Sexuality and the Law Commons^™

Love Is Love: The Fundamental Right To Love, Marriage, And Obergefell V. Hodges, Reginald Oh

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process fundamental rights doctrine is about love. It is, at least, based on a close reading of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the case in which the Supreme Court held that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right of individual autonomy and dignity.

Part I of this Article discusses the concept of love. Part II examines Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell and argues that it expresses unconditional love for LGBT people in tone, language, and substance. Part III argues that, in Obergefell, Kennedy’s key reasons for concluding that marriage is …

Gendered Normativities: The Role And Rule Of Law, Susanne Baer

Book Chapters

In the 21st century, human rights are as present as they are endangered. Specifically, sex/gender equality rights are contested, or actively abridged, which is to be understood as an attack on women and on people who do not fit a ‘normal’ pattern of gender relations. Yet in addition, these are attacks on democratic constitutionalism itself. The article argues that to properly understand the recent contestations of human rights, one must distinguish between critique and attack, and revisit the very form and content of human rights, to deal with law’s ambivalence, such as ‘legal colonialism’, and also take into account critical …

What We Are Owed: The Possibilities Of A Civil Law Response To Sexual Injuries, Nathalie Marx

Scripps Senior Theses

Drawing from philosophical, feminist, and legal frameworks, this thesis aims to reconceptualize our understanding of sexual violations. I suggest that rape and other sexual violations produce injuries unique from other forms of physical violence that must be addressed as an extension of a culture which objectifies, restricts the agency of, and shames women. It is argued that through the ability for survivors to bring a civil claim of negligence against their perpetrators following a sexual injury, pathways for restorative healing and cultural transformation are opened, and a more responsive legal standard for fault is created. This paper responds to theories …

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

Deepfakes, Shallowfakes, And The Need For A Private Right Of Action, Eric Kocsis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For nearly as long as there have been photographs and videos, people have been editing and manipulating them to make them appear to be something they are not. Usually edited or manipulated photographs are relatively easy to detect, but those days are numbered. Technology has no morality; as it advances, so do the ways it can be misused. The lack of morality is no clearer than with deepfake technology.

People create deepfakes by inputting data sets, most often pictures or videos into a computer. A series of neural networks attempt to mimic the original data set until they are nearly …

A Failed Experiment: Conversion Therapy As Child Abuse, Cory W. Lee

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ten Years Later, Prea Does Not Live Up To Its Goal: Amending The Statute To Reduce Discriminatory Violence Against Transgender Prisoners, Carla Aveledo

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Limitations And Alternatives To Expanding The Equal Pay Act Under Bostock V. Clayton County, Ga., Valentina Wilson

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Property Prohibitions: Why Criminalizing Prostitution Violates Constitutional Guarantees, James J. Bernstein

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Very Important Cases (“Vics”): United States V. Briggs And The Status Of Cases Involving Sexual Violence And Statutes Of Limitations, Michele A. Yankson

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

#Metoo: Music Industry Edition, Nazarene Anderson

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Weathering The Storm: Is California’S Anti-Harassment Education Training The Life Preserver Lgbtq Youth Have Been Hoping For?, Natalie Purcell O'Dwyer

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transgender Student-Athletes Punch Back: A Legal Analysis Of States' "Fairness In Women's Sports Act" And How It Violates The Fourteenth Amendment And Title Ix, Daniel Jimenez

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Fiction: Reading Lolita As A Sentencing Memorandum, Christina Frohock

Articles

No abstract provided.

How To Bring Your Kids Up Queer: Family Law Realism, Then And Now, Kris Franklin, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Paula Ettelbrick fought for us.

As a pragmatic and radical litigator, Ettelbrick spent years trying to use a frequently uncomprehending and often outright hostile court system to protect LGBTQ+ Americans. While her work took her into the many areas of law that touched queer lives, a special focus and passion of her advocacy was reserved for queer families.

Paula also tried to warn us.

In the absence of legal recognition for the families we construct, queer lives are rendered not just invisible but virtually nonexistent; we become legal strangers to our loved ones in ways that violently obliterate our …

Religious Mediation As A Tool To Resolve Disputes Between Religious Universities And Their Lgbt Students, Isaac Altman

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Though the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) rights movement has made immense strides in recent years, there are many people who have been left behind in the sprint towards LGBT equality. Some of those are students or prospective students at religious schools, who can face discriminatory attitudes or be rejected outright by these institutions. While religiosity is generally associated with positive mental health outcomes, research shows that LGBT people who experience religious identity conflict are at significant risk of suicide. Religious institutions, for their part, are scrambling to adjust to the new reality in which their positions on LGBT …

United States, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Denouncing The Revival Of Pre-Roe V. Wade Abortion Bans In A Post-Dobbs World Through The Void Ab Initio And Presumption Of Validity Doctrines, Nora Greene

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

The United States Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Written by Justice Alito and joined by four of the other conservative justices, the decision describes Roe as “egregiously wrong from the start” and blatantly overrules the landmark holding and its prodigy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In their state codes, nine states—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin— have unrepealed criminal abortion bans enacted before Roe. These bans prohibit abortion at any point in pregnancy unless to preserve the life of the pregnant person …

Introduction To Julie Bilotta’S Story, Sheila Wildeman

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Julie Bilotta’s contribution to this special volume is a straightforward denunciation of prison-based inhumanity and institutionalized misogyny. I write to show solidarity with her and to alert the reader to some of the ways her story exposes intersectional injustice while enlivening feminist abolitionist prison resistance. I write, too, to challenge my own and others’ thinking about whether or how law (litigation, law reform) might contribute to that resistance.

In her essay, Julie offers an intimate glimpse of prisons as sites of reproductive injustice. As this special volume attests, incarceration in Canada and elsewhere produces systematic gendered harms, including lack of …

The Legal Regulation Of Sadomasochism And The So-Called “Rough Sex Defence”, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The focus of this article is on the judicial application of Canada’s sexual assault doctrine in the context of the so called ‘rough sex defence’. Canadian criminal courts have seen an increased prevalence of legal narratives about S/M in recent years. In particular, courts are increasingly confronted with individuals who defend themselves against allegations of sexual assault by claiming that the impugned acts constituted consensual S/M or ‘rough sex’. The analysis is aimed at illustrating the way in which courts may fail to properly apply legal doctrine because of a problematic approach to the S/M context in which allegations arose. …

What's Wrong With The Ncaa's New Transgender Athlete Policy?, Erin E. Buzuvis

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the NCAA’s 2022 transgender athlete participation policy, which replaced the 2011 uniform eligibility rule with a sport-by-sport approach deferring to external governing bodies. It assesses the ambiguities created by this deference, particularly in sports where no clear policy exists, as well as the arbitrariness of the default testosterone threshold the NCAA adopted. It analyzes the tension between the NCAA’s stated alignment with Olympic frameworks and the reality that those frameworks were not designed for the collegiate context. It also considers the legal risks posed to NCAA member institutions, including potential liability under Title IX and the Equal …

Suspect Classifications, Immutability, & Moral Responsibility, Michael Gentithes

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Immutability is an important thread in equal protection jurisprudence.1 It helps explain when a government classification is constitutionally suspect, requiring courts to evaluate that classification under the exacting strict scrutiny standard.2 Recently the Supreme Court, though not expressly relying on equal protection arguments to reach its holding, has suggested that sexual orientation is an immutable trait of the sort that traditionally triggers strict scrutiny when the government relies upon it.3 But the suggestion that sexual orientation is immutable, and thus subject to strict scrutiny, has not found wide acceptance across the judiciary. Furthermore, the scientific evidence surrounding sexual orientation is …

#Metoo And The Process That's Due: Sexual Misconduct Where We Live, Work, And Learn, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

The #MeToo movement has been instrumental in bringing attention to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and sexual assault (collectively, sexual misconduct) in all walks of life and in all environments, including at work, school, home, and out in public. But the movement has also brought with it a great deal of confusion about how we define sexual misconduct and whether and when legal liability attaches. Part of the confusion can be blamed on the fact that at least three discrete areas of law can possibly apply to sexual misconduct—criminal law, Title VII (when the sexual misconduct takes place in the …

Affirmative Consent, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Before Equal Protection: The Fall Of Cross-Dressing Bans And The Transgender Legal Movement, Kate Redburn

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars are still unsure why American cities passed cross-dressing bans over the closing decades of the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, cities in every region of the United States had cross-dressing regulations, from major metropolitan centers to small cities and towns. They were used to criminalize gender non-conformity in many forms – for feminists, countercultural hippies, cross-dressers (or “transvestites”), and people we would now consider transgender. Starting in the late 1960s, however, criminal defendants began to topple cross-dressing bans.

Scholars are still unsure why American cities passed cross-dressing bans over the closing decades of the nineteenth century. By the 1960s, …

Leaving “Sex” Out Of It: Amending The Federal Arbitration Act To Ensure Bostock’S Victory For Lgbtq Employee Rights, Sheya Rivard

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Visibility Trap, Kate Redburn

Faculty Scholarship

Vice Patrol offers a novel history of the visibility trap. It integrates interventions in legal history, history of sexuality, and queer theory with remarkable ease. Lvovsky brings new insight to a question that has puzzled scholars across several fields: Why and how does cultural representation lead to increased state repression? Blending impressive archival research with sophisticated theoretical analysis, Lvovsky follows cultural knowledge into the legal system to offer a fresh diagnosis of the problem and how it develops. In her discovery of “epistemic gaps,” she uncovers a key mechanism of the visibility trap. Disagreements between the police and the courts, …

Conservatorship Of Valerie N., 707 P.2d 760 (Cal. 1985), Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Faculty Scholarship

Conservatorship of Valerie N. is the next case in this volume. The original 1985 opinion from the California Supreme Court concerned an “adult developmentally disabled daughter,” whose parents wished to have her surgically sterilized because she was (according to the parents) sexually aggressive towards men. Although the original opinion held that the California law did not authorize the sterilization of Valerie the case is nonetheless ripe for a feminist rewrite. Professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman’s feminist judgment demonstrates how feminism requires attention not only to women’s issues in general but also to the woman herself, and not only to childbearing (or …

Sexual Agreements, Susan Frelich Appleton, Albertina Antognini

Scholarship@WashULaw

Few would find it surprising that an agreement for sex falls outside the bounds of contract law. Prostitution—defined as an exchange of sex for money—has long been a crime, a point that courts often make in declining to enforce agreements between unmarried partners. In fact, courts routinely invalidate contracts when sex forms the basis of a couple’s bargain, whether married or not, and whether the sex is explicit or inferred from the relationship itself. A closer look at the legal treatment of sexual agreements, however, tells a more complicated story. Although courts reject sex as consideration for being “meretricious” or …

Current Complications In The Law On Myths And Stereotypes, Lisa Dufraimont

Articles & Book Chapters

Myths and stereotypes represent an ongoing problem in Canadian sexual assault trials. Often, and paradigmatically, defence lawyers and trial judges rely on discredited sexist assumptions to the prejudice of female sexual assault complainants. However, a review of the recent appellate case law reveals many cases that do not fit this paradigm. Complications that have arisen include stereotypes about men or accused persons, legitimate defence arguments misidentified as stereotypes, close cases where reasonable people disagree about whether stereotypes have been invoked, and prejudicial forms of reasoning based other axes of discrimination. This paper surveys these developments and assesses an attempt by …