Alex Sharpe

University of Warwick, Law School, Faculty Member

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Professor of Law at Warwick University

My primary research interests lie in the areas of social and legal theory, legal history, law and popular culture, criminal justice, and gender, sexuality and the law. I am the author of the following 5 monographs:

Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (Cavendish 2002)
Foucault’s Monsters and the Challenge of Law (Routledge, 2010)
Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity 'Fraud': Rethinking the Legal & Ethical Debate (Routledge 2018)
David Bowie at the Limits of Law: Essays on Difference, Authenticity, Ethics, Art and Love (Routledge 2022)
We're Nobody's Children: David Bowie and Existentialism (Counterpress, 2026)

For a full list of my publications and media/blog interventions, see:
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/people/alex_sharpe/
Address: School of Law
Warwick University

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Books by Alex Sharpe

Transgender Jurisprudence Alex Sharpe 2002

In thinking about transgender/law relations and in the writing of this book I have received the s... more

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Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity 'Fraud': Reframing the Legal & Ethical Debate (Routledge, 2018) pp 204.

This book is a legal and political intervention into a contemporary debate concerning the appropr... more This book is a legal and political intervention into a contemporary debate concerning the appropriateness of sexual offence prosecutions brought against young gender non-conforming people for so-called ‘gender identity fraud.’ It comes down squarely against prosecution. To that end, it offers a series of principled objections based both on liberal principles, and arguments derived from queer and feminist theories.

Thus prosecution will be challenged as criminal law overeach and as a spectacular example of legal inconsistency, but also as indicative of a failure to grasp the complexity of sexual desire and its disavowal. In particular, the book will think through the concepts of consent, harm and deception and their legal application to these specific forms of intimacy. In doing so, it will reveal how cisnormativity frames legal interpretation of each and how this serves to preclude more marginal perspectives.

Beyond law, the book takes up the challenge of ethical characterisation of non-disclosure of gender history. Rather than dwelling on this omission, it argues that we ought to focus on a cisgender demand to know as the proper object of ethical inquiry. Finally, and as an act of legal and ethical re-imagination, the book offers a queer counter-judgment to R v McNally, the only case involving a gender non-conforming defendant, so far, to have come before the Court of Appeal.

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Foucault's Monsters and the Challenge of Law (London: Routledge, 2010).

In thinking about the law/monster nexus, and in the writing of this book, I have received the sup... more

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Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (London: Cavendish, 2002)

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Articles by Alex Sharpe

Will Gender Self-Declaration Undermine Women's Rights and Lead to an Increase in Harms

Modern Law Review, 2020

This article considers and rejects claims reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) to allo... more This article considers and rejects claims reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) to allow gender self-declaration will undermine non-trans women's rights and lead to an increase in harms to non-trans women. The article argues that these claims are founded on a mistaken understanding of the proper legal relationship between the GRA and the Equality Act 2010 (EA), and that the harm claim, in any event, lacks a proper evidential basis. The article considers three legal arguments made by gender critical feminists: that sex-based exceptions under the EA cannot be invoked against trans women with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), that the appropriate legal comparator for a trans woman non GRC-holder in a discrimination case is a non-trans man, and that section 22 of the GRA, which protects the privacy of GRC-holders, undermines the ability of women's organisations to regulate access to women-only spaces.

format_quoteA Stonewall report found no issues reported by women's organizations regarding the inclusion of trans women in their services.format_quote

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Queering Judgment: The Case of Gender Identity Fraud (2017) 81(5) Journal of Criminal Law 1-18

Journal of Criminal Law, 2017

This article is a response to a series of recent successful sexual offence prosecutions brought ... more This article is a response to a series of recent successful sexual offence prosecutions brought against transgender and other gender non-conforming people for gender identity fraud, and specifically to Leveson LJ’s judgment in the Court of Appeal decision of R v McNally. The decision is now the leading authority on sexual fraud generally, and gender identity fraud specifically, under English law. The response will take the form of an academic judgment, in this instance a dissenting or counter-judgment. The article will (i) present the facts of the case, (ii) provide some detail regarding the developing jurisprudence of the courts regarding sexual fraud, (iii) preface the counter-judgment with an explanation of why an exercise in academic judgement-writing is valuable, (iv) consider a queer approach to law, and detail some queer principles around which the counter-judgment will be organised and (v) present the counter-judgment, highlighting not only that McNally could have been decided differently, but that it ought to have been decided differently.

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The Ethicality of the Demand for (Trans)parency in Sexual Relations (2017) 43(2) Australian Feminist law Journal 1-23.

Australian Feminist Law Journal , 2017

This article considers what we owe to each other by way of information disclosure prior to sexua... more This article considers what we owe to each other by way of information disclosure prior to sexual intimacy. It does so in one specific context, namely sexual relations between cisgender and transgender people. In recent years, the UK has witnessed a spate of sexual offence prosecutions brought against young transgender and other gender non-conforming people. The article does not deal with questions of criminal law, at least not directly. Rather, it aims to challenge the dominant cisnormative view that non-disclosure of (trans)gender history is unethical. The article contains four parts. First, it will issue an important caveat concerning complainant claims of ignorance of defendant gender identity. This is important because without the caveat the analysis might be viewed as reinforcing the transgender/deception coupling. Second, the article will delineate the relevant ‘facts’ about gender in relation to which ethical conclusions might appropriately be drawn. This section will highlight how problematisation of (trans)gender identity is an effect of cisnormative power and privilege. Third, the article engages with arguments derived from normative ethics, ones which accept gender identity claims, at least nominally, but nevertheless view non-disclosure of gender history to be unethical. It will do so in order to highlight how, even when issues of ideology, power and privilege are ignored or suspended, the view that an ethical obligation to disclose ought to exist will not necessarily win the day. Finally, the article returns to issues of cisnormative power and privilege and considers what it might mean to be ‘ethically gendered,’ and the implications of being so for the way we think and feel about sexual encounters in a world characterised by gender variance.

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Scary Monsters: the Hopeful Undecidability of David Bowie (1947-2016) (2017) 11(2) Law and Humanities 1-17.

Law and Humanities, 2017

format_quoteMonsters evoke profound anxiety due to their proximity and distance to humanity, questioning our sense of stability.format_quote

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