Gender, Sexuality & the Law

Contact: gender@lawtransform.no Research Leader for the Unit is Siri Gloppen. Unit Pilot is Ruben Berge Mathisen. The Unit Co-Pilots are Diana Suarez, Anna Gopsill and Marit Tjelmeland

All societies use law to regulate sexuality and gender relations, protecting and privileging desired practices and seeking to prevent unwanted behavior through legal sanctions. But ‘unwanted’ and ‘desirable’ varies between societies and over time, and legal norms regarding sex and gender relations are fiercely contested, domestically and at the international level.

Most societies legally protect and regulate marriage and outlaw rape and incest, but yet there are strong disagreements regarding definitions and enforcement. Gender equality is recognized in international human rights treaties and most domestic constitutions, yet laws seeking to end cultural practices such as child marriage, female genital cutting, honor killings and other forms of gender-based violence, and gender discriminatory religious and customary private law (regarding divorce, inheritance etc.) are met with widespread resistance. And while more countries are moving toward non-discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, - providing for same sex marriage and adoption rights, surrogacy and change of legal gender – in other societies, non-hetero-normative gender expressions are considered unacceptable and same sex intimacy as a crime to be harshly punished. The same is true for other forms of consensual sexual relations between adults, from adultery to sex work. Among the most contested are laws concerning women’s reproductive rights. The right to a safe abortion is defended as a fundamental human right and central to women’s right to health and autonomy, while opponents see it as murder that the state should prohibit and punish.

In few other fields is the struggle over the law as heated. Laws regulating sexuality and gender are central topics of political and social debates across the world, key election campaign issues, and increasingly brought before domestic and international courts.

Through a range of projects, the Gender, Sexuality & the Law unit explores the increasing lawfare in this field – the battles over the law; and the use of diverse legal strategies (by progressive and conservative actors alike) in struggles to transform society with regard to gender relations and sexual rights and practices – as well as the effects of the various laws and lawfare struggles. The effects can take many forms: changes in laws, policies and resource distribution; changes in behavior and practices of institutions; and changes in social attitudes and norms. In some cases the social effects are unanticipated and adverse, for example when legal victories trigger social resistance and backlash.

Questions addressed include:

• • What are the effects of abortion laws – and of liberalizing them - under different social conditions?
  • Why do we see an increase in politicization over same sex relations in many parts of the world?
  • What are the social and individual effects of criminalizing homosexual sex?
  • Are court cases effective in bringing about changes gender relations and sexual and reproductive rights? Or is it likely to lead to backlash?
  • When are international interventions to advance gender equality successful?