Williams Institute

Since the mid 20th century, psychologists and medical researchers have used the term sex to broadly describe a biological state dealing with genes and anatomy, whereas gender is a sociological behavior or role.

Distinguishing between sex and gender in the law is a relatively new practice, says Ilana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The institute focuses on LGBTQ policy.

Distinguishing between sex and gender in the law is a relatively new practice, says Ilana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

The institute focuses on LGBTQ policy.

There's been a line of thinking for decades that, uh, the term sex is kind of an umbrella term, and that gender is a component of that umbrella term.

And the reality of it is that we have to address these systemic inequalities that range from cultural things like a lack of acceptance among peers, family, friends, et cetera, to, uh, actual structural barriers like lack of access to medical care, uh, lack of access to therapy and things like that.

Um, y- studies have found time and time again what many people logically deduce from the Williams Institute study on, uh, the trans population, uh, suicide rate, the press release they, uh, published a couple years back, um- You know, many people have logically deduced from the Williams Institute study that it is minority stress and trans-pacific bigotry that increases suicide ideation and attempts in trans people, not merely being trans in itself.

For example, the 2024 Legacy Project study from Brown and Harvard called Lower Levels of Social Support Are Associated With Risk for Future Suicide Attempts in a Clinical Sample of Transgender and Gender Diverse Adults pretty much delivers the conclusion right there in the title.

I've got a link for that if anyone's interested.

Do not come for me, please.

There is a Williams Institute survey from UCLA School of Law.

This summer, 74% of them had found plan on voting in this midterm election.

That is nutty, and that is great.

It's a mystery.

Jody Herman, senior scholar at the Williams Institute, a research center at UCLA on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, questioned whether the data revealed a meaningful shift in behavior.

The study doesn't provide, this is a quote, the study doesn't provide confidence intervals to determine whether the differences are actually significant.

She wrote in an email to the Washington Post, the narrative around the decline in LGBT identity.

Before we let him go, let's put William's story in context because the numbers tell us he is far from alone.

Today, according to latest estimates from the Williams Institute at UCLA, more than 2.8 million Americans aged 13 and older identify as transgender, about 1% of the population.

Nearly 3.3% of teenagers identify that way, and here's the figure that should make everyone pause.

Young adults age 18 to 24 are roughly seven times more likely to identify as transgender than Americans over 35.

I can't imagine the real scope.

The Williams Institute of Law at UCLA does a fantastic job of tracking these crimes and says that trans folks report violent victimization at rates four times higher than cisgender folks.

And as far as school bullying and harassment goes, more than 40% of trans kids report bullying compared to 20% for cisgender students.

Early listeners of Crime Adjacent might remember our coverage back in season two of Gwen Araujo, the 17-year-old California girl who was murdered at a party in 2002 when her supposed friends learned she was a trans girl.

Transgender voters around the country could face unique and possibly insurmountable barriers during this fall's midterm elections because of voter identification laws, according to the University at, at UCLA.

The report by Williams Institute at their Uni- UCLA School of Law said nearly three hundred and twenty-four thousand of the nation's estimated one point three million eligible transgender voters could be affected with more than a hundred and thirteen thousand promo- p- potentially denied ballots in states with strict photo requirement, photo requirements.

[coughs] Prohibiting or restricting eligible voters from voting undermines democracy, lo- undermines democracy and undermines transgender citizens from having a voice in, voice in electoral process," said Jody Herman, the institute's senior scholar of public policy.

Voter ID laws, she said, could potentially disenfranchise a substantial number of transgender people and be particularly impactful in elections decided by a small number of votes.

Voter verification has been a major priority of the second Trump administration, which has been pushing Congress to pass the Save America Act, a measure that would require photo ID to vote and limit the types of ideven- identification that could be presented.

States have increasingly tightened up their own laws, with at least nineteen states imposing new voter ID restrictions.

The Williams Institute, a think tank focu-focused on sexual orientation and gender identity law and policy, said trans people are more likely to encounter trum-complications in the 33 states with voter ID laws where elections are conducted primarily in person rather than through mail-in ballots.

Voters in those states face additional verification steps at the polling places, in the strictest cases have to present a government-issued photo ID with no ident-- alternatives for those without such identification.

It is less of a surprise then that Professor Sochuk is a constitutional law scholar and a philosopher of art whose work ranges from equality and free speech law to academic freedom to topics at the intersection of law and aesthetics.

Professor Sochuk's work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, referenced and excerpted in leading case books in civil procedure, sexual orientation law, and immigration law, discussed by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and honored with the Duke Menier Award from UCLA's Williams Institute for the year's best article on sexual orientation and gender identity law.

Professor Socek's book, which is the focus of Today's discussion, The Opinionated University, subtitled Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education, was published in the University of Chicago Press just this year.

Welcome, Brian.