Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

Fear Of The Queer Marriage: The Nexus Of Transsexual Marriages And U.S. Immigration Law, Justin L. Haines

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Seeing Straight In The Workplace: An Examination Of Sexual Orientation Discrimination In Public Employment In The Aftermath Of Lawrence V. Texas, Devin A. Cohen

ExpressO

Title VII does not explicitly protect homosexual employees from sexual orientation discrimination and the courts have generally refused to bootstrap sexual orientation discrimination into Title VII as a form of gender discrimination. Therefore, homosexual employees have had to depend on their constitutional rights to protect them from their public employers’ sexual orientation discrimination. Traditionally, the courts have allowed public employers to discriminate against homosexual employees so long as the employers’ reasons were rationally related to legitimate business purposes.

I argue that the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Lawrence v. Texas forces future courts to question the reasonableness of employers’ rational bases. …

You Can't Take It With You: Constitutional Consequences Of Interstate Gender-Identity Rulings, Julie A. Greenberg, Marybeth Herald

Washington Law Review

Recent U.S. decisions establishing a person's legal sex have adopted a kaleidoscope of approaches that range from the procreative (a man must be able to fertilize ovum and beget offspring, while a woman must be able to produce ova and bear offspring), to the religious (gender is immutably fixed by our Creator at birth), to the scientific (gender itself is a fact that may be established by medical and other evidence). Under current laws and state court rulings, a male-to-female transsex person is legally a woman in approximately one-half of the states and legally a man in the other half. …

Taking The Stand: The Lessons Of The Three Men Who Took The Japanese American Internment To Court, Lorraine K. Bannai

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Transgender Theory: Reprogramming Our Automated Settings, Marybeth Herald

Marybeth Herald

Over the course of the last few decades, both law and society have struggled to deprogram unhelpful and downright destructive gender stereotypes that are ubiquitous in our everyday existence. It has not been an easy task, nor entirely successful on either the legal or cultural front. Laws that prohibit gender discrimination, such as Title VII, have helped end overt discrimination. The next phase involves the challenging problem of unconscious bias, which often effectively keeps us treading the same mental paths while bypassing any roads not traveled.

It is not surprising then that when the validity of even the basic categories …

The Custody Battle Over Cryogenically Preserved Embryos After Divorce: Advocating For Infertile Women’S Rights, Cori S. Annapolen

ExpressO

This paper focuses on the struggles that infertile women face to achieve motherhood because their rights are underrepresented in the American court system. It specifically centers on how the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF) helps infertile women conceive children, but then details the problems that increasing technology now causes for these women after they freeze embryos and then divorce. Because the courts of only four states have determined who gets custody of these embryos after a divorce, and because the divorce rate and the number of couples utilizing IVF are increasing, future states will likely be forced to answer …

Why Segregated Schools For Gay Students May Pass A "Separate But Equal" Analysis But Fail Other Issues And Concerns, Louis P. Nappen

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering Severe Or Pervasive: Aligning The Standard In Sexual Harassment And Racial Harassment Causes Of Action, Heather L. Kleinschmidt

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Federalism, The Commerce Clause, And The Constitutionality Of The Unborn Victims Of Violence Act Of 2004, Ryan R. Wilmering

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Men In The Place Of Women, From Butler To Little Sisters; Gay Male Pornography: An Issue Of Sex Discrimination, By Christopher N. Kendall, Leslie Green

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Recognition Of Same-Sex Relationships: Comparative Institutional Analysis, Contested Social Goals, And Strategic Institutional Choice, Nancy J. Knauer

ExpressO

The emerging field of comparative institutional analysis (CIA) has much to offer public policy analysts. However, the failure of CIA to address the dynamic process through which social goals are articulated limits the scope of its application to the largely prescriptive pronouncements of legal scholars. By examining the movement for equal recognition of same-sex relationships, this Essay builds on the basic observations of CIA and introduces a new dimension, namely the dynamic process through which social goals are articulated and social change is pursued. The acknowledgment that the production of social goals involves institutional behavior, as well as multiple sites …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Marriages In New York: The Langan And Hernandez Decisions, Ann Xin Zhu

Buffalo Women's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

When A Victim's A Victim: Making Reference To Victims And Sex-Crime Prosecution, Scott A. Mcdonald

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Best Little Whorehouse Is Not In Texas: How Nevada's Prostitution Laws Serve Public Policy, And How Those Laws May Be Improved, Daria Snadowsky

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

True Lies: The Constitutional And Evidentiary Bases For Admitting Prior False Accusation Evidence In Sexual Assault Prosecutions, Jules Epstein

ExpressO

The admission of false accusation evidence in sexual assault prosecutions has been ruled on inconsistently by courts nationally. This article identifies the constitutional bases for admitting false accusation evidence as both impeachment and substantive (non-character) proof, and re-focuses Confrontation Clause analysis post-Crawford on the scope of the cross-examination right; offers a definition for what constitutes a false accusation and the level of proof requisite to its admission; and addresses social and policy concerns attendant to its presentation.

Rhetorical Holy War: Polygamy, Homosexuality, And The Paradox Of Community And Autonomy, Gregory C. Pingree

ExpressO

The article explores the rhetorical strategies deployed in both legal and cultural narratives of Mormon polygamy in nineteenth-century America. It demonstrates how an understanding of that unique communal experience, and the narratives by which it was represented, informs the classic paradox of community and autonomy – the tension between the collective and the individual. The article concludes by using the Mormon polygamy analysis to illuminate a contemporary social situation that underscores the paradox of community and autonomy – homosexuality and the so-called culture wars over family values and the meaning of marriage.

Negotiating Sex, Michelle J. Anderson

Working Paper Series

“Negotiating Sex” is a response to the two major proposals for rape law reform in legal scholarship today, as well as a proposal for a third way. Susan Estrich and Donald Dripps argue that sexual penetration should be legal unless the victim expresses her non-consent, a proposal I call the “No Model.” Stephen Schulhofer argues that sexual penetration should be illegal unless the defendant obtains affirmative consent for penetration through the victim’s words or conduct, a proposal I call the “Yes Model.” Under this model, according to Schulhofer, if a woman does not say “no,” and “her silence is combined …

Word Games: Raising And Resolving The Shortcomings In Accident-Insurance Doctrine That Autoerotic-Asphyxiation Cases Reveal, Sam Erman

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that autoerotic asphyxiation deaths are accidents and not the results of intentionally self-inflicted injuries. Part I formally analyzes accident-insurance case law to show that current, viable approaches to accident insurance indicate that autoerotic asphyxiation deaths are accidental. Part II claims autoerotic asphyxiation deaths should not trigger intentionally self-inflicted injury exclusion clauses because the practice does not intentionally injure. This Note concludes beneficiaries should recover when accident-insurance policyholders die during autoerotic asphyxiation.

Eyes Wide Shut: Erasing Women's Experience, From The Clinic To The Courtroom, Marybeth Herald, Ellen Waldman

Marybeth Herald

n his decade long exploration of female sexuality, Sigmund Freud professed to be on a mission to answer the elusive question, what do women want. Unfortunately, the 19th century psychiatrist was unable to separate that question from the one he ultimately answered, What do men want women to want? In some sense, Freud's inquiries provide an apt metaphor for the medical professions' stance toward female experience. When confronted with the difference presented by the female body as well as women's unique life experience, the medical field has responded with approaches that range from bemusement to hostility to intense indifference.

Although …

Lucky: The Sequel, Martha Chamallas

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

Lucky: The Sequel is a review essay based on Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir Lucky in which Sebold describes her own rape as a college student, her experiences as a rape victim and her navigation of the legal system. Chamallas uses Sebold’s rape narrative to explore themes of particular interest to feminist legal scholars. She discusses the intersection of race and rape, the continuing controversy surrounding the categorization of rape as a crime of violence versus a sex crime and the usefulness of considering the social and cultural dimensions of the trauma of rape.

From No Means No To Only Yes Means Yes: The Rational Results Of An Affirmative Consent Standard In Rape Law, Nicholas J. Little

Vanderbilt Law Review

2003 saw the arrest of the star basketball player Kobe Bryant on charges of forcing a woman to have sex with him, charges that were dropped in 2004. This arrest is perhaps the most prominent in what has become a sordid procession of public shame: the charging of professional athletes with crimes of sexual assault. As is common in rape charges, neither party denies that the sex took place. Instead the argument is based on whether the woman consented to it. In the apology Bryant issued that led to the dismissal of the charges, he admits that "[a]lthough I truly …

Gay Politics And Precedents, Frank B. Cross

Michigan Law Review

One can find many analyses of the development of gay rights law in America but none are so illuminating as Daniel Pinello's in his book Gay Rights and American Law. More significantly, while it offers a superb understanding of the recent record of gay rights litigation, the book provides a fine-grained and sophisticated understanding of judicial decisionmaking in this important and developing area of the law. Indeed, the value of the book for students of judicial decisionmaking even transcends its value for students of gay rights jurisprudence. Quantitative empirical studies of judicial decisionmaking, well established in political science, have …

Does Sex Matter? Washington's Defense Of Marriage Act Under The Equal Rights Amendment Of The Washington State Constitution, Thomas C. Schroeder

Washington Law Review

Washington State's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) defines marriage as a civil contract between a male and a female and explicitly bans marriages between members of the same sex. Yet the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Washington State Constitution prohibits laws that classify by sex. In the three decades since the enactment of the ERA, the Washington State Supreme Court has recognized only two narrow exceptions to the ERA's ban of sex-based classifications: laws based on anatomical differences between the sexes and laws created to mandate equality between men and women. Whether the DOMA effects a sex-based classification and …

You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman: Allowing Parents To Consent To Early Gender Assignment Surgeries For Their Intersexed Infants, Sara A. Aliabadi

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Lucky: The Sequel, Martha Chamallas

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Contesting Gender In Popular Culture And Family Law: Middlesex And Other Transgender Tales, Susan Frelich Appleton

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Federalism's Fallacy: The Early Tradition Of Federal Family Law And The Invention Of States' Rights, Kristin Collins

Faculty Scholarship

By examining the history of the federal government's role in the regulation of the family, this article joins the work of others who in recent years have begun to piece together the history of the federal government's role in crafting domestic relations law and policy.'⁸ Much of this attention has focused on federal involvement in domestic relations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with relatively less consideration given to the pre-Civil War period. Though recent contributions to this field have helped to cure this imbalance, ¹⁹ there remains a strong sense, especially among lawyers and judges, that …

In Or Out? Groups And The Fourteenth Amendment After Lawrence V. Texas, Miranda Mcgowan

ExpressO

This article explores a line of Supreme Court cases that have struck down state laws using a rigorous form of rational basis scrutiny, culminating in Lawrence v. Texas. The facts of these rigorous rational basis cases are diverse, but they share a common denominator: the Court has applied more rigorous rational basis scrutiny when a government has restricted the liberties of, or denied some state benefit, to a group—specifically, gays, lesbians, persons with disabilities, illegal immigrant children, and hippies.

Rigorous rational basis scrutiny has not wholly supplanted regular rational basis scrutiny. Courts still use regular rational basis scrutiny to review …

Gender Construction And The Limits Of Liberal Equality, Gila Stopler

ExpressO

The article suggests a possible answer to the puzzling question how it is that despite the explicit promise of equality for women present in each and every western liberal democracy, the reality is that sex discrimination persists and is often even legitimated and protected, especially when it is based on religious and cultural motivations. As a basis for its argument the article employs the psychological theories of Carol Gilligan and Nancy Chodorow that describe the gendered construction of the self in western liberal societies, as well as the historical unfolding of the myths of Eve and Lilith, and the patriarchal …