News/Research

Sonia Katyal on LGBTQ+ Rights

11 May, 2022

Sonia Katyal on LGBTQ+ Rights

As every day we hear new reports of laws limiting LGBTQ+ rights, UC Berkeley professors weigh in on the current experience of our LGBTQ+ community.

After a decade of advances in LGBTQ+ rights and visibility, some states are legislating against these groups. Proposed laws extend into schools, medical offices, bathrooms, libraries, and the home. While California has been largely immune to these draconian laws, the harmful impacts are felt acutely here. UC Berkeley professors discuss in this interview the context for these laws (from political machinations to inspiration from far-right demagogues overseas) and their hopes for the future.

Quoted from the news article:

"Sonia Katyal, chair of the campus-wide Haas LGBTQ Citizenship faculty cluster and associate dean for faculty development and research at Berkeley Law: In the public, there’s not a tremendous degree of understanding of what it means to be trans, what it means to be non-binary. And I think that that’s changing, because more and more youth are figuring out who they are and demanding rights and protections based on their identity.

That’s an incredibly exciting thing. But every time you have individuals who demand recognition or demand their rights, you’re always going to have people who may not necessarily understand yet or people who are uncomfortable with this."

To see more highlights of the interviews, please read them here!