| Summary: | This thesis traces the history of trans politics in the United Kingdom over the past half-century, centring on the concept of legal 'recognition' for trans people's identities. It begins with the removal of the right of trans people to have the sex marker on their birth certificates amended as a consequence of the 1970 Corbett v. Corbett case, explores the development of trans political consciousness and its culmination in the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) of 2004, and ends with the failure of the first major effort to reform the GRA in 2020-23, providing original archival insights into each stage of this process. It argues that, contrary to some contemporary political commentary, 'recognition' was never a blandly assimilationist or moderate goal for those who championed it, but was rather seen as a step towards a more radical transformation of legal and social systems and as a safeguard for the most vulnerable trans people in society.
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