Law Commons^™

March Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Prisoners of Sex” by Negar Azimi. New York Times Magazine. December 3, 2006.

Human Rights And Personal Stories, David L. G. Rice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Negar Azimi’s “Prisoners of Sex” is a welcome reminder that human rights discourse should always keep its subject, “humans,” firmly in view. The stories she tells of death, torture, hope, and survival bear witness to the challenges and dangers faced by gays and lesbians in Egypt.

Cultural Rage: A Severe Threat To Gay Men, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Men who have sex with men have become a world cultural flashpoint. Fomenting and exploiting cultural rage at the West is a useful way for Islamists to gain electoral and other types of support, even though the motives of the Islamists may have more to do with the drive for power, regional influence, or economic benefit.

Exporting And Negotiating Human Rights, Randall Kuhn

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In 2000, renowned Egyptian activist-sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim and 27 colleagues were tried, convicted and imprisoned by the Egyptian government on a range of politically-motivated charges. In 2003, Ibrahim was released after three years of imprisonment and torture and a concerted campaign to secure his release by concerned academics, activists, and political leaders. Two years later, physically weakened but morally indefagitable, he visited colleagues at the University of Colorado and talked about his experiences as an academic and activist.

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselves in relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender we choose, the gender …

Gender And Human Rights, Lisa Weilminster

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Russia’s historical transition from a communist society to a system of democracy and free market practices has resulted in major social changes affecting the rights of men and women. Analysis of gender and human rights in Russia requires an evaluation of the changing social relations within post-Soviet society, which are shaped by the complex factors of ethnicity, economic class, gender norms, and the role of the state in shaping present gender inequities that hinder the realization of universal human rights. Looking particularly at how gender issues relate to changing identities, employment opportunities, health care and conditions, and public and private …

Traditionalism, Pluralism, And Same-Sex Marriage, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Queer Transitions In Contemporary Spanish Culture: From Franco To La Movida, Gema Pérez-Sánchez

Gema Pérez-Sánchez

Gema Pérez-Sánchez argues that the process of political and cultural transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain can be read allegorically as a shift from a dictatorship that followed a self-loathing “homosexual” model to a democracy that identified as a pluralized “queer” body. Focusing on the urban cultural phenomenon of la movida, she offers a sustained analysis of high queer culture, as represented by novels, along with an examination of low queer culture, as represented by comic books and films. Pérez-Sánchez shows that urban queer culture played a defining role in the cultural and political processes that helped to move …