Suchergebnisse

Despite the availability of some formal legal remedies, women lawyers rarely challenge discriminatory behaviour. This book explores this seemingly contradictory situation, and by exploring lawyers' use of legal discourse in an Internet community, Baumle examines whether the law can in fact serve as a useful tool to challenge inequality.

In this article, I examine how a history of legal conflict has produced a constantly evolving professional identity for lawyers representing lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) clients on family matters. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 21 lawyers, I describe variation across areas of specialization, advertising, clientele, and access to professional networks. In addition, I focus on how sociopolitical and legal context shapes professional identity and practice for these lawyers, demonstrating the importance of practice location for this group of lawyers. Although interviews were conducted prior to national marriage recognition, these findings provide insight into the future development of the LGBT family law profession post‐Obergefell.

ObjectiveTo examine the role of family law attorneys in providing counsel regarding the legal rights, vulnerabilities, and implications of marriage for their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clients.BackgroundAlthough the acquisition of state and federal marital rights could result in a convergence of practice experiences for family lawyers representing LGBT and heterosexual clients, the contentious legal history surrounding LGBT individuals could continue to produce different client demands surrounding marriage.MethodThis study draws on in‐depth interviews with 21 family law attorneys with LGBT clients.ResultsParticipants attributed the demand for legal counseling about the marriage decision to a lack of socialization into marriage and uncertainty and skepticism regarding the permanence of legal changes. They indicated requests for legal counseling varied by age cohort and by the legal and sociopolitical context in which clients were nested.ConclusionThe practice of family lawyers has been responsive to rapid legal and cultural shifts for LGBT individuals and their families, resulting in the emergence of new foci of legal counseling surrounding the marriage decision.ImplicationsFamily lawyers might consider a more concerted effort to offer legal counseling about the marriage decision, particularly for older LGBT clients, those living in negative sociopolitical environments, and different‐sex couples.

Objectives. Prior research has repeatedly shown that parenthood affects employment outcomes; mothers have, on average, lower wages and are less likely to be hired than childless women. Some research indicates that this effect of parenthood on employment outcomes is dependent on sexual orientation. In particular, lesbian mothers might be treated more like childless women by those making employment decisions. This article examines the degree to which the lesbian wage advantage can be explained by lesbians avoiding the motherhood wage penalty experienced by heterosexual women.Methods. Drawing on 2000 U.S. Census data, this issue is first explored via ordinary least squares regression equations that estimate the effect of having a child present in the household on income. The Blinder‐Oaxaca method is then employed to decompose the earnings differential between heterosexual and gay individuals.Results. Results indicate that lesbians appear to experience a motherhood advantage that increases their wages by approximately 20 percent. Further, results support the notion that lesbians receive different returns to the presence of children in the household than do heterosexual women. Approximately 35 percent of the wage differential between lesbians and heterosexual women is attributable to differences in returns to child rearing.Conclusion. These findings have relevance for state and federal anti‐discrimination laws and work/family policies, as they provide further insight into the role that gender, and gender‐based assumptions, play in determining employment outcomes.

This book provides the first compilation of demographic research focused on transgender, nonbinary, and gender minority populations. It discusses the measurement and conceptualization challenges that shape demographic knowledge of these populations, including how we capture gender on surveys. It examines our current knowledge of demographic characteristics and health disparities and outcomes. Overall, this research demonstrates the increasing knowledge of gender variation at the population level. At the same time, it reveals the need for better survey questions, additional data, and inquiry into a broader subset of demographic questions for these populations as there is little understanding of fundamental demographic information, including migration or spatial distribution of transgender populations, fertility and household structure, labor market outcomes, or broader patterns of morbidity and mortality. The research set forth in this book lays the groundwork for a trans demography that would produce population-level knowledge of these populations and points researchers and policymakers toward needed areas of research, conceptualization, and data collection.

The phenomenon of statistical discrimination may take on increasing importance in the future as "traditional" prejudice-based discrimination slowly fades. This article considers how statistical discrimination compares with perspectives on discrimination in sociology, economics, and law. Statistical discrimination fits well with mainstream perspectives in economics, suggesting it is likely to be a common practice and endure even as racial prejudice declines. Statistical discrimination is less central in sociological perspectives on discrimination because they tend to focus on prejudice-based discrimination, ethnic conflict and stratification, and how ethnic group interests are embedded in social institutions. In the area of law, statistical discrimination is treated differently in different situations—sometimes allowable, other times prohibited. The authors note some characteristics of statistical discrimination that set it apart from other forms of discrimination and consider whether standard policies aimed at reducing racial discrimination in employment are likely to be effective in combating statistical discrimination.

For LGBT individuals who have experience exclusion from legal marriage, the choice to suddenly embrace an institution that they perceive as flawed, discriminatory, and symbolic of gender inequality can present irreconcilable differences.

Objective. The goal of this article is to develop and examine eight different scenarios in which the U.S. House of Representatives is reapportioned for the year 2000 on the basis of eight scenarios in which the apportionment population is differentially defined. In each scenario we adjust the 2000 apportionment population of each of the 50 states on the basis of various aspects of immigration, eligibility to vote, the overseas population, and statistical sampling.Method. The method we use to apportion the House under each of the eight scenarios is the method of Equal Proportions, a divisor method that has been used to apportion the House since 1940. It endeavors to assign equitably to the 50 states, on the basis of population size, the 385 House seats that are available to be apportioned. Not all 435 House seats are assigned to the states using this method because each state automatically gets one seat.Results. We show that when the House of Representatives is reapportioned on the basis of any of the eight scenarios, there is a varying amount of redistribution of seats among the states. Many states end up gaining or losing seats, but not all are affected.Conclusion. There have been several legal challenges following the 2000 and earlier apportionments. The results of our analyses suggest that there will continue to be legal challenges to the 2000 and later apportionments. Since it is not likely that the Congress will permit a larger number of representatives than 435, apportionment challenges are really a zero‐sum game. Some states will gain political power, and others will lose it. This redistribution of power and its politically relevant consequences lead us to expect that apportionment challenges regarding the kinds of political and demographic issues raised in this article are not at all unlikely in the future.