Gender & Sexuality Law Blog

In these uneasy times, it is important that we as lawyers, activists, advocates and citizens seek out clear and factual information and analysis, so as to be able to navigate the waters of uncertainty. As members of the Columbia Law School community, we are grateful for a position where we can develop thoughtful discourse and […]

What new politics and ethical imperatives emerge when the rights of lesbian and gay people begin to gain traction, and when the state becomes a partner in defending those newly-won rights? In Dating the State: The Moral Hazards of Winning Gay Rights, just published by the Columbia Human Rights Law Review, I offer a critical […]

The hot water Anthony Weiner has found himself in after his on-line sexual antics were made public has revealed just how few members of Congress – or anyone for that matter – have his back.  Almost no one has stepped up to help the guy out, including his wife, who’s been out of the country […]

Back in November, the U.S. representative to the UN Human Rights Committee abstained when a vote was taken on a resolution condemning extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions and other killings on the grounds that the final resolution removed a specific mention of sexual orientation-based killings that had been included in the document since 2008 (the […]

Shaireen Rasheed is an associate professor of Philosophical Foundations at Long Island University and Senior Visiting Faculty Fellow at Columbia University Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.  She shares her thoughts on a recent Globe and Mail article reporting on a recent Canadian court’s ruling that a niqab must be removed in the […]

Last Tuesday the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the City of Jerusalem had engaged in impermissible discrimination in its ongoing refusal to fund the City’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community center, Open House.  Year after year, the City had refused funding requests from Open House, and the Court ruled that “The history of the […]

What a difference a few years makes.  It feels like only yesterday that gay-bashing generally, and “gay-marriage” bashing specifically, were the best way for conservative candidates to get out the red-meat base.  In 2004 it was all the rage to have run a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage, and 13 states passed them.  “Gay marriage […]