LGBTQIA+2S Movements & the Law

Next week, our guest Chase Strangio will make history as the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. Strangio will argue on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project that Tennessee’s state ban on gender-affirming hormone therapies for transgender children is a form of sex discrimination. “Our hope is that the cultural anxiety about trans people … is not going to sway the justices from applying straightforward constitutional principles,” says Strangio about the case. We also discuss recent cultural backlash against trans rights as part of an “approach to gender that is regressive and dangerous.” The Democratic Party has been unwilling to provide a robust defense to conservative attacks on trans identity, says Strangio, ceding ground to the further loss of the community’s civil rights and protections. Yet even as trans people are “demonized” and blamed for structural problems in the U.S., he adds, “We have always resisted. We have always taken care of each other. No matter what happens, that is what we’ll do.”

This report describes experiences of violence, poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, school connectedness, and unstable housing among high school students who identify as transgender.

The Supreme Court’s December argument session will feature the challenge to Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors, as well as a case by survivors of the Hungarian Holocaust seeking compensation for the seizure of the property by the Hungarian government and a

The ACLU’s Chase Strangio is representing a group of trans people opposing Tennessee’s Republican-backed law banning gender-affirming medical care for trans minors.

"A stirring, comprehensive look at the state of women in the workforce--why women's progress has stalled, how our economy fosters unproductive competition, and how we can fix the system that holds women back. In an era of supposed great equality, women are still falling behind in the workplace. Even with more women in the workforce than in decades past, wage gaps continue to increase. It is the most educated women who have fallen the furthest behind. Blue-collar women hold the most insecure and badly paid jobs in our economy. And even as we celebrate high-profile representation--women on the board of Fortune 500 companies and our first female vice president--women have limited recourse when they experience harassment and discrimination. Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy explains that the system that governs our economy-a winner-take-all economy-is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop "the triple bind": if women don't compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, they're punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they can't win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven't been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, it's no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead. Fair Shake is not a "fix the woman" book; it's a "fix the system" book. It not only diagnoses the problem of what's wrong with the modern economy, but shows how, with awareness and collective action, we can build a truly just economy for all"--

Women lawyers still lag behind their male counterparts in leadership positions, according to Law360 Pulse's 2024 Women in Law Report.

Arizona can't refuse to amend the sex on someone's birth certificate just because the person seeking the change has not submitted to transgender surgery, a federal judge has ruled.

The 17-year-old was having a meal on the floor when she was attacked with a butcher knife Sunday. Officials say they aren't yet ruling out hate crime charges.

The billionaire tech mogul "vowed to destroy the woke mind virus" and said people who promote gender-affirming care "should go to prison."

Representation of the LGBTQ+ lawyers in the legal profession is growing, especially as younger generations move into the workplace.

Worldwide Pride Month events are underway but they are coming at a time when many people who identify as LGBTQ+ say they are facing increasing difficulties at work, ranging from being repeatedly misgendered to physically assaulted.

In commemoration of Pride Month, the Lillian Goldman Law Library invites you to view “Out in Print: Early LGBT Legal Periodical Literature,” a new

"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"--

"AI Comes Out of the Closet" is a new system that leverages AI-generated dialog and virtual characters to create complex social interaction simulations involving LGBTQIA+ individuals. The project is led by MIT Media Lab researchers and graduate students D. Pillis and Pat Pataranutaporn.

Man convicted of killing Black transgender woman in the nation's first gender identity-based hate crime trial.

An investigation into the cause of death of student Nex Benedict following a fight at an Oklahoma high school is ongoing, police say

A teenage girl in Utah has had to seek police protection after a member of the Utah State Board of Education suggested that she could be transgender (she is not), a reality that is the product of growing trans panic in this country, particularly when it comes to girls’ and women’s sports teams, writes Frankie de la Cretaz.

"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"--

All The Only Ones is a new 3-part series from NPR's Embedded. Host Laine Kaplan-Levenson unearths the little known and often neglected history of trans youth in America. We follow the lives of young transgender people today and travel back in time to the turn of the 20th century to meet some of the earliest trans youth documented in American history. Launching on November 2.

The last decade has seen significant changes in global attitudes, policies and practices that impact the lives of trans people, but the world of sport has been slow to follow these initiatives. Contributors to this book document the formidable social-cultural and legal challenges facing trans athletes, particularly girls and women, at the global, national, and local levels, in contexts ranging from school sport to international competition. They demonstrate how proponents of trans exclusion rely on flawed or inconclusive science, selectively employed to support their purported goal of 'protecting women's sport'. Politicians in the US, UK, and elsewhere who have shown little interest in women or in sport exploit the issue to advance broader conservative agendas, while hostile mainstream and social media coverage exacerbates the problem. Bringing insights from sociology, philosophy, science and law, contributors present cogent analyses of these developments and explore the way forward, providing thoughtful and original recommendations for changes to policies and practices that are inclusive, innovative and democratic. --

"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"--

"Authored by a seasoned diversity educator, Trans Children in Today's Schools provides a pragmatic and thorough approach to creating inclusive, safe, and flexible environments for gender-diverse young people. The primary audience for this text is parents and K-12 educators, as well as the extended support network in a child's life. This book goes well beyond the what and why of gender diversity and answers the questions of how - how do we create inclusive environments for all children, how do we continue to educate ourselves, and how do we successfully navigate controversy and confusion so that we may best support children in today's schools? This text addresses pertinent issues of privacy and visibility and outlines best practices for teaching gender diversity in the classroom. This title contains standalone content that will guide parents and educators on their journey, including steps for creating a student support plan"--

"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"--

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled for a transgender college student who challenged an Idaho law that bars transgender athletes from participating in women’s and girls' student sports in public schools.

"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"--

Alicia Roth Weigel is one of three activists profiled in Julie Cohen's new documentary, Every Body. She says intersex is an umbrella term for people whose "anatomy doesn't fit super neatly into a binary box."

Aidan Key explains why U.S. schools are seeing an increase in transgender students and how educators can respond to anti-LGBTQ curriculum measures. His book is Trans Children in Today's Schools.TV critic David Bianculli shares his concern about the future of Turner Classic Movies.