120, 2000; Fraser, Crit Inq 34(3):393–422, 2008). Thus, I focus on the politics of recognition that emphasises the status and needs of citizens in achieving social justice. Through examining the use of some theoretical concepts in feminist politics, I discuss how the limits of identity-based politics of recognition in feminist theories and practices have amounted to social injustices and denial of trans* people’s needs, affecting their citizenship. Thus, I maintain that trans* citizenship needs feminist socio-legal researchers, practitioners, and policy makers’ attention to social status and needs of trans* people with respect to people’s diversity of knowledge and experiences. 

This article aims to highlight social injustice experienced by trans* women in Sweden, drawing on diverse experiences encompassing (in)direct, ignorant, interpersonal harms as well as institutionalized and structural discrimination. The concept of epistemic misrecognition in this article draws on Fricker's notion of epistemic injustice and Fraser's idea of status misrecognition, emphasizing misrecognition as the root cause of epistemic injustices. Using twenty-four semi-structured interviews with trans* women and trans* activists in Sweden, as well as relevant laws and policies, I argue that the lack of status recognition in society at individual, institutional, and structural levels results in trans* women experiencing various forms of testimonial and hermeneutical injustices.

In this paper, I explore the socio-legal status of trans women in contemporary Iran especially as it relates to Gender Affirmation Surgery. More specifically, I try to understand how trans women embody gender by investigating gender practices and relations in family, law, and medicine. Based on my fieldwork in Iran, the findings suggest that aberu – a phenomenon specific to Iranian culture – plays a big role in shaping trans women’s lives. By bringing together feminist philosopher Nancy Fraser’s work on the politics of recognition and sociologist Raewyn Connell’s understanding of social embodiment, I discuss how the status of trans women is pervasively misrecognised and how they are denied economic participation and democratic representation in Iranian society. Adopting the method of thematic analysis, I argue that the social pressure associated with aberu, and the lack of legal protection have made trans women simultaneously invisible and yet also subject to violence. Finally, I discuss how trans women go through the process of gender embodiment by problematising misrecognition, redefining femininity, and reclaiming womanhood through everyday life challenges.

This article presents a case study of trans activism based on qualitative data in Indonesia and Iran, drawing on the existing public discourses as well as discourses and practices among activists. The article consolidates the work of Nancy Fraser on the politics of recognition, while it uses Judith Butler’s ideas on intelligible and unintelligible subjects to argue how the workings of recognition and misrecognition of trans* status affect the liveability of trans* people and how they are constituted as intelligible and unintelligible subjects in society.

Generated directly from the field, this paper elaborates on the knowledge shared during the process of a research project called LAWGEM (New Quality in Education for Gender Equality – Strategic Partnership for the Development of Master’s Study Program on LAW and GENDER) in an effort to develop a Gender Equality Legal Clinic to sensitise students about gender issues within legal education in Europe. The paper elaborates on the experience of two countries, Sweden and Serbia through discussing the challenges in achieving gender justice. Finally, it introduces Gender Equality Legal Clinic as a learning outcome of LAWGEM project for legal pedagogical purposes.

This chapter critically analyses different socio-legal phenomena through a feminist prism on gender. With an aim to promote gender equality, it addresses the problems of structural gender inequalities in both private and public social spheres. Outlining the political, economic and ideological connection between laws and specific social contexts, it uncovers (hidden) effects of social reproduction and construction of gender and sexuality. Deconstructing the gender binary system and provoking a heterosexual matrix, it shows how traditional, patriarchal gender roles determine and establish the social position in the structure of society. Dealing with the gender (in)sensitive education, production, and reinforcement of gender inequalities in the labour market, and media (re)presentation of gender and symbolic violence, it shows how widely accepted values and gender roles shape, and ultimately define, the access to social resources, professional positions and social status. Limiting research to only some areas of this broad socio-legal thematic, this chapter addresses some policies for overcoming structural inequalities based on gender.

This chapter discusses the construction of family and family law as central tenets of gender equality projects in law and society. It begins with a review of the evolution of family institution from the traditional nuclear to the models that are not constituted through either heteronormativity or marriage contract. Hence, it draws on LGBTQIA+ family formations including parenthood and intimate partnership. Furthermore, the chapter elaborates on the development of gender equality in family law and marriage contract in various social settings through an intersectional analysis of rights and responsibilities of partners, parents, and children. The chapter also explores domestic violence as a matter of gender equality in family law. It discusses how legal protection and prevention of domestic violence in family law can reduce harmful effects on family members, who are the victims of violence directly or affected by domestic violence as witnesses.

This chapter is structured around the issue of gender research and what it means to conduct research with a gender perspective. Thus, it discusses research methodologies inspired by feminist ontological and epistemological approaches. Drawing on feminist standpoint theory, situated knowledge, feminist poststructuralism and intersectionality, the chapter shows how feminist scholars, especially feminist legal scholars, have adopted feminist epistemologies in challenging gender inequalities in law and society. The chapter draws on legal methods combined with feminist social theories that have assisted feminist scholars to go about legal reforms. Furthermore, focusing on qualitative methods, the chapter explains some of the methods of data collection and data analysis in gender research which have been applied interdisciplinarily across social science and humanities studies. The last part of the chapter concentrates on practical knowledge about conducting gender research that is informed with feminist epistemologies and methodologies. Finally, through some exercises, the students are given the opportunity to design and outline a gender research plan with a socio-legal approach.