The (Legal) Trans Tipping Point: Jurisprudence after Norsworthy v. Beard

• In Event: Critical Perspectives on Civil Rights & Citizenship

Abstract

In 2014, a federal court ruled in Norsworthy v. Beard for the first time that transgender status was a protected category under the U.S. constitution. This decision broke with decades of precedent and helped usher in a new era of trans jurisprudence. In this manuscript, I evaluate this case and contextualize it with the broader context of the trans rights “tipping point” in media, medicine, and politics. Since Norsworthy, dozens of other judges have followed suit and have used this constitutional framing as justification to strike down most anti-trans legislation. In this construction of transgender status as a quasi-suspect class, courts increasingly rely on medical frames that construct transgender identity as binary and dependent on diagnostic criteria. This paper critically analyzes the development of a legal trans identity and its relationship to shifts in culture and medicine to better understand this important juncture in trans jurisprudence and politics. Gaining insight into this crucial pivot contributes to our contemporary understanding of LGBTQ rights, constitutional theory, and socio-legal studies in anticipation of the inevitable review of this doctrinal evolution by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Author

• Kathryn J. Perkins, California State University, Long Beach