Alex Sharpe is a Professor of Law at the University of Warwick and a non-practising barrister. She is a legal theorist, legal historian, and gender, sexuality and law scholar and activist.
In particular, she helped constitute the field of trans/law study with her monograph, Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (London: Cavendish, 2002).
Home Secretary’s powers to terminate judicial review proceedings declared unlawful by Court of Appeal
Overview
Trans Activism and Law Reform
Alex regularly provides advice on trans rights to government departments, members of parliament, law firms and public interest advocacy organisations both in the UK and overseas. She has appeared before parliamentary select committees in Australia and the UK and has made a series of written submissions to parliamentary inquiries held by the Ministry of Justice, the Women and Equalities Select Committee and the Public Bills Committee, and has been cited in parliamentary and amicus curiae intervention submissions, as well as judicially in Australia, Argentina, Hong Kong, the United States and by the European Court of Human Rights (Hämäläinen v Finland [2014] ECHR 877 (Joint Dissenting Opinion of Judges Sajo, Keller & Lemmens, para 13).
Recent Work: Challenging 'Gender Identity Fraud' Prosecutions
During the period 1/10/16 – 1/10/17 Alex completed a Leverhulme Trust funded Re-search Fellowship (£42,319). During the fellowship, she considered recent successful sexual offence prosecutions brought against young trans and other gender non-conforming people for so-called ‘gender identity fraud’ (R v Gemma Barker [2012] Southwark Crown Court, unrep; R v Chris Wilson [2013] Edinburgh High Court, un-rep; R v Justine McNally [2013] EWCA Crim 1051; R v Gayle Newland [2015] Chester Crown Court, unrep; R v Kyran Lee (Mason) [2015] Lincoln Crown Court, unrep; R v Jason Staines [2016] Bristol Crown Court, unrep; R v Gayle Newland [2017] Manchester Crown Court, unrep). This work culminated in the publication of her third monograph, Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity ‘Fraud’: reframing the legal & ethical debate (London: Routledge, 2018).
Notable Cases
LITIGATION CONSULTANT (RECENT CASES):
R v Gayle Newland [2017] Manchester Crown Court, unrep
R (on the application of C) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2017] UKSC 72
R v Gayle Newland [2015] Chester Crown Court, unrep
R v Kyran Lee (Mason) [2015] Lincoln Crown Court, unrep
R v Justine McNally [2013] EWCA Crim 1051