Sexual Identity and the Law (Lavelle)

Sexual Orientation and Identity: Political and Legal Analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the status of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans today. The book engages students directly with important decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts to trace the development of rights pertaining to sexual orientation and identity, providing extended discussion of LGBT youth and schools; freedom of speech and expression; employment; discrimination; and marriage and family. The book emphasizes the important interface between law and the democratic political process in expanding the equality of the LGBT community.

This Nutshell presents a very timely overview of legal topics relating to sexual orientation, gender identity and the law. Topics covered include: regulation of sexuality, gender identity and expression, parenthood, marriage, United States military, nondiscrimination statutes and ordinances, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and religious freedom. Discussion includes developments at the federal, state and local level. Statutes discussed include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Title IX; the Fair Housing Act; the Affordable Care Act; Don't Ask, Don't Tell; Defense of Marriage Act, as well as some of the anti-gay rights measures that have been adopted in various statutes such as North Carolina.

The conventional interpretation of equality under the law singles out certain groups or classes for constitutional protection: women, racial minorities, and gays and lesbians. The United States Supreme Court calls these groups 'suspect classes'. Laws that discriminate against them are generally unconstitutional. While this is a familiar account of equal protection jurisprudence, this book argues that this approach suffers from hitherto unnoticed normative and political problems. The book elucidates a competing, extant interpretation of equal protection jurisprudence that avoids these problems. The interpretation is not concerned with suspect classes but rather with the kinds of reasons that are already inadmissible as a matter of constitutional law. This alternative approach treats the equal protection clause like any other limit on governmental power, thus allowing the Court to invalidate equality-infringing laws and policies by focusing on their justification rather than the identity group they discriminate against.

Sexual rules and regulations are among society's oldest yet it is only in recent decades that this once-stigmatized field has become the focus of scholarly attention. This volume, which includes some of the most thought-provoking and hard-to-find essays in the field, covers a diverse range of topics from sexual orientation and gender identity to intersexuality and commercial sex, and from HIV/AIDS and trafficking to polygamy. Through historical, political and critical-theoretical lenses, and through a global focus, the selections ask how we conceptualize the groups and acts subjected to sexual regulation and how regulations in the field implicate and produce understandings of sexuality and identity. By placing this variety of works together, Sexuality and Equality Law invites fresh insights into commonalities and synergies across regulatory arenas that are often isolated from one another. The volume's introduction situates all of these works in the broader field and offers readers an extensive bibliography.

Issues of sexual rights and sexual regulations are at the forefront of legal controversies and theorizing around the globe. Sexual minorities make claims on government to recognize family and relationships, even as the criminalization of a wide variety of sexual acts remains contentious. The boundaries and protections of sexual freedoms for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgendered and inter-sexed persons, as well as for those involved in commercial sex, public sex or other nontraditional sexual acts are the subject of debate in courts, legislatures and agencies. This series brings together legal scholarship that addresses and shapes local, national and international discussions of sexuality and law. The volumes include more than fifty articles selected from an exhaustive international search of print and electronic journals and feature a substantial introduction addressing the topic of each volume. Each volume covers a variety of subjects, including some that may be less familiar, to provide a diversity of theoretical perspectives, issues and scholarly styles. Each article has theoretical import beyond its particular subject and jurisdiction and many articles employ a comparative or international approach. The three volumes in this series are edited by a leading scholar in the field and provide an invaluable research tool for scholars and students interested in the burgeoning field of sexuality and law.