When “rights” go wrong. Does gay marriage support the right-wing goal of linking access to basic human rights like health care and economic security to an inherently conservative tradition? Will the ability of queers to fight in wars of imperialism help liberate and empower LGBT people around the world? Does hate-crime legislation affirm and strengthen…
This book could be aptly entitled After Marriage—What Is Next for the LGBT Community? Now that marriage is increasingly being institutionalized in many states within the United States it is quite likely that marriage will be acceptable in all 50 states (dependent upon action of the U.S. Supreme Court). What lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender…
Aim and methods: The aim of this article is to provide a narrative literature review of the ‘third gender’ phenomenon in Brazil ( Travestis), India ( Hijras) and Mexico ( Muxes), considering the social stigma, the legal and health aspects of these identities. Results: These three groups share similar experiences of stigmatisation, marginalisation, sexual abuse,…
This article begins by examining multiple drafts of a parliamentary legislation that aims to provide rights and reservations to transgender persons in India, so as to trace the ways in which hijras have been absorbed into the discourse of nationalism. The most current draft of this bill, ‘The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill of…
In the wake of the highly fractious Culture Wars, conservatives in science have launched a backlash against feminist, multiculturalist, and social critics in science studies. Paul Gross and Norman Levitt’s book Higher Superstition, presented as a wake-up call to scientists unaware of the dangers posed by the “science-bashers,” set the shrill tone of this reaction…
Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places…
The purpose of this article is to highlight the experiences of transgender people within the criminal justice system as both victims and offenders. We contend that queer criminology is both needed and can assist in exploring the experiences of this unique population who face discrimination within the US criminal justice system and who are often…
BOOK REVIEW: Dean Spade’s Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law focuses on how the individual rights-based framework of gay and lesbian politics is not a viable alternative for trans survival. What is needed is to focus on the “distribution of life chances”–administrative regimes that value some lives over others.…
More than fifty powerful feminist voices imagine the world we could build together. In this groundbreaking collection, more than fifty cutting-edge voices invite us to imagine a truly feminist world. An abortion provider reinvents birth control, Sheila Bapat envisions an economy that values domestic work, a teenage rock band dreams up a new way to…
Since 2010, California passed three laws that address the safety and inclusion of transgender students. Seth’s Law (SB 48), the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act (AB 9) and The School Success and Opportunity Act (AB 1266). The policies of 10 large urban districts in and around the San Francisco Bay Area were…