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Define “Sex”: Legal Outcomes for Transgender Individuals in the United States

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Handbook of LGBT Communities, Crime, and Justice

Abstract

Transgender individuals have unique experiences with the law. Legal protections against pervasive discrimination have come slowly and, in some cases, not at all. Through litigation, attorneys in the United States have challenged the law’s conceptualization of gender and its definition of sex. Some of these cases have served to fortify protections against discrimination and victimization for transgender individuals. Despite this progress, transgender individuals continue to experience discrimination that affects their physical, psychological, and socioeconomic health. The following chapter discusses a few of the landmark U.S. cases and changes in legislative policy that have been crucial in determining the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 524 West 59th Street, New York, NY, 10019, USA

    Alexis Forbes

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  1. Alexis Forbes
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Correspondence to Alexis Forbes .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany, Albany, New York, USA

    Dana Peterson

  2. School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark, New Jersey, USA

    Vanessa R. Panfil

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Forbes, A. (2014). Define “Sex”: Legal Outcomes for Transgender Individuals in the United States. In: Peterson, D., Panfil, V. (eds) Handbook of LGBT Communities, Crime, and Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9188-0_18

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