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Jill Weiss
The Scholars Index represents either LGBTQ identified or
LGBTQ friendly scholars doing work in Queer Theory, Gender
Studies, LGBT Studies Women's Studies, Feminist Studies and
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| "The
Gender Caste System: Identity, Privacy and
Heteronormativity,"
10 Journal of Law & Sexuality 123 (2001), by
Jill Weiss
Excerpt:
The term "norm" as applied to
heterosexuality in our culture is a misnomer: while a
"norm" implies that a minority falls outside it, as in a
standard statistical bell curve, in regard to gender identity
there is no room for outsiders. Thus, heterosexuality is not just
a norm—it goes much further than that. It is actually a
normative principle, a norm which creates a standard to be met,
below which people are not permitted by society to deviate: a
"heteronormative" standard. This standard has been
enshrined into law, transforming a social custom into a legal
control mechanism, a sort of "natural law" theory of
gender.
American law generally mandates that there are
only two genders, male and female, that each person be labeled at
birth, and that the label may not be changed. The derivation of
legal power to regulate our lives in this way has never been
clearly explicated, but has been presumed. Our society assigns a
highly specific set of meanings to each gender. These meanings are
what we call masculinity and femininity. This system appears to be
justified by science, being simply a reflection of the natural
order of biology and heredity. Transsexual people are not only
abnormal, but their very humanity is in question. Our law merely
reflects our society and science in its rejection of the
transsexual claim, denying the right of transsexual people to
self-determination and self-identification...
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Biography
Jill Weiss is an attorney, author and Ph.D.
Candidate (Law & Society) at Northeastern University.
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Organizations & Institutions
Northeastern University
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Fields of Study
| Primary: |
Law |
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Secondary: |
Sociology |
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Published Works
Weiss, Jill. "The Gender Caste
System: Identity, Privacy and Heteronormativity," 10 Law
& Sexuality 123 (2001), available at Jill
Weiss' Homepage.
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Current Projects
I
live in New York, where I prepare students to take the law
school admission test and the graduate record exam. I also
write articles on legal topics. I am moving to Boston in
the fall to begin a Ph.D. program at Northeastern University.
I will be studying the relationship between the law and
society, with particular emphasis on gender, racial and class
differences.
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