Queer Legal Victories: Intersectionality Revisited

QUEER MOBILIZATIONS: LGBT ACTIVISTS CONFRONT THE LAW, pp. 38-51, Scott Barclay, Mary Bernstein and Anna-Maria Marshall, eds., NYU Press, September 2009

14 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2010 Last revised: 2 Feb 2010

See all articles by Darren Rosenblum

Darren Rosenblum

McGill University - Faculty of Law; Pace Law School; University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Date Written: September 1, 2009

Abstract

In my 1995 Article, Queer Intersectionality and the Failure of Lesbian and Gay "Victories,” I merged queer and intersectionality theories to critique four lesbian and gay legal "victories." I argued that queer identity intersected with other identity characteristics, yielding queer communities whose diverse needs reflect their various class, race, gender, and sex identifications. This intersectional perspective led me to view these decisions as victories for only a privileged subset of queer communities who, “but for” their gay or lesbian identity, conform to the “American dream.” The United States’ juridical heterosexism stifled the progressive potential of these cases. Since that Article, the intersectionality of queerness has become accepted wisdom. This Chapter applies a queer intersectional analysis to more recent queer legal successes on privacy and marriage, interrogating both their utility and some of the queer critiques that have greeted them.

Keywords: Discrimination, Intersectionality, Queer, Lesbian, Gay, LGBT, Identity, Equality

Suggested Citation

Rosenblum, Darren, Queer Legal Victories: Intersectionality Revisited (September 1, 2009). QUEER MOBILIZATIONS: LGBT ACTIVISTS CONFRONT THE LAW, pp. 38-51, Scott Barclay, Mary Bernstein and Anna-Maria Marshall, eds., NYU Press, September 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1545307

Darren Rosenblum (Contact Author)

McGill University - Faculty of Law ( email )

3644 Peel Street
Montreal, Quebec H3A 1W9
Canada

Pace Law School ( email )

78 North Broadway
White Plains, NY 10603
United States
914 422 4663 (Phone)

University of California, Berkeley - Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law

Boalt Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-7200
United States

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