Gender Nonconformity and the Law
Kimberly A Yuracko
Abstract
Sex discrimination in employment has been prohibited by federal law since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When the Act was passed, its target was clear. It sought to end women’s exclusion from particular jobs and to challenge their relegation to a “pink collar” ghetto. In recent years, courts have interpreted Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination in increasingly expansive ways. Not only are workers protected from discrimination based on their biological sex, they are increasingly protected from discrimination based on the ways they express their gender identity. Men percei ... More
Sex discrimination in employment has been prohibited by federal law since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. When the Act was passed, its target was clear. It sought to end women’s exclusion from particular jobs and to challenge their relegation to a “pink collar” ghetto. In recent years, courts have interpreted Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination in increasingly expansive ways. Not only are workers protected from discrimination based on their biological sex, they are increasingly protected from discrimination based on the ways they express their gender identity. Men perceived as inappropriately feminine, women perceived as inappropriately masculine, and transsexuals are winning protection from workplace demands that they conform to the dominant social norms of their sex. In Gender Nonconformity and the Law, Kimberly Yuracko examines the values, beliefs, and principles that are motivating these changes and explores their implications for antidiscrimination law, workplace equality, and social conceptions of gender more broadly.
Keywords:
Discrimination,
Title VII,
Law,
Equality,
Sex,
Gender,
Antisubordination,
Neutrality,
Nonconformity
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300125856 |
| Published to Yale Scholarship Online: May 2016 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300125856.001.0001 |
