Dr Senthorun Raj

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Dr Senthorun Raj

Reader in Human Rights Law

Dr Sen Raj is an academic human rights lawyer with expertise in issues relating to race, gender, sexuality, and culture.

My profile

Biography

Dr Senthorun (Sen) Raj is a Reader in Human Rights Law and Doctoral College Deputy Faculty Head. Sen is on the Editorial Board of Palgrave’s Socio-Legal Studies Book Series where he leads on a Queer Law sub-series and Feminist Legal Studieswhere he is a Reflections Editor. He serves as a panel member on UKRI’s Interdisciplinary Assessment College and was previously a member of the QAA’s Subject Benchmark Statement in Law Advisory Group. 

Sen’s research and teaching interests include LGBTIQ+ rights, emotion, culture, equalities and human rights law, legal education, and critical legal theory. His latest monograph, The Emotions of LGBT Rights and Reforms: Repairing Law(Edinburgh University Press, 2025), is a critical study of how emotions structure conflicts over LGBT rights and reforms across different jurisdictions. This builds on his previous book, Feeling Queer Jurisprudence: Injury, Intimacy, Identity (Routledge, 2020), which explored the ways emotions shape legal judgments that enable progress for LGBT people. He is also the co-editor of The Queer Outside in Law: Recognising LGBTIQ People in the United Kingdom(Palgrave, 2020) and Queer Judgments (Counterpress, 2024). 

Sen’s interdisciplinary academic background is situated in cultural studies and law. He graduated from the University of Sydney with a BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), and PhD (Law). His Honours thesis examining sexual orientation asylum claims in Australia was awarded the Australian Lesbian & Gay Archives Thesis Prize and the University of Sydney Medal. He has completed a PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

Prior to taking up a readership at Manchester Law School, Sen was based at Keele Law School (2017-2021) and Sydney Law School (2013-2016). He was a former Scholar in Residence at New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (2015-2016) and Churchill Fellow (2012-2013).

Sen has previously worked in government relations and law reform as the Senior Policy Advisor for the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby in Australia. He is the former chair of Amnesty International UK.

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Interests and expertise

LGBTIQ+ Rights

Law and Culture

Law and Emotion

Human Rights Law

Critical Legal Theory

Get in touch

0161 247 3407
SB 6.23 Business School

Projects

The Queer Judgments Project (QJP) is an initiative that evolved from disparate conversations between the current co-curators (Professor Nuno Ferreira, Dr Maria Moscati, and Dr Sen Raj) about how legal judgments related to sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) could have been written in more appropriate terms in light of the legal framework at the time. We wanted to cultivate a project that brought together friends, colleagues, and activists who were interested in improving and challenging the law and its application to make life better for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and other (LGBTIQ+) people and communities. 

The main aim of the project is to re-imagine, re-write and re-invent, from queer and other complementing perspectives, judgments that have considered SOGIESC issues. The project has an international reach and multi-disciplinary scope. Individual contributors are free to choose which judgment they want to focus on, featuring voices from across the globe. Similarly, the audience for the outputs of our project includes people outside of academia, especially marginalised communities, and young people.

Teaching

Criminal Law

Equalities Law

Critical Approaches to Law

Equality and Human Rights

International Human Rights Law

Courses

LLB (Hons)

Undergraduate

LLM (Master of Laws)

Postgraduate

Supervision

Samantha Morgan, The Spatial and Affective Dimensions of Litigating LGBTQI Rights: A Caribbean Case Study (Co-supervised with Dr Kay Lalor) (In Progress)

Catherine Jaquiss, Layers of Space and Affect Enmeshed: Obliterating Queer Stereotypes (Co-supervised with Dr Kay Lalor) (In Progress)

Darryl Peers, Queer Form: A Creative-Critical Methodology for Contemporary Scottish Fiction (Co-supervised in Creative Writing with Andrew McMillan and Dr Honor Gavin) (In Progress)

Research outputs

The Queer Outside in Law

Press and media

Essays

  • Raj, S. ‘Grindring for Justice’. Right Now. Released March 2016.
  • Raj, S. ‘Standing up to homophobia’. Sydney’s Child. Released August 2011.

Columns

  • Raj, S.  ‘Gender(ed) gaps and our biases of knowledge’ Right Now. Released 16th November 2015.
  • Raj, S.  ‘Fighting Freedoms’. Right Now. Released 6th July 2015.
  • Raj, S.  ‘Bleeding Hearts’. Right Now. Released 4th May 2015.
  • Raj, S.  ‘A right to kill?’. Right Now. Released 3rd March 2015.
  • Raj, S.  ‘Feeling terror’. Right Now. Released 30th January 2015.

Opinion

  • Raj, S. ‘Stonewall riots: global legacy shows there’s no simple story of progress for gay rights’. The Conversation. Released 28h June 2019.
  • Raj, S. ‘How Indian judges wrote love into law as they decriminalised gay sex’. The Conversation. Released 10th September 2018.
  • Raj, S and A Sharpe. ‘Using AI to determine queer sexuality is misconceived and dangerous’. The Conversation. Released 15th September 2017.
  • Raj, S. ‘On sexuality, the law still caters to norms of public disgust’. The Conversation. Released 25th July 2017.
  • Raj, S. ‘Why gender theory deserves a place on the school curriculum’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Released 13th September 2016.
  • Raj, S. ‘Come out to immigration officials or be deported? Gay asylum seekers will suffer under Morrison’s new regime’. The Guardian. Released 26th September 2014.
  • Raj, S.  ‘Students expelled for being gay? It’s not OK’. The Guardian. Released 11th November 2013.
  • Raj, S.  ‘“Gay panic”: no longer a licence to kill’. The Guardian. Released 31st October 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘Australia needs a dynamic response to the rise in HIV cases’. The Guardian. Released 21st October 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘Is the death sentence right for the Delhi rapists?’. Daily Life. Released 18th September 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘Australia’s debate on equal marriage remains stuck in rehearsal mode’. The Guardian. Released 12th August 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘How Grindr has transformed users’ experience of intimacy’. The Guardian. Released 2nd August 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘Religion and sexuality shouldn’t compete against each other’. The Guardian. Released 20th June 2013.
  • Raj, S. ‘Birth certificates fail to tell the whole story’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Released 19th August 2011.
  • Raj, S. ‘Are you gay enough to be a refugee?’. New Matilda. Released 9th June 2011.
  • Raj, S. ‘Mateship lost for gays in the military’. The Age. Released 14th April 2011.
  • Raj, S. ‘More to Mardi Gras than glitter and theatrics’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Released 4th March 2011.
  • Raj, S. ‘Activism and the gay community: What Uganda can teach us’. The Age. Released 31st January 2011.
  • Raj, S. ‘Students should not be afraid to be out and proud’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Released 26th October 2010.
  • Raj, S. ‘Could this be the year of the modern family?’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Released 14th September 2010.

TV and Radio

  • ‘Queer Histories’, Free Thinking, BBC Radio 3, 13th February 2020.
  • ‘Free Speech Debate’, Channel 4 News, Channel 4, 2nd February 2019.
  • ‘Swipe Right’, Hack Live, ABC Television, 1st December 2016.
  • ‘Gay Enough?’, Radio With Pictures, Sydney Opera House, 6th October 2013.
  • ‘Queer Hopes: Intimacy and Social Change’, Sydney Festival – Hope 2012, ABC Radio National, 9th January 2012.
  • ‘Sex, Technology and Cyberspace’, Compass, ABC Television, screened 5th September 2010.