Book Selections

"Today, about one-half of all adults are unmarried. Many of them are in other kinds of significant relationships, yet the law offers them few protections. Although a few states have created nonmarital relationship statuses, they fall far short of the kind of comprehensive structures needed to recognize and protect. John Culhane offers a comprehensive approach to satisfying the needs of this vast population of unmarried adults. Using a narrative approach that resulted from in-depth interviews, he gives voice to the many couples inadequately served by existing law. Their stories provide living evidence of the need for the law to extend its reach to those who are inadequately protected-or not protected at all"--

"Across protests and courtrooms, LGBTQ activists argue that true sex or sexuality is encoded deep down, that it circulates in blood and is an expression of brain shapes and genetic codes. Their opponents incite panic over luring child groomers and a contagious "gender ideology" which corrupts the brains-and then bodies-of susceptible teenagers. In Born This Way: Science, Citizenship, and Inequality in the American LGBTQ Movement, Joanna Wuest tells the history of the LGBTQ rights movement, the modern scientific study of gender and sexuality, and the identity politics that formed at the nexus. She too reveals how conservative leaders have undermined science's ability to assist equal rights campaigns, reproductive rights, and climate change policies alike. Born This Way is at once a celebratory and cautionary tale, one which delineates a minority rights movement's impressive victories, its powerful and persuasive allies, and the ongoing assault on equality and science alike"--

"Gay Fathers, Twin Sons follows the story of Andrew from the United States and Elad from Israel, who married in Canada where same-sex marriage was permitted, and details their struggle to then immigrate back to the United States with their biological twin sons"--

"Even before the former administration upended the asylum process in the US, it was an exacting and drawn-out process that turned away many people. Overloaded courts, constantly changing dates and appointments, and the need to prove oneself the "right" kind of asylum seeker were harrowing enough before adding the language barrier that many faced. Rhoda Kanaaneh became a volunteer translator for Arab plaintiffs and soon began to learn the ins and outs of the system by hearing the lawyers of those who were lucky enough to have them explain how the process worked to their clients. In this book, she follows the cases of four Arabs who sought asylum on the grounds of their gender or sexuality and how they had to demonstrate "the right kind of suffering" for the courts. Suad had to make sense of her confused memories in order to present an ordered story of her forced circumcision and police harassment in Sudan. Fatima had to visit doctors and therapists to document decades of abuse at the hands of her husband, while downplaying the resultant mental illness she suffered. Fadi had to look "gay enough" to qualify for asylum even after documenting his arrest and torture in Jordan because of his homosexuality. Marwa had to downplay her environmental activism while explaining her hardship as a lesbian in a Shiite family in Lebanon. All four of these asylum seekers were ultimately successful after many years, thanks to the help of pro-bono lawyers who taught them how to navigate the system and highlight certain aspects of their lives while hiding others in order to strike the right note for the courts. Kanaaneh uses their stories to open the door to the painful process of asylum, where more fail than succeed. She also describes the unique challenges Arab asylum seekers faced in the post-9/11 United States and what their travails revealed about the country in which they wanted to find refuge"--

"LGBTQ Politics in Nicaragua provides the previously untold history of the LGBTQ community's emergence as political actors-from revolutionary guerillas to civil rights activists"--

"Justice After Stonewall is an interdisciplinary analysis of challenges and progress experienced by the LGBT community since the Stonewall riots in 1969. The riots (sparked by a police raid in New York City) are a milestone in LGBT history. Within a short time, a new feeling of confidence emerged, manifested in new LGBT organisations and the first Pride marches. Legal and social change followed: from the decriminalisation of homosexual activities to anti-discrimination laws and the legalisation of same-sex marriage. This makes it tempting to think of modern LGBT history as an unequivocal success story. But progress was not achieved everywhere: in seventy States, same-sex relations are still criminalised; violence against LGBT persons still occurs, and transgender people still struggle to have their rights recognised. The question whether the path since Stonewall represents success or failure, cannot be answered by one discipline alone. This book breaks new ground by bringing together experts from politics, sociology, law, education, language, medicine and religion to discuss fields as diverse as same-sex marriage, transgender students, the LGBT movement in Uganda and LGBT migrants in the Arab peninsula, conversion 'therapy' and approaches to LGBT matters in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What emerges, is a rich tapestry of LGBT life today and its consideration from numerous perspectives. Based on thorough research, this book is an ideal text for students and scholars exploring LGBT matters. At the same time, its engaging style makes it a particularly valuable resource for anyone with an interest in LGBT matters and their reception in today's world"--

"The legacy of a long-standing cultural war against LGBT people, as well as rampant discrimination, is reflected in many areas. As LGBT policies evolve and take shape, and new voices of the movement emerge, these issues can be shown to pervade a number of policy areas including mental and physical healthcare, race, poverty and homelessness, religion, immigration, senior issues, the role of family in the LGBT community, bisexuality and transgender issues, the connection between economics and homicides/hate crimes, education, business, and work force diversity. A collection of fascinating contemporary perspectives, this book explores the breadth and depth of the many 'divides' -- socioeconomic, race, age, healthcare, immigration, education, and income -- including those that intersect within the LGBT community. For any reader who really wants to know about the current future development of the LGBT community, this is an invaluable book"--

An in-depth examination of the relationship between gay rights, public opinion, and legislation since the late 1800s. In this comprehensive overview of how the American legal system has approached issues pertaining to sexual orientation and how the law has advanced_or hindered_civil rights, author Lee Walzer reveals that while the United States has the world's most developed lesbian and gay community, it lags other countries on equality for sexual minorities. Gay Rights on Trial focuses on four significant cases that have shaped the development of gay rights, including detailed discussion of majority and dissenting decisions and analysis of their legacy and impact. Also included are a chronology; a section of key people, laws, and concepts; a table of cases; key legal documents such as the Defense of Marriage Act and the Vermont Civil Union Act; and an annotated bibliography. Introductory essay covers issues from the changing notions of morality and the law to the various sides in gay rights disputes Contains edited excerpts of key legal documents such as Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws prohibiting homosexual conduct

"In Before Lawrence, Wesley Phelps recounts the legal challenges to discriminatory Texas sodomy laws before the major breakthrough in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas. While most scholars and activists recognize the Lawrence decision to be the foundation for all subsequent gains for gay and lesbian equality in the twenty-first century, Phelps argues that the earlier legal challenges laid the necessary groundwork for the modern movement for queer civil rights. By probing the fascinating human stories behind these cases, this book offers a rare glimpse into an important component in the movement for gay and lesbian equality and constitutional reform in the United States. The main contribution of the book is to challenge the widely held assumption that the Lawrence v. Texas decision came out of nowhere in 2003. In reality, over several decades grassroots activists had been busy building the organizational groundwork and legal strategies necessary for this final victory over archaic sodomy laws in the United States. In the process, these activists played significant roles in creating and shaping our modern gay and lesbian rights movement"--

Cruising the Library offers a highly innovative analysis of the history of sexuality and categories of sexual perversion through a critical examination of the Library of Congress and its cataloging practices. Taking the publication of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemologies of the Closet as emblematic of the Library's inability to account for sexual difference, Melissa Adler embarks upon a detailed critique of how cataloging systems have delimited and proscribed expressions of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and race in a manner that mirrors psychiatric and sociological attempts to pathologize non-normative sexual practices and civil subjects. Taking up a parallel analysis, Adler utilizes Roderick A. Ferguson's Aberrations in Black as another example of how the Library of Congress fails to account for, and thereby "buries," difference. She examines the physical space of the Library as one that encourages forms of governmentality as theorized by Michel Foucault while also allowing for its utopian possibilities. Finally, she offers a brief but highly illuminating history of the Delta Collection. Likely established before the turn of the twentieth century and active until its gradual dissolution in the 1960s, the Delta Collection was a secret archive within the Library of Congress that housed materials confiscated by the United States Post Office and other federal agencies. These were materials deemed too obscene for public dissemination or general access. Adler reveals how the Delta Collection was used to regulate difference and squelch dissent in the McCarthy era while also linking it to evolving understandings of so-called perversion in the scientific study of sexual difference. Sophisticated, engrossing, and highly readable, Cruising the Library provides us with a critical understanding of library science, an alternative view of discourses around the history of sexuality, and an analysis of the relationship between governmentality and the cataloging of research and information--as well as categories of difference--in American culture.

"Fifteen currently serving or retired LGBTQ presidents and chancellors in higher education consider whether there is something distinctive about LGBTQ leadership and attempt to draw insights and principles from their specific lived experiences. In essays across 12 topics, the authors address why LGBTQ leadership matters at this moment and, more broadly, why diversity, inclusion, and equity in leadership is important to meet today's challenges for higher education and human rights"--

Sexual citizenship is a powerful concept associated with debates about recognition and exclusion, agency, respect and accountability. For young people in general and for gender and sexually diverse youth in particular, these debates are entangled with broader imaginings of social transitions: from ���child��� to ���adult��� and from ���unreasonable subject��� to one ���who can consent���. This international and interdisciplinary collection identifies and locates struggles for recognition and inclusion in particular contexts and at particular moments in time, recognising that sexual and gender diverse young people are neither entirely vulnerable nor self-reliant. Focussing on the numerous domains in which debates about youth, sexuality and citizenship are enacted and contested, Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship explores young people���s experiences in diverse but linked settings: in the family, at school and in college, in employment, in social media and through engagement with health services. Bookended by reflections from Jeffrey Weeks and Susan Talburt, the book���s empirically grounded chapters also engage with the key debates outlined in its scholarly introduction. This innovative book is of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality, health and sex education, and youth studies, from a range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, including sociology, education, nursing, social work and youth work. Sexual citizenship is a powerful concept associated with debates about recognition and exclusion, agency, respect and accountability. For young people in general and for gender and sexually diverse youth in particular, these debates are entangled with broader imaginings of social transitions: from ���child��� to ���adult���and from ���unreasonable subject��� to one ���who can consent���. This international and interdisciplinary collection identifies and locates struggles for recognition and inclusion in particular contexts and at particular moments in time, recognising that sexual and gender diverse young people are neither entirely vulnerable nor self-reliant. Focusing on the numerous domains in which debates about youth, sexuality and citizenship are enacted and contested, Youth, Sexuality and Sexual Citizenship explores young people���s experiences in diverse but linked settings: in the family, at school and in college, in employment, in social media and through engagement with health services. Bookended by reflections from Jeffrey Weeks and and Susan Talburt, the book���s empirically grounded chapters also engage with the key debates outlined in it's scholarly introduction. This innovative book is of interest to students and scholars of gender and sexuality, health and sex education, and youth studies, from a range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds, including sociology, education, nursing, social work and youth work.

"A Queer History of the United States is groundbreaking and accessible. It looks at how American culture has shaped the LGBT, or queer, experience, while simultaneously arguing that LGBT people not only shaped but were pivotal in creating our country. Using numerous primary documents and literature, as well as social histories, Bronski's book takes the reader through the centuries--from Columbus' arrival and the brutal treatment the Native peoples received, through the American Revolution's radical challenging of sex and gender roles--to the violent, and liberating, 19th century--and the transformative social justice movements of the 20th. Bronski's book is filled with startling examples of often ignored or unknown aspects of American history: the ineffectiveness of sodomy laws in the colonies, the prevalence of cross-dressing women soldiers in the Civil War, the effect of new technologies on LGBT life in the 19th century, and how rock music and popular culture were, in large part, responsible for the great backlash against gay rights in the late 1970s. More than anything, A Queer History of the United States is not so much about queer history as it is about all American history--and why it should matter to both LGBT people and heterosexuals alike"--Provided by publisher.

Can a baker refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple? Despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage equality in 2015, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) citizens in the United States continue to be discriminated against in fundamental areas that others take for granted as a legal right. Using social equity theory and intersectionality but written in an accessible style, this book demonstrates some of the ways in which LGBTQ citizens have been marginalized for their identity and argues that the field of public administration has a unique responsibility to prioritize social equity. Categories utilized by the U.S. Census Bureau (male or female, heterosexual or homosexual), for example, must shift to a continuum to accurately capture demographic characteristics and citizen behavior. Evidenced-based outcomes and disparities between cisgender and heterosexual and LGBTQ populations are carefully delineated to provide a legal rationale for a compelling governmental interest, and policy recommendations are provided – including overdue federal legislation to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

A three-volume survey of more than 400 years of lesbian and gay history and culture in the United States, presented through over 500 alphabetically arranged entries. Coverage includes people, public policy, economics, social issues, identities, and culture, among many others. For students, researchers, and general readers.

"LGBT people pervasively experience health disparities, affecting every part of their bodies and lives. Yet many are still grappling to understand the mutually reinforcing health care challenges that lead LGBT people to experience worsened health outcomes. Bodies and Barriers informs health care professionals, students in health professions, policymakers, and fellow activists about these challenges, providing insights and a road map for action that could improve queer health. Through artfully articulated, data-informed essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging queer activists-including Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody, and more-Bodies and Barriers illuminates the ubiquitous health challenges LGBT people experience throughout their lives. The book challenges conventional wisdom about health care delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the health disparities and worsened health outcomes that t he LGBT community face and empowers activists with crucial information to fight for health equity through clinical, behavioral, and policy changes. The activist contributors in Bodies and Barriers look for tangible improvements-their stories are lessons learned for caring health care professionals, sympathetic policymakers, and motivated activists-drawing lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in America and from struggles against health care bias and discrimination. At a galvanizing moment when LGBT people have experienced great strides in lived equality, but our health as a community still lags, here is an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBT movement today. LGBT people pervasively experience health disparities, affecting every part of their bodies and lives. Yet many are still grappling to understand the mutually reinforcing health care challenges that lead LGBT people to experience worsened health outcomes. Bodie s and Barriers informs health care professionals, students in health professions, policymakers, and fellow activists about these challenges, providing insights and a road map for action that could improve queer health. Through artfully articulated, data-informed essays by twenty-six well-known and emerging queer activists-including Alisa Bowman, Jack Harrison-Quintana, Liz Margolies, Robyn Ochs, Sean Strub, Justin Tanis, Ryan Thoreson, Imani Woody, and more-Bodies and Barriers illuminates the ubiquitous health challenges LGBT people experience throughout their lives. The book challenges conventional wisdom about health care delivery. It probes deeply into the roots of the health disparities and worsened health outcomes that the LGBT community face and empowers activists with crucial information to fight for health equity through clinical, behavioral, and policy changes. The activist contributors in Bodies and Barriers look for tangible improvements-their stories are lessons learned for ^caring health care professionals, sympathetic policymakers, and motivated activists-drawing lessons from the history of HIV/AIDS in America and from struggles against health care bias and discrimination. At a galvanizing moment when LGBT people have experienced great strides in lived equality, but our health as a community still lags, here is an indispensable blueprint for change by some of the most passionate and important health activists in the LGBT movement today"--

"A renowned legal scholar tells the definitive story of Hollingsworth v. Perry, the trial that will stand as the most potent argument for marriage equality. In 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8, rescinding the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state. Advocates for marriage equality were outraged. Still, major gay-rights groups opposed a federal challenge to the law, warning that it would be dangerously premature. A loss could set the movement back for decades. A small group of activists, however, refused to wait. They turned to corporate lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies--best known for arguing opposite sides of Bush v. Gore--who filed a groundbreaking federal suit against the law. A distinguished constitutional law scholar, Kenji Yoshino was also a newly married gay man who at first felt ambivalent about the suit. Nonetheless, he recognized that Chief Judge Vaughn Walker's decision to hold a trial in the case was momentous. Boies and Olson rose to the occasion, deftly deploying arguments that LGBT advocates had honed through years of litigation and debate. Reading the 3,000-page transcript, Yoshino discovered a shining civil rights document--the most rigorous and compelling exploration he had seen of the nature of marriage, the political status of gays and lesbians, the ideal circumstances for raising children, and the inability of direct democracy to protect fundamental rights. After that tense twelve-day trial, Walker issued a resounding and historic ruling: California's exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriage violated the U.S. Constitution. In June 2013, the United States Supreme Court denied the final appeal in Hollingsworth v. Perry, leaving same-sex couples in California free to marry. Drawing on interviews with lawyers and witnesses on both sides of the case, Yoshino takes us deep inside the trial. He brings the legal arguments to life, not only through his account of the case, but also by sharing his own story of finding love, marrying, and having children. Vivid, compassionate, and beautifully written, Speak Now is both a nuanced and authoritative account of a landmark trial, and a testament to how the clash of proofs in our judicial process can force debates to the ultimate level of clarity"--

"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle," Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed--moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.

"Victory may sometimes look like a sudden revolution when, in truth, it rests on years of struggle. The June 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is a sweeping victory for the freedom to marry, but it was one step in a long process. Love Unites Us is the history of activists' passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle. Launching the fight for the freedom to marry was neither an obvious nor an uncontested strategy. To many activists, achieving marriage equality seemed far-fetched, but the skeptics were proved wrong. Proactive arguments in favor of love, family, and commitment were more effective than arguments that focused on rights and the goal of equality at work. Telling the stories of people who loved and cared for one another, in sickness and in health, cut through the antigay noise and moved people-not without backlash and not overnight, but faster than most activists and observers had ever imagined. With compelling stories from leading attorneys and activists including Evan Wolfson, Mary L. Bonauto, Jon W. Davidson, and Paul M. Smith, Love Unites Us explains how gay and lesbian couples achieved the right to marry"--

"On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, in a 6 to 3 decision with a majority opinion authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. The decision was a surprise to many, if not most, observers, but as Jason Pierceson explores in this work, it was not completely unanticipated. The decision was grounded in a recent, but well-developed, shift in federal jurisprudence on the question of LGBTQ rights that occurred around 2000, with gender identity claims faring better in federal court after decades of skepticism. The most important precedent for these cases was a 1989 Supreme Court case that did not deal directly with LGBTQ rights: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. The Court ruled in Price Waterhouse that "sex stereotyping" is a form of discrimination under Title VII, a provision that prohibits discrimination in employment based upon sex. Anne Hopkins was a cisgender, heterosexual woman who was denied a promotion at her accounting firm for being too "masculine." At the time of the decision, and in the wake of the devastating decision for the LGBTQ movement in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the case was not viewed as creating a strong precedential foundation for LGBTQ rights claims, especially claims based upon sexual orientation. Even in the context of gender identity, the connection was not made to the emerging movement for transgender rights until a decade later. In the 2000s, however, federal courts were consistently applying the case to protect transgender individuals. While not the result of coordinated litigation, nor initially connected to the LGBTQ rights movement, Price Waterhouse has been one of the most important and powerful precedents in recent years, outside of the marriage equality cases. This book tells the story of how this "accidental" precedent evolved into such a crucial case for contemporary LGBTQ rights"--

The right of same-sex couples to marry provoked decades of intense conflict before it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015. Yet some of the most divisive contests shaping the quest for marriage equality occurred not on the culture-war front lines but within the ranks of LGBTQ advocates. Nathaniel Frank tells the dramatic story of how an idea that once seemed unfathomable--and for many gays and lesbians undesirable--became a legal and moral right in just half a century. Awakening begins in the 1950s, when millions of gays and lesbians were afraid to come out, let alone fight for equal treatment. Across the social upheavals of the next two decades, a gay rights movement emerged with the rising awareness that same-sex love is equal to love everywhere. As movement leaders and ordinary gay people created new communities, alliances, and ideas, a tight-knit cadre of (mostly) gay and lesbian lawyers began to focus on legal recognition for same-sex couples, eventually creating a long-term strategy to win marriage rights in the courts. But first they had to win over members of their own LGBTQ community who declined to make marriage a priority, while reining in others who charged ahead heedless of their carefully laid plans, and often at odds with them. All the while, they had to fight against virulent antigay opponents and capture the American center by spreading the simple message that love is love--ultimately propelling the LGBTQ community, and America, immeasurably closer to justice.--

Out and About: The LGBT Experience In the Legal Profession is intended to address the experiences of LGBT attorneys, academics, and jurists in the legal profession. Through their own words, our authors help educate and promote justice in and through the legal profession for the LGBT community in all its diversity. This book also celebrates LGBT members of the bar by recognizing this diverse group, their contributions, and their struggles. Being an individual, doing your own thing no matter what everyone else is doing, is the heart of the essays that comprise this book. The writers share their experience of at once blending in and yet feeling different, vulnerable, and exposed. They speak of the ever-present potential to be treated differently simply because of who they are, giving these essays deeper meaning. Some of these authors endured secret pain, suffering in private, hiding personal lives from colleagues. Others barely soldiered through, endeavoring just to make the lives of their clients better. And some openly achieved great success, personally, professionally, or both. Each and every one merits attention. Each chapter of this book informs and inspires readers to broaden horizons, opening minds to the vast diversity of LGBT individuals. The book aims to improve the legal profession and the justice system itself by demonstrating the vast potential within all of us. There always have been people who "dance to the beat of a different drummer." The contributors to this collection of essays hope you dance to whatever music suits you! Book jacket.

Throughout U.S. history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of lynching, burning, or murdering of LGBTQ people has been documented for centuries Prior to the 1970s, LGBTQ people were deemed as having psychological disorders and subsequently subject to electroshock therapy and other ineffective and cruel treatments. LGBTQ people have historically been arrested or imprisoned for crimes like sodomy, cross-dressing, and gathering in public spaces. And while there have been many strides to advocate for LGBTQ rights in contemporary times, there are still many ways that the criminal justice system works against LGBTQ and their lives, liberties, and freedoms. Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and Fight for Justice examines the state of LGBTQ people within the criminal justice system. Intertwining legal cases, academic research, and popular media, the author reviews a wide range of issues - ranging from historical heterosexist and transphobic legislation to police brutality to the prison industrial complex to family law. Grounded in Queer Theory and intersectional lenses, each chapter provides recommendations for queering and disrupting the justice system. The book serves as both an academic resource and a call to action for readers who are interested in advocating for LGBTQ rights.

"This book braves a juxtaposition that might at first raise some eyebrows. Sorting Sexualities examines the legal management of sex offenders in sexually violent predator (SVP) trials alongside that of LGBTQ people seeking asylum from persecution in their home countries. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed-one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one-they present a similar and telling conundrum: how do we know someone's sexuality? In both cases, state institutions are tasked with determining subjects' "true" sexualities, measuring the degree and type of "underlying deviance," and sorting the queer from the fraudulent. Stefan Vogler examines how and why the measurement and classification techniques that have emerged as a guide have come to diverge so dramatically. By delving into the histories behind these classification practices and analyzing their impact, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize. Through legal analysis, interviews, and multi-sited ethnography, he examines how the state enrolls non-state experts-typically anthropologists, sociologists, and lawyers in asylum pleas, and psychiatrists and forensic psychologists in SVP trials-to help craft classificatory schemas that render sexual "others" legible to and thus manageable by the state. These classifications have led to the extension of rights for LGBTQ people, on the one hand, and the escalation of punishment for sex criminals, on the other"--

Rewriting the Supreme Court's landmark gay rights decision. Jack Balkin and an all-star cast of legal scholars, sitting as a hypothetical Supreme Court, rewrite the famous 2015 opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. In eleven incisive opinions, the authors offer the best constitutional arguments for and against the right to same-sex marriage, and debate what Obergefell should mean for the future. In addition to serving as Chief Justice of this imaginary court, Balkin provides a critical introduction to the case. He recounts the story of the gay rights litigation that led to Obergefell, and he explains how courts respond to political mobilizations for new rights claims. The social movement for gay rights and marriage equality is a powerful example of how-through legal imagination and political struggle-arguments once dismissed as "off-the-wall" can later become established in American constitutional law.

The decision to have a child is seldom a simple one, often fraught with complexities regarding emotional readiness, finances, marital status, and compatibility with life and career goals. Rarely, though, do individuals consider the role of the law in facilitating or inhibiting their ability to have a child or to parent. For LGBT individuals, however, parenting is saturated with legality - including the initial decision of whether to have a child, how to have a child, whether one's relationship with their child will be recognized, and everyday acts of parenting like completing forms or picking up children from school. Through in-depth interviews with 137 LGBT parents, Amanda K. Baumle and D'Lane R. Compton examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents and how individuals use the law when making decisions about family formation or parenting. Baumle and Compton explore the ways in which LGBT parents participate in the process of constructing legality through accepting, modifying, or rejecting legal meanings about their families. Few groups encounter as much variation in access to everyday legal rights pertaining to the family as do LGBT parents. This complexity and variation in legal environments provides a rather unique opportunity to examine the manner in which legal context affects the ways in which individuals come to understand the meaning and utility of the law for their lives. The authors conclude that legality is constructed through a complex interplay of legal context, social networks, individual characteristics, and familial desires. Ultimately, the stories of LGBT parents in this book reflect a rich and varied relationship between the law, the state, and the private family goals of individuals.

Should religious people who conscientiously object to facilitating same-sex weddings, and who therefore decline to provide cakes, photography, or other services, be exempted from antidiscrimination laws? This issue has taken on an importance far beyond the tiny number who have made such claims. Gay rights advocates fear that exempting even a few religious dissenters would unleash a devastating wave of discrimination. Conservative Christians fear that the law will treat them like racists and drive them to the margins of American society. Both sides are mistaken. This is not a matter of abstract principle, and none of the constitutional claims work. This is an appropriate occasion for legislative negotiation. This book is a systematic accounting of the interests that must be balanced in any decent compromise, in terms that both sides can recognise and appreciate.

The landmark Supreme Court decision in June 2015 legalizing the right to same-sex marriage marked a major victory in gay and lesbian rights in the United States. Once subject to a patchwork of laws granting legal status to same-sex couples in some states and not others, gay and lesbian Americans now enjoy full legal status for their marriages wherever they travel or reside in the country. For many, this means that gay and lesbian citizens are one step closer to full equality with the rest of America. However, author Stephen M. Engel contends that there remains much to be done in shaping American institutions to recognize gays and lesbians as full citizens. Tracing the relationship between gay and lesbian individuals and the government from the late 19th century through the early 21st, Engel shows that LGBT Americans are more accurately described as fragmented citizens who still do not have full legal protections against workplace, housing, family, and other kinds of discrimination. There remains a continuing struggle of the state to control their sexuality. Further, he argues that it was the state's ability to identify and control gay and lesbian citizens that allowed it to develop strong administrative capacities to manage all of its citizens in matters of immigration, labor relations, and even national security. The struggle for gay and lesbian rights, then, affected not only the lives of those seeking equality but also the very nature of American governance itself. Fragmented Citizens is a sweeping historical and political account of how our present-day policy debates around citizenship and equality came to be.--Adapted from dust jacket.

"Conservative opponents of LGBT equality in the United States often couch their opposition in claims of free speech, free association, and religious liberty. It is no surprise, then, that many LGBT supporters equate First Amendment arguments with resistance to their cause. The First Amendment and LGBT Equality tells another story, about the First Amendment's crucial, yet largely forgotten, role in the first few decades of the gay rights movement. Between the 1950s and 1980s, when many courts were still openly hostile to sexual minorities, they nonetheless recognized the freedom of gay and lesbian people to express themselves and associate with one another. Successful First Amendment cases protected LGBT publications and organizations, protests and parades, and individuals' right to come out. The amendment was wielded by the other side only after it had laid the groundwork for major LGBT equality victories. Carlos A. Ball illuminates the full trajectory of this legal and cultural history. He argues that, in accommodating those who dissent from LGBT equality on grounds of conscience, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to depart from the established ways in which American antidiscrimination law has, for decades, accommodated equality dissenters. But he also argues that as progressives fight the First Amendment claims of religious conservatives and other LGBT opponents today, they should take care not to erode the very safeguards of liberty that allowed LGBT rights to exist in the first place"--

Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. In this thorough analysis, Leigh Moscowitz examines how prominent news outlets presented this issue from 2003 to 2012, a time when intense news coverage focused unprecedented attention on gay and lesbian life.