Emotions are central to the pursuit, organisation, and contestation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in law.

This Queer@King’s event celebrates Dr Senthorun Raj’s new monograph, The Emotions of LGBT Rights and Reforms: Repairing Law (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), and invites responses from esteemed feminist and queer legal scholars. Prof Loveday Hodson (Leicester), Dr Flora Renz (KCL), and Dr Peter Dunne (Bristol) will consider how the book engages with contemporary law reform debates about LGBT rights, including religious exceptions to anti-discrimination laws, legal gender recognition, and sex and LGBT education in schools.

The Emotions of LGBT Rights and Reforms: Repairing Law analyses emotions that shape conflicts of rights that emerge between different groups across law reforms aimed at better supporting LGBT people. Drawing from critical legal theories, this book cultivates the concept of “emotional grammar” to show how emotions structure law reform pursuits by threading together Hansard, legislation, case law, law reform consultations, and statutory guidance. By doing so, it explains why addressing this emotional grammar is important for scholars, lawyers, judges, legislators, and activists seeking to navigate conflicts over LGBT rights and reforms that aim to repair the inequalities faced by LGBT people. The book is available to download for free here.

The symposium will be followed by a drinks reception.

Speakers:

Dr Senthorun Raj is an Australian Tamil critical legal scholar who works in the intersections of emotion, culture, race, gender, sexuality, law, and justice. He is Reader in Human Rights Law at Manchester Law School, Manchester Metropolitan University. He is the editorial lead of the “Queer Law” book sub-series with Palgrave and a Creative Content Editor of Feminist Legal Studies. He is the former chair of Amnesty International UK and a connoisseur of glitter.

Professor Loveday Hodson is a Professor of International Human Rights Law. She joined Leicester Law School in 2004, having completed a PhD on non-governmental organisations' use of international strategic human rights litigation. She has since taught many modules and published widely on international human rights law, particularly on questions of gender and sexuality. She's also raised a daughter (now an adult), qualified as a therapist, taken care of her mother, and somehow persuaded her cat and dog to maintain an uneasy truce.

Dr Peter Dunne is Associate Professor at the University of Bristol and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow. Peter’s research focuses broadly on the areas of gender, sexuality and the law. Peter has worked extensively with policy and government stakeholders, including the UK Government, European Commission and the institutions of the Council of Europe.

Dr Flora Renz is a Lecturer in Healthcare Ethics and Law in the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London. She is a socio-legal scholar whose research interests lie broadly in the area of gender, disability and social and legal inequalities.