Queering U.S. Laws and Policies

Catalog description

This course thoroughly investigates the fraught history of U.S. laws and policies intended to police (and, yet, inadvertently producing) “queer” genders and sexualities, broadly construed. Beginning in the colonial period, this course will explore laws regulating marriage, divorce, abortion, gender presentation, immigration, sex work, and sexual assault as they impact the queer communities. It will also consider legal movements for sex- and gender-based rights, LGBTQ+ equality, hate crime legislation, and contemporary laws regulating LGBTQ+ education and medicine. Throughout the course, we will consider the ways in which the law serves to constitute and erase sexual and gendered possibilities of queer individuals; discuss the differences between the law as written and policies in practice; examine the relation between legal applications and ethical aspirations as they concern the rights and recognition of queer individuals; and debate whether the law can or should be a path to queer liberation. Through collaborative in-class activities and discussions informed by an interdisciplinary selection of legal, historical, political-scientific, and theoretical texts, the course will provide students with an extensive knowledge of the ways in which U.S. laws and policies impact the social, personal, and interpersonal experience of queer individuals and communities.