Indocile bodies: Gender identity and strip searches in canadian criminal law

Abstract

This article examines what happens when non-normative genders and sexualities collide with the complicated world of criminal procedure. Grounded in a close reading of Forrester v. Peel (Regional Municipality) Police Services Board, a recent decision in which a trans detainee alleged discrimination in services on the basis of "sex," the article connects strip searches to a larger system of corporeal power. Trans bodies are targeted not merely because they are perceived as different but also because of what that difference symbolizes: a failure of the regimes that regulate bodies into a sharp, essentialist gender binary. As such, trans bodies become a key site for simultaneous observation, normalization, and examination not only by the police but also by society at large.