Gender and Sexuality Law 2-

Catalog description

This course will focus on how the law treats issues concerning gender and sexuality. The doctrinal themes that will be explored include constitutional notions of privacy/liberty, equality and expression as applied to categories based on gender, sexuality and/or sexual orientation. For example, topics might include the right to sexual privacy (including access to birth control and abortion); discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation (including sodomy laws and same sex marriage); evolving theories of sexuality (including the rights of transgender persons and intersexuals; transsexuals, and the gay gene); identity speech and the First Amendment (including the gay prom case and sexual harassment cases); military exclusions; and the privatization of family law and family formation. The course will examine the relationship between gender and sexuality, based on a multi-disciplinary approach informed by history, medicine, science and broader social and political theories.