Beyond Marriage: Continuing Battles for LGBT Rights

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In this book, Susan Gluck Mezey examines LGBT policymaking over the last several decades, highlighting advances in LGBT rights as well as formidable challenges that still confront the LGBT community. With an emphasis on courts, she traces developments in the struggles for LGBT rights in the United States and abroad. The chapters focus on employment discrimination, transgender rights, marriage equality, and the ongoing battles over discrimination against same-sex couples and transgender persons in education, employment, and public accommodations. It also adds a global perspective by appraising issues affecting LGBT rights in other parts of the world, discussing claims of discrimination in the Canadian and South African courts as well as in the European Court of Human Rights. Mezey provides a succinct and accessible guide to the debates over sexual orientation and gender identity, evaluating the roles played by state and federal courts, legislatures, and chief executives in formulating and implementing LGBT policy. Suitable as an up-to-date resource for anyone interested in LGBT rights, Beyond Marriage will also help students in upper-level classes focusing on judicial politics, public policymaking, family law, civil rights, gender policy, and minority group politics understand ways forward for the LGBT community in the political realm.

Reviews

While Beyond Marriage is certain to inspire scholars in the field, it also has great utility in undergraduate and graduate courses on LGBTQ Politics, Law & Society, Minority Politics, Public Law, and even Judicial Process. While Mezey provides rich granular detail that is sure to please those with a deep interest in the law and legal procedures, her narrative writing style and humanization of those involved in legal disputes pulls the reader in and makes the book accessible to undergraduates. The book is highly organized with each chapter focusing on a different topic, and while the author obviously supports LGBTQ rights the book provides extensive analysis without becoming anything close to polemical. Overall, Beyond Marriage is an excellent addition to the literature for both scholars and students. * Law and Politics Book Review *
Beyond Marriage carries on Susan Gluck Mezeys consummate chronicle of how courts and other policymaking institutions have handled the civil rights claims of queer folk. The book updates and expands the comprehensive accounts mounted in Mezeys earlier work through an exhaustive investigation of issues affecting the transgender community as well as how LGBT litigants have fared abroad. Her fascinating narrative about Eighth Amendment cruel-and-unusual-punishment lawsuits brought by prisoners alleging gender-identity discrimination is alone worth the purchase price. This revealing volume fills an important lacuna in the human rights literature. -- Daniel R. Pinello, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
[An] important overview of the political and legal developments that shape the past, present and future of LGBT rights. In highlighting the importance of the courts in advancing LGBT rights, she provides a useful and penetrable reference to help scholars quickly understand the trends in litigation. From Title VII and Title IX cases, to lawsuits involving medical care for transgender identified prisoners, Mezey covers it. -- Jami Taylor, University of Toledo
Did LGBT groups make the right call when they decided to rely heavily on the courts to further their goal of equal treatment In this compelling, meticulous, and cogently written book, Mezey argues that they did---despite some pushback and despite remaining challenges. Beyond Marriage falls in the "must read" category for anyone interested in LGBT rights in particular and the role of the courts in democratic societies more generally. -- Lee Epstein, Washington University in St. Louis
The movement for full LGBT equality and citizenship has been called the defining civil rights struggle of our time.Susan Mezeys new book explains why that struggle did not end with the achievement of legal marriage, but continues to unfold. Backlash against marriage equality continues.Employment discrimination continues.The quest for transgender dignity must overcome fear and ignorance. Professor Mezey examines these issues and more with a deep knowledge of the movement and a gift for clear explanation. -- Steve Sanders, Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Author Bio

Susan Gluck Mezey is a professor emeritus of political science at Loyola University Chicago; she holds a Ph.D. from Syracuse University and a J.D. from DePaul University. Her books include Elusive Equality: Womens Rights, Public Policy, and the Law, 2d ed. (2011); Gay Families and the Courts: The Quest for Equal Rights (2009); Queers in Court: Gay Rights Law and Public Policy (2007); Disabling Interpretations: Judicial Implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (2005); and Pitiful Plaintiffs: Child Welfare Litigation and the Federal Courts (2000).