Book Review: Legal Queeries: Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Legal Studies
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466390000900410 |
| Author | Paul Skidmore |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
time she calls. At times, though, Hoyle reminds us that police perceptions about the
likelihood of the victim refusing to testify – because she may be very reasonably fright-
ened of the man’s retaliation – can still dissuade officers from making the effort required
to secure sufficient evidence for charging suspects with some kind of criminal assault
(p. 109). Clearly, women are attempting to retain control over their management of
men’s violence. And for reasons cited above, not all women find themselves in the finan-
cial, emotional or practical state to be able to do that without using the threat of state
sanction or asking the state’s agents to use legal force when it is necessary to do so.
Hoyle does demonstrate why it is important to problematize the so-called dichotomy
between law enforcement and social service functions of policing. She implicitly shows
how the agitation of feminist campaigners has enabled the flaws in the way police wield
discretionary state power to be subject to the scrutiny of researchers and police man-
agers. And she achieves her remit of the study: to show the importance of the inter-
section between the law and policy.
However, it seems to me that the core dilemma of domestic violence remains
untouched in her analysis. How do we challenge individual men’s abuse of individual
women? What kind of institutional responses best inform men that they cannot legit-
imately abuse women? And when will we have a system where women do not have to
rely on their own creativity to escape the violence of men? Hoyle misses the oppor-
tunity to address this when she observes that over three-quarters of the women inter-
viewed stated that they wanted advice about short-term and long-term options to
escape and minimize the abuse they experienced. Moreover, they said they wanted
someone to talk to about their problems, someone with whom they could share their
experiences and who would be non-judgmental and who would not insist on taking
any action for which the women were not ready. No wonder women, as all the research
on domestic violence attests, turn to family and friends first rather than the police.
ELIZABETH A. STANKO
Department of Law, Brunel University, UK
LESLIE J. MORAN, DANIEL MONK AND SARAH BERESFORD (Eds), Legal Queeries:
Lesbian, Gay and Transgender Legal Studies. London, Cassell, 1998, ix and 203pp.,
£45 (hbk), £16.99 (pbk).
The burgeoning diversity of legal scholarship with regard to lesbians, gay men and
transgender persons is amply illustrated by this stimulating new book edited by Les
Moran, Daniel Monk and Sarah Beresford. The editors have brought together 13
essays from around the world, casting light upon the experience in many jurisdictions
(Scotland, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa) which are rarely to be
found in one volume. The essays all reflect upon law (in its widest possible sense) in
its cultural setting, whether this be legal, political or popular culture, or through the
medium of literature (Moran) or film (Loizidou).
The editors suggest that the essays are linked by the motif of ‘outsider’ in several
respects, particularly in going beyond the standard range of subjects in lesbian and
gay legal writing. This is undoubtedly one of the most pleasing aspects of the book.
The explicit inclusion of transgender concerns not only in the book’s full title, but
also through the essays by Whittle and Sharpe is to be welcomed. Too often accounts
of transsexualism and the law have been seen as an ‘exotic’ dimension to family law
and have failed to reveal the confused legal thinking with regard to sexualities that
pervades judicial discourse. In contrast these essays illustrate the polymorphous
nature of the law of the body and the body of the law which should be central to any
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