An in-depth analysis of the cultural-legal construction of the queer Other in the US and a strong case for suspect classification as a constitutional tool for securing queer rights.

Despite formal equality gains such as LGBTQ workplace protections (Bostock v. Clayton County 2020), heteronormative cultural orders still permeate queer rights discourse. Laura Borchert engages with the cultural-legal construction of sexual minorities in the US and deconstructs naturalized assumptions about the Queer in US law and culture by conducting interdisciplinary wide readings of legal texts. She makes a strong case for utilizing suspect classification to secure queer rights and offers the first distinctively cultural studies perspective on equal protection and sexual orientation by using a queer hermeneutics of law.

Autorentext

Laura Borchert, born in 1989, is a research associate (postdoc) in the DFG-funded project 'Human Rights Discourses in Migrant Societies' and works as a lecturer at Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen's English Department. Borchert was a member of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (GCSC), the International PhD Programme Literary and Cultural Studies (IPP) in Gießen as well as the Gießener Graduiertenzentrum Sozial-, Wirtschafts- und Rechtswissenschaften (GGS). Her research is situated in queer studies, queer legal theory, law and X, and American cultural studies.