Keele Research Repository

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.