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.

Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of the state and federal courts in furthering the goals of the gay and lesbian community. Unlike Mezey's earlier book, Queers in Court, this book evaluates the extent to which litigation is effective in advancing equal rights for gay families-families in which at least one member is gay-as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations such as the Boy Scouts along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases, and assesses the degree to which the outcome of the litigation is explained by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics.

Susan Gluck Mezey's newest book, Gay Families and the Courts, is a compelling examination of the role of the state and federal courts in furthering the goals of the gay and lesbian community. Unlike Mezey's earlier book, Queers in Court, this book evaluates the extent to which litigation is effective in advancing equal rights for gay families_families in which at least one member is gay_as they seek to expand their opportunities and battle discrimination. Mezey shows how the courts address gay and lesbian rights and sexual orientation in schools and social organizations such as the Boy Scouts along with family-oriented problems such as marriage and parenthood. In doing so, Mezey emphasizes the complexity of the issues involved in the cases, and assesses the degree to which the outcome of the litigation is explained by the type of case, the type of court, and the judge's perception of his or her role as a policymaker. It is a valuable reference for scholars interested in judicial, legislative, and executive policymaking at the federal and state level as well as anyone interested in LGBT politics.

In Queers in Court, Susan Gluck Mezey examines the contemporary battle for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, tracing the evolution of issues from same sex marriage and privacy rights to military service and employment discrimination. By combining analyses of nearly three hundred cases from both federal and state courts with detailed explorations of the paths these issues have taken through legislative and executive bodies, she provides the most comprehensive analysis of queer rights in law and policy to date. Both scholars seeking a case study in minority rights and those looking for a primer in gay and lesbian politics will find Mezey's book of interest.

In Queers in Court, Susan Gluck Mezey examines the contemporary battle for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, tracing the evolution of issues from same sex marriage and privacy rights to military service and employment discrimination. By combining analyses of nearly three hundred cases from both federal and state courts with detailed explorations of the paths these issues have taken through legislative and executive bodies, she provides the most comprehensive analysis of queer rights in law and policy to date. Both scholars seeking a case study in minority rights and those looking for a primer in gay and lesbian politics will find Mezey's book of interest.

This book examines the transgender community's struggle for equality over the last decade, comparing the Obama and Trump administrations' stance on transgender rights policies. Transgender rights claims have assumed an important place on the nation's policymaking agenda as society has increasingly become aware that transgender individuals are subject to discrimination because they do not conform to the norms of the gender identity they were assigned at birth. With Congress virtually absent from the policymaking process, the executive branch and the federal courts have been chiefly responsible for determining the parameters of transgender rights policies. The study contrasts the Obama administration's efforts to expand equal rights for the transgender community, especially in employment, education, and military service, with the Trump administration's determination to rescind the Obama-era initiatives. In their efforts to do so, Trump administration officials have urged the courts to reverse decisions extending the benefit of civil rights laws and constitutional guarantees to the transgender community, arguing that gender identity is outside the scope of these protections. Although most federal courts have been inclined to accept the Obama administration's perspective on transgender rights, ultimately, this will be a matter for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. The book is appropriate for students, scholars, and interested general readers.

This book examines the transgender community's struggle for equality over the last decade, comparing the Obama and Trump administrations' stance on transgender rights policies. Transgender rights claims have assumed an important place on the nation's policymaking agenda as society has increasingly become aware that transgender individuals are subject to discrimination because they do not conform to the norms of the gender identity they were assigned at birth. With Congress virtually absent from the policymaking process, the executive branch and the federal courts have been chiefly responsible for determining the parameters of transgender rights policies. The study contrasts the Obama administration's efforts to expand equal rights for the transgender community, especially in employment, education, and military service, with the Trump administration's determination to rescind the Obama-era initiatives. In their efforts to do so, Trump administration officials have urged the courts to reverse decisions extending the benefit of civil rights laws and constitutional guarantees to the transgender community, arguing that gender identity is outside the scope of these protections. Although most federal courts have been inclined to accept the Obama administration's perspective on transgender rights, ultimately, this will be a matter for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. The book is appropriate for students, scholars, and interested general readers.

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.

Focusing on a class action lawsuit against the Illinois child welfare system (B. H. v. Johnson), "Pitiful Plaintiffs" examines the role of the federal courts in the child welfare policymaking process and the extent to which litigation can achieve the goal of reforming child welfare systems.

Beginning in the 1970s, children's advocates asked the federal courts to intervene in the child welfare policymaking process. Their weapons were, for the most part, class action suits that sought widespread reform of child welfare systems. This book is about the tens of thousands of abused and neglected children in the United States who enlisted the help of the federal courts to compel state and local governments to fulfill their obligations to them. Based on a variety of sources, the core of the research consists of in-depth, open-ended interviews with individuals involved in the Illinois child welfare system, particularly those engaged in the litigation process, including attorneys, public officials, members of children's advocacy groups, and federal court judges. The interviews were supplemented with information from legal documents, government reports and publications, national and local news reports, and scholarly writings. Despite the proliferation of child welfare lawsuits and the increasingly important role of the federal judiciary in child welfare policymaking, structural reform litigation against child welfare systems has received scant scholarly attention from a political science or public policy perspective. Mezey's comprehensive study will be of interest to political scientists and public policy analysts, as well as anyone involved in social justice and child welfare.