"We've been together in sickness and in health, through the death of his mother, through the adoption of our children, through four long years of this legal battle," Jason Morgan told reporters of himself and his partner, Chuck Swaggerty. "And if being together through all of that isn't love and commitment or isn't family or isn't marriage, then I don't know what is." Just minutes earlier on that day, April 3, 2009, the justices of the Iowa Supreme Court had agreed. The court's decision in Varnum v. Brien made Iowa only the third state in the nation to permit same-sex couples to wed--moderate, midwestern Iowa, years before such left-leaning coastal states as California and New York. And unlike the earlier decisions in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Varnum v. Brien was unanimous and unequivocal. It catalyzed the unprecedented and rapid shift in law and public opinion that continues today. Equal Before the Law tells the stories behind this critical battle in the fight for marriage equality and traces the decision's impact. The struggle began in 1998 with the easy passage of Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act and took a turn, surprising to many, in 2005, when six ordinary Iowa couples signed on to Lambda Legal's suit against the law. Their triumph in 2009 sparked a conservative backlash against the supreme court justices, three of whom faced tough retention elections that fall. Longtime, award-winning reporters Tom Witosky and Marc Hansen talked with and researched dozens of key figures, including opponent Bob Vander Plaats, proponents Janelle Rettig and Sharon Malheiro, attorneys Roger Kuhle, Dennis Johnson, and Camilla Taylor, and politicians Matt McCoy, Mary Lundby, and Tom Vilsack, who had to weigh their careers against their convictions. Justice Mark Cady, who wrote the decision, explains why the court had to rule in favor of the plaintiffs. At the center of the story are the six couples who sacrificed their privacy to demand public respect for their families. Through these voices, Witosky and Hansen show that no one should have been surprised by the 2009 decision. Iowans have a long history of leadership on civil rights. Just a year after Iowa became a state, its citizens adopted as their motto the phrase, "Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain." And they still do today.

"Victory may sometimes look like a sudden revolution when, in truth, it rests on years of struggle. The June 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is a sweeping victory for the freedom to marry, but it was one step in a long process. Love Unites Us is the history of activists' passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle. Launching the fight for the freedom to marry was neither an obvious nor an uncontested strategy. To many activists, achieving marriage equality seemed far-fetched, but the skeptics were proved wrong. Proactive arguments in favor of love, family, and commitment were more effective than arguments that focused on rights and the goal of equality at work. Telling the stories of people who loved and cared for one another, in sickness and in health, cut through the antigay noise and moved people-not without backlash and not overnight, but faster than most activists and observers had ever imagined. With compelling stories from leading attorneys and activists including Evan Wolfson, Mary L. Bonauto, Jon W. Davidson, and Paul M. Smith, Love Unites Us explains how gay and lesbian couples achieved the right to marry"--

"On June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County, in a 6 to 3 decision with a majority opinion authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. The decision was a surprise to many, if not most, observers, but as Jason Pierceson explores in this work, it was not completely unanticipated. The decision was grounded in a recent, but well-developed, shift in federal jurisprudence on the question of LGBTQ rights that occurred around 2000, with gender identity claims faring better in federal court after decades of skepticism. The most important precedent for these cases was a 1989 Supreme Court case that did not deal directly with LGBTQ rights: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. The Court ruled in Price Waterhouse that "sex stereotyping" is a form of discrimination under Title VII, a provision that prohibits discrimination in employment based upon sex. Anne Hopkins was a cisgender, heterosexual woman who was denied a promotion at her accounting firm for being too "masculine." At the time of the decision, and in the wake of the devastating decision for the LGBTQ movement in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), the case was not viewed as creating a strong precedential foundation for LGBTQ rights claims, especially claims based upon sexual orientation. Even in the context of gender identity, the connection was not made to the emerging movement for transgender rights until a decade later. In the 2000s, however, federal courts were consistently applying the case to protect transgender individuals. While not the result of coordinated litigation, nor initially connected to the LGBTQ rights movement, Price Waterhouse has been one of the most important and powerful precedents in recent years, outside of the marriage equality cases. This book tells the story of how this "accidental" precedent evolved into such a crucial case for contemporary LGBTQ rights"--

The right of same-sex couples to marry provoked decades of intense conflict before it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015. Yet some of the most divisive contests shaping the quest for marriage equality occurred not on the culture-war front lines but within the ranks of LGBTQ advocates. Nathaniel Frank tells the dramatic story of how an idea that once seemed unfathomable--and for many gays and lesbians undesirable--became a legal and moral right in just half a century. Awakening begins in the 1950s, when millions of gays and lesbians were afraid to come out, let alone fight for equal treatment. Across the social upheavals of the next two decades, a gay rights movement emerged with the rising awareness that same-sex love is equal to love everywhere. As movement leaders and ordinary gay people created new communities, alliances, and ideas, a tight-knit cadre of (mostly) gay and lesbian lawyers began to focus on legal recognition for same-sex couples, eventually creating a long-term strategy to win marriage rights in the courts. But first they had to win over members of their own LGBTQ community who declined to make marriage a priority, while reining in others who charged ahead heedless of their carefully laid plans, and often at odds with them. All the while, they had to fight against virulent antigay opponents and capture the American center by spreading the simple message that love is love--ultimately propelling the LGBTQ community, and America, immeasurably closer to justice.--

Out and About: The LGBT Experience In the Legal Profession is intended to address the experiences of LGBT attorneys, academics, and jurists in the legal profession. Through their own words, our authors help educate and promote justice in and through the legal profession for the LGBT community in all its diversity. This book also celebrates LGBT members of the bar by recognizing this diverse group, their contributions, and their struggles. Being an individual, doing your own thing no matter what everyone else is doing, is the heart of the essays that comprise this book. The writers share their experience of at once blending in and yet feeling different, vulnerable, and exposed. They speak of the ever-present potential to be treated differently simply because of who they are, giving these essays deeper meaning. Some of these authors endured secret pain, suffering in private, hiding personal lives from colleagues. Others barely soldiered through, endeavoring just to make the lives of their clients better. And some openly achieved great success, personally, professionally, or both. Each and every one merits attention. Each chapter of this book informs and inspires readers to broaden horizons, opening minds to the vast diversity of LGBT individuals. The book aims to improve the legal profession and the justice system itself by demonstrating the vast potential within all of us. There always have been people who "dance to the beat of a different drummer." The contributors to this collection of essays hope you dance to whatever music suits you! Book jacket.

This book brings together international experts to discuss questions and challenges relating to the legal articulation of the emerging right to gender self-determination and its consequences for law and society, such as the future of sex/gender registration and the protection of trans persons against discrimination.;Over the last decade, trans rights and gender variation as legal and a human rights issues have been high on the international and national agendas. Improved registration of and attention for gender variation and gender incongruence is accompanied by attention for the often far-reaching requirements that trans persons have to comply with in order to obtain legal recognition of their actual gender identity. A small but rapidly growing number of (mostly European and South American) States have recently reformed their legal frameworks of gender recognition by allowing trans persons to change their official sex registration on the basis of gender self-determination. Against that background, this book brings together international experts to discuss questions and challenges relating to the legal articulation of the emerging right to gender self-determination and its consequences for law and society, such as the future of sex/gender registration and the protection of trans persons against discrimination. Given the importance of State practice for the development of the right to gender self-determination and its implementation in law, particular attention is given to the national contexts of Belgium, Germany and Norway. These three countries may be perceived as world leaders in protecting trans rights, and therefore noteworthy 'laboratories' for future State practice.

Throughout U.S. history, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people have been pathologized, victimized, and criminalized. Reports of lynching, burning, or murdering of LGBTQ people has been documented for centuries Prior to the 1970s, LGBTQ people were deemed as having psychological disorders and subsequently subject to electroshock therapy and other ineffective and cruel treatments. LGBTQ people have historically been arrested or imprisoned for crimes like sodomy, cross-dressing, and gathering in public spaces. And while there have been many strides to advocate for LGBTQ rights in contemporary times, there are still many ways that the criminal justice system works against LGBTQ and their lives, liberties, and freedoms. Queering Law and Order: LGBTQ Communities and Fight for Justice examines the state of LGBTQ people within the criminal justice system. Intertwining legal cases, academic research, and popular media, the author reviews a wide range of issues - ranging from historical heterosexist and transphobic legislation to police brutality to the prison industrial complex to family law. Grounded in Queer Theory and intersectional lenses, each chapter provides recommendations for queering and disrupting the justice system. The book serves as both an academic resource and a call to action for readers who are interested in advocating for LGBTQ rights.

"This book braves a juxtaposition that might at first raise some eyebrows. Sorting Sexualities examines the legal management of sex offenders in sexually violent predator (SVP) trials alongside that of LGBTQ people seeking asylum from persecution in their home countries. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed-one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one-they present a similar and telling conundrum: how do we know someone's sexuality? In both cases, state institutions are tasked with determining subjects' "true" sexualities, measuring the degree and type of "underlying deviance," and sorting the queer from the fraudulent. Stefan Vogler examines how and why the measurement and classification techniques that have emerged as a guide have come to diverge so dramatically. By delving into the histories behind these classification practices and analyzing their impact, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize. Through legal analysis, interviews, and multi-sited ethnography, he examines how the state enrolls non-state experts-typically anthropologists, sociologists, and lawyers in asylum pleas, and psychiatrists and forensic psychologists in SVP trials-to help craft classificatory schemas that render sexual "others" legible to and thus manageable by the state. These classifications have led to the extension of rights for LGBTQ people, on the one hand, and the escalation of punishment for sex criminals, on the other"--

Transgender Persons and the Law, 2nd Edition further solidifies the ABA s position as the forerunner and champion of combatting transgender discrimination and safeguarding the legal rights of all transgender individuals. This new edition is an excellent resource for lawyers as well as lay-activists engaged in transgender human and civil rights albeit in the courts or in legislative lobbying.The following areas of the law are thoroughly explained in the book: . What is transgendered'. Identification documents. Public facilities. Housing concerns. Military and veterans issues. Family law. School matters. Health care. Personal safety concerns. Keeping and securing employment. Immigration problems. Criminal imprisonment disputes Transgender Persons and the Law, 2nd Edition includes the latest regulations and policy statements (including the looming Executive Order by President Obama on LGBT discrimination by federal contractors) regarding transgenderism in addition to new cases that have been brought before the courts since the publication of the first edition of this book in summer 2013. As a bonus, the book includes a link to an online database that features a complete set of legal forms for all fifty states and the District of Columbia for name changes and for those jurisdictions that allow it, changes to birth certificates."

Rewriting the Supreme Court's landmark gay rights decision. Jack Balkin and an all-star cast of legal scholars, sitting as a hypothetical Supreme Court, rewrite the famous 2015 opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry. In eleven incisive opinions, the authors offer the best constitutional arguments for and against the right to same-sex marriage, and debate what Obergefell should mean for the future. In addition to serving as Chief Justice of this imaginary court, Balkin provides a critical introduction to the case. He recounts the story of the gay rights litigation that led to Obergefell, and he explains how courts respond to political mobilizations for new rights claims. The social movement for gay rights and marriage equality is a powerful example of how-through legal imagination and political struggle-arguments once dismissed as "off-the-wall" can later become established in American constitutional law.

In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that are raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes the assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence. Setting forth a politic that goes beyond the quest for mere legal inclusion, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require."--Page 4 of cover.

The decision to have a child is seldom a simple one, often fraught with complexities regarding emotional readiness, finances, marital status, and compatibility with life and career goals. Rarely, though, do individuals consider the role of the law in facilitating or inhibiting their ability to have a child or to parent. For LGBT individuals, however, parenting is saturated with legality - including the initial decision of whether to have a child, how to have a child, whether one's relationship with their child will be recognized, and everyday acts of parenting like completing forms or picking up children from school. Through in-depth interviews with 137 LGBT parents, Amanda K. Baumle and D'Lane R. Compton examine the role of the law in the lives of LGBT parents and how individuals use the law when making decisions about family formation or parenting. Baumle and Compton explore the ways in which LGBT parents participate in the process of constructing legality through accepting, modifying, or rejecting legal meanings about their families. Few groups encounter as much variation in access to everyday legal rights pertaining to the family as do LGBT parents. This complexity and variation in legal environments provides a rather unique opportunity to examine the manner in which legal context affects the ways in which individuals come to understand the meaning and utility of the law for their lives. The authors conclude that legality is constructed through a complex interplay of legal context, social networks, individual characteristics, and familial desires. Ultimately, the stories of LGBT parents in this book reflect a rich and varied relationship between the law, the state, and the private family goals of individuals.

Written about lawyers, but relevant to people in various professions, this book shows how individuals can act according to their personal qualities and attributes, rather than according to expectations based on gender. It prescribes several models to help firms and individuals achieve a workplace free of gender bias for both men and women.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, its primary target was the outright exclusion of women from particular jobs. Over time, the Act's scope of protection has expanded to prevent not only discrimination based on sex but also discrimination based on expression of gender identity. Kimberly Yuracko uses specific court decisions to identify the varied principles that underlie this expansion. Filling a significant gap in law literature, this timely book clarifies an issue of increasing concern to scholars interested in gender issues and the law.

Should religious people who conscientiously object to facilitating same-sex weddings, and who therefore decline to provide cakes, photography, or other services, be exempted from antidiscrimination laws? This issue has taken on an importance far beyond the tiny number who have made such claims. Gay rights advocates fear that exempting even a few religious dissenters would unleash a devastating wave of discrimination. Conservative Christians fear that the law will treat them like racists and drive them to the margins of American society. Both sides are mistaken. This is not a matter of abstract principle, and none of the constitutional claims work. This is an appropriate occasion for legislative negotiation. This book is a systematic accounting of the interests that must be balanced in any decent compromise, in terms that both sides can recognise and appreciate.

An in-depth examination of the relationship between gay rights, public opinion, and legislation since the late 1800s. In this comprehensive overview of how the American legal system has approached issues pertaining to sexual orientation and how the law has advanced_or hindered_civil rights, author Lee Walzer reveals that while the United States has the world's most developed lesbian and gay community, it lags other countries on equality for sexual minorities. Gay Rights on Trial focuses on four significant cases that have shaped the development of gay rights, including detailed discussion of majority and dissenting decisions and analysis of their legacy and impact. Also included are a chronology; a section of key people, laws, and concepts; a table of cases; key legal documents such as the Defense of Marriage Act and the Vermont Civil Union Act; and an annotated bibliography. Introductory essay covers issues from the changing notions of morality and the law to the various sides in gay rights disputes Contains edited excerpts of key legal documents such as Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), in which the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of state laws prohibiting homosexual conduct

"The legacy of a long-standing cultural war against LGBT people, as well as rampant discrimination, is reflected in many areas. As LGBT policies evolve and take shape, and new voices of the movement emerge, these issues can be shown to pervade a number of policy areas including mental and physical healthcare, race, poverty and homelessness, religion, immigration, senior issues, the role of family in the LGBT community, bisexuality and transgender issues, the connection between economics and homicides/hate crimes, education, business, and work force diversity. A collection of fascinating contemporary perspectives, this book explores the breadth and depth of the many 'divides' -- socioeconomic, race, age, healthcare, immigration, education, and income -- including those that intersect within the LGBT community. For any reader who really wants to know about the current future development of the LGBT community, this is an invaluable book"--

The landmark Supreme Court decision in June 2015 legalizing the right to same-sex marriage marked a major victory in gay and lesbian rights in the United States. Once subject to a patchwork of laws granting legal status to same-sex couples in some states and not others, gay and lesbian Americans now enjoy full legal status for their marriages wherever they travel or reside in the country. For many, this means that gay and lesbian citizens are one step closer to full equality with the rest of America. However, author Stephen M. Engel contends that there remains much to be done in shaping American institutions to recognize gays and lesbians as full citizens. Tracing the relationship between gay and lesbian individuals and the government from the late 19th century through the early 21st, Engel shows that LGBT Americans are more accurately described as fragmented citizens who still do not have full legal protections against workplace, housing, family, and other kinds of discrimination. There remains a continuing struggle of the state to control their sexuality. Further, he argues that it was the state's ability to identify and control gay and lesbian citizens that allowed it to develop strong administrative capacities to manage all of its citizens in matters of immigration, labor relations, and even national security. The struggle for gay and lesbian rights, then, affected not only the lives of those seeking equality but also the very nature of American governance itself. Fragmented Citizens is a sweeping historical and political account of how our present-day policy debates around citizenship and equality came to be.--Adapted from dust jacket.

"Conservative opponents of LGBT equality in the United States often couch their opposition in claims of free speech, free association, and religious liberty. It is no surprise, then, that many LGBT supporters equate First Amendment arguments with resistance to their cause. The First Amendment and LGBT Equality tells another story, about the First Amendment's crucial, yet largely forgotten, role in the first few decades of the gay rights movement. Between the 1950s and 1980s, when many courts were still openly hostile to sexual minorities, they nonetheless recognized the freedom of gay and lesbian people to express themselves and associate with one another. Successful First Amendment cases protected LGBT publications and organizations, protests and parades, and individuals' right to come out. The amendment was wielded by the other side only after it had laid the groundwork for major LGBT equality victories. Carlos A. Ball illuminates the full trajectory of this legal and cultural history. He argues that, in accommodating those who dissent from LGBT equality on grounds of conscience, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to depart from the established ways in which American antidiscrimination law has, for decades, accommodated equality dissenters. But he also argues that as progressives fight the First Amendment claims of religious conservatives and other LGBT opponents today, they should take care not to erode the very safeguards of liberty that allowed LGBT rights to exist in the first place"--

Over the past decade, the controversial issue of gay marriage has emerged as a primary battle in the culture wars and a definitive social issue of our time. The subject moved to the forefront of mainstream public debate in 2004, when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom began authorizing same-sex marriage licenses, and it has remained in the forefront through three presidential campaigns and numerous state ballot initiatives. In this thorough analysis, Leigh Moscowitz examines how prominent news outlets presented this issue from 2003 to 2012, a time when intense news coverage focused unprecedented attention on gay and lesbian life.

"Today's debates about transgender inclusion and public restrooms may seem unmistakably contemporary, but they have a surprisingly long and storied history in the United States-one that concerns more than mere "potty politics." Alexander K. Davis takes readers behind the scenes of two hundred years' worth of conflicts over the existence, separation, and equity of gendered public restrooms, documenting at each step how bathrooms have been entangled with bigger cultural matters: the importance of the public good, the reach of institutional inclusion, the nature of gender difference, and, above all, the myriad privileges of social status. Chronicling the debut of nineteenth-century "comfort stations," twentieth-century mandates requiring separate-but-equal men's and women's rooms, and twenty-first-century uproar over laws like North Carolina's "bathroom bill," Davis reveals how public restrooms are far from marginal or unimportant social spaces. Instead, they are-and always have been-consequential sites in which ideology, institutions, and inequality collide"--

What is gender identity justice, why does it matter, and what are the implications for not doing this work in today's schools? This premiere book in the new Teachers College Press series School : Questions carefully walks readers through both theory and practice to equip them with the skills needed to bring gender identity justice into classrooms, schools, and ultimately society. The text looks into the root causes and ways to change the conditions that have created gender identity injustice. It opens up spaces where evolving, indeterminate gender identities will be understood and recognized as asset-based, rich sources for learning literacy and literacy learning. As educators take up the strategies mapped out across this text, they will learn how to foster school environments that aid all students in becoming agents for social change. This text is the first of its kind to address gender identity in teacher education with pathways to take up the work in communities and beyond. Book Features: Provides concrete strategies for supporting students with complex gender identities. Cuts across all disciplines and academic levels. Offers an innovative theory of trans*+ for education. Includes a glossary, definitions, and useful charts and illustrations. Unpacks the dangers of cisgender assumptions in schools. Introduces new vocabulary about gender identity.

"From suffragettes to sexuality, feminist history is often told as a narrative of women united in the fight against patriarchy. But there have always been limits and fault lines in the feminist movements that centered white women's rights at the expense of all others. As scholar Kyla Schuller argues in The Trouble with White Women, white women, across political classes, have used racism and other hierarchies of power to win their own rights and expand their personal opportunities. Their white feminist politics have come at a great cost, resulting in the sustained exploitation, oppression, and silencing of women of color. The Trouble with White Women details the history of white feminist icons and their counterparts from the 1840s to the present. From Margaret Sanger, who promoted racist eugenics and was in conflict with Dr. Dorothy Ferebee, to Pauli Murray, who fought for a more radical vision of feminism against Betty Friedan's homophobic and racist ideas. Today, that tradition endures. So-called feminists continue to advocate excluding trans people from the movement and promote the Violence Against Women Act that has buttressed the greatest carceral state in the world. But as The Trouble with White Women argues, resistance to these white feminist politics has continually emerged from Black, indigenous, poor, queer, and trans women and their movements for liberation. It is only by understanding this complex legacy that feminism can build a movement that honors the radical work and lives of those who suffer most under patriarchy"--

"In a landmark book, an extraordinary young woman recounts her coming-of-age as a transgender teen--a deeply personal and empowering portrait of self-revelation, adversity, and heroism. In 2011, Marie Claire magazine published a profile of Janet Mock in which she publicly stepped forward for the first time as a trans woman. Since then, Mock has gone from covering the red carpet for People.com to advocating for all those who live within the shadows of society. Redefining Realness offers a bold new perspective on being young, multiracial, economically challenged, and transgender in America. Welcomed into the world as her parents' firstborn son, Mock set out early on to be her own person--no simple feat for a young person like herself. She struggled as the smart, determined child in a deeply loving, yet ill-equipped family that lacked money, education, and resources. Mock had to navigate her way through her teen years without parental guidance but luckily with a few close friends and mentors she overcame extremely daunting hurdles. This powerful memoir follows Mock's quest for identity, from her early gender conviction to a turbulent adolescence in Honolulu that found her transitioning through the halls of her school, self-medicating with hormones at fifteen, and flying across the world for sex reassignment surgery at just eighteen. Ever resilient, Mock emerged with a scholarship to college and moved to New York City, where she earned her masters degree, basked in the success of an enviable career, and told no one about her past. It wasn't until Mock fell for a man who called her the woman of his dreams that she felt ready to finally tell her story, becoming a fierce advocate for girls like herself. A profound statement of affirmation from a courageous woman, Redefining Realness shows as never before what it means to be a woman today and how to be yourself when you don't fit the mold created for you"--

Sex, Gender, and the Politics of ERA is the most profound and sensitive discussion to date of the way in which women responded to feminism. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, Mathews and De Hart explore the fate of the ERA in North Carolina--one of the three states targeted by both sides as essential to ratification--to reveal the dynamics that stunned supporters across America. The authors insightfully link public discourse and private feelings, placing arguments used throughout the nation in the personal contexts of women who pleaded their cases for and against equality. Beginning

"Gendered Citizenship outlines how the original conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) altered the nature of American Citizenship, creating justification for sex-specific treatment and rights that still exist today"--

"On August 26, 1920, these words became part of the United States Constitution as its Nineteenth Amendment. The requisite thirty- six states had ratified the amendment in the year since its enactment by Congress on June 4, 1919. A revolution in women's rights, spanning over seventy years, came to a quiet conclusion as Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the measure into law in the privacy of his home at eight o'clock in the morning.1 None of the prominent suffrage leaders of the day, including the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) president, Carrie Chapman Catt; or the National Woman's Party (NWP) chair, Alice Paul, were at the signing.2 Catt was later invited to go to the State Department to see the proclamation, but no similar invitation was extended to the more militant Paul. Paul had been a thorn in the side of President Woodrow Wilson, with her White House picketing and willingness to be imprisoned for the vote.3 Ratification was followed by ten years of litigation- most of it in state courts- during which the meaning and scope of the Nineteenth Amendment was contested. In its most literal sense, the Nineteenth Amendment did not confer a "right" to vote per se. Rather, it simply prohibited the states or the federal government from using sex as a criterion for voter eligibility.4 In other words, its ratification meant that state and federal impediments to voting based on sex were now unconstitutional. It did not mean that all women in the United States could vote.5 As a matter of law, the Nineteenth Amendment meant that states could not prevent African American women from voting based solely on their sex. Yet vast numbers of African American women were prevented from voting in the November 1920 presidential election that followed on the heels of ratification.6 They faced the same impediments- poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and physical intimidation- used to prevent their male counterparts from voting after ratificat ion of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.7 Those amendments conferred citizenship on previously enslaved persons and barred state or federal restrictions on voting based on race, color, and previous condition of servitude"--

This unique book analyses the impact of international human rights on the concept of gender, demonstrating that gender emerged in the medical study of sexuality and has a complex and broad meaning beyond the sex and gender binaries often assumed by human rights law. The book illustrates which dynamics within the field of human rights hinder the expansion of the concept of gender beyond binaries and which strategies and mechanisms allow and facilitate such an expansion.