Transgender judge’s speech on law and identity published

Master Victoria McCloud, a Master of the Senior Courts in the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court in London, delivered the speech in Belfast this month.

The lecture, titled “Rainbow Lives, Monochrome Laws: Reflections on law and identity”, was organised by Lawyers with Pride to coincide with the annual Belfast Pride parade.

Master McCloud told those attended that the law “has at times struggled to keep up with society’s gradual appreciation of the complexity of human life”.

However, she also spoke about the role of the law in upholding the basic human rights of LGBT people.

She said: “I suggest that if the law is the body of rights and obligations in society, it is the legal system, by which I mean the practice of the law and the application of it by the courts and professionals, which is the lifeblood and the immune system by which, gradually, it is possible to rid the body of the disease of prejudice, hatred, and oppression.

“I suggest that we gain greatest protection and freedom not from the monochrome text of the law itself but from the way in which the law is performed by those participating in it, and from ensuring that the rainbow community which we celebrate at the time of Pride is, especially, fully engaged in performance of the law.”

Master McCloud tries and case-manages High Court claims in most areas of Queen’s Bench Division civil litigation. Decisions by her have included serious or complex historic child abuse claims, asbestos related disease claims, personal injury claims of utmost severity, modern slavery, defamation and media law, civil procedure, human rights and constitutional law.