Collection · 6 entries
Where the Law Drew a Line
Six entries with a date, a jurisdiction and a document behind them. Legal recognition is the one place where a claim about gender gets tested against an institution that has to write something down, and the dates are the argument: this vocabulary is neither as new nor as uniformly accepted as either side of the public argument usually says.
Hijra carries the sharpest reversal. The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 registered hijras as a criminal tribe under British administration, and the Supreme Court of India held in 2014 that they constitute a third gender with constitutional protection, a century and a half apart in the same territory. Agender is the narrowest, a single Oregon resident recognised in 2017 and still the clearest case of a gender defined by absence being accepted in law. Intersex is the only entry here where the law acted on bodies rather than on categories: Malta prohibited non-consensual surgical modification of intersex minors in 2015 and Portugal, Germany, Iceland, Greece and Spain followed. Fakaleiti is included for the opposite reason, since Tonga retains a criminal code inherited from 1903 and the leiti are highly visible with no legal standing at all. The set is ordered by how much the ruling changed. It excludes recognition that exists only as policy guidance, and it excludes jurisdictions where the provision has been announced but not implemented.
Plate for the collection
Hand-set, never alphabetical
The set, in order
6 entries
- HijraRegistered as a criminal tribe in 1871 and recognised as a third gender by the Supreme Court of India in 2014.
- Third genderThe category the rulings reach for. Nepal recognised it by court in 2007 and Pakistan legislated in 2018.
- IntersexMalta banned non-consensual surgery on intersex minors in 2015, with five European states following. The law acting on bodies rather than categories.
- AgenderOne Oregon resident, 2017. The only recognition of a gender defined by absence, and still a single case.
- Fa'afafineSamoa rewrote its criminal law in 2013, repealing the provision on female impersonation while leaving the wider colonial code.
- FakaleitiIncluded as the counter-case. Tonga's criminal code dates from 1903 and the leiti have visibility without standing.
Keep going
The other collections
- The Pairs People Mix UpFour pairs of gender terms that get mixed up constantly, and what each pair actually turns on: the body, the axis, the register, or a plain category error.
- Categories That Resist TranslationSeven gender categories routinely given as the local word for transgender, and the specific reason each of those renderings fails.
- The Vocabulary of the 1990sSeven words first attested between 1992 and 1996, made in zines and newsletters before the general internet, carrying most of the framework still in use.
- The Numbers That Get MisquotedSix figures quoted constantly without the sentence that makes them mean anything, including one that fell sixfold because a checkbox was removed.