Why Gender and Sexuality Matters to Legal Scholarship Right Now

The relationship between gender, sexuality, and the law raises fundamental questions about equality, autonomy, and the role of legal institutions in society. These questions are not confined to any one area of law, but reach across virtually every aspect of legal theory and practice. At a moment when many of the legal questions surrounding gender and sexuality are being reconsidered, contested, and transformed, there is an urgent need for discourse that can help us understand where the law has been, where it is going, and where it might go next.

Academic scholarship has a particular role to play in that conversation. It gives us space to ask questions that do not always fit neatly into a brief, a casebook, or a news cycle. It allows us to examine the assumptions embedded in legal doctrines, identify gaps between law and lived experience, and imagine new approaches to longstanding problems. And importantly, scholarship does not have to remain within the academy. The best legal scholarship can inform advocates, practitioners, policymakers, judges, students, and communities, and can help turn urgent questions into opportunities for meaningful change.

The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law Blog is founded on a simple premise: there is no shortage of important things to say about gender, sexuality, and the law. We want to create a space to say them.

About GJGL

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law explores the impact of gender and sexuality on both the theory and practice of law. GJGL publishes the only annual review in the country dedicated exclusively to gender and the law.

GJGL is uniquely situated to host this conversation. For nearly three decades, GJGL has provided a forum for scholarship examining how law constructs, reinforces, challenges, and responds to gender and sexuality. Our pages have brought together scholars and practitioners across disciplines and areas of law, reflecting the reality that questions of gender and sexuality are not confined to any single legal field.

The Blog builds on that tradition while creating a new space for a different kind of scholarly conversation: one that is timely, accessible, and responsive to the rapidly changing legal landscape.

We also believe that academic rigor and accessibility go hand in hand. This Blog is a companion to our work producing legal scholarship, giving writers the room to respond to developments as they happen, test early ideas, and speak directly to readers in a timely and accessible manner. 

Most importantly, the Blog reflects GJGL’s commitment to community. We want to create a platform where established scholars and emerging voices can participate in the same conversation, where practitioners can bring lessons from the field into academic discourse, and where students can contribute their ideas to debates that will shape the future of gender and the law.

About the Blog

The GJGL Blog will publish short-form pieces of approximately 800–1,500 words that bring legal analysis to questions of gender and sexuality.

We welcome submissions from anyone with something to say. Students, academics, advocates, practitioners, and others with relevant expertise or perspectives are encouraged to pitch us. You do not need to be a traditional academic to have something valuable to contribute to the conversation.

We are intentionally keeping the scope of the Blog broad. Submissions should generally engage with gender and/or sexuality and the law, but we welcome pieces from across legal fields and disciplines. We will prioritize timely scholarship that responds to current events and emerging legal developments, while also welcoming pieces that explore enduring questions, new research, or ideas that deserve greater attention.

Topics might include:

• Gender and constitutional law
• Reproductive rights and reproductive justice
• LGBTQ+ rights and sexuality
• Gender-based violence and the criminal legal system
• Family law and the changing nature of family
• Gender and international law
• Employment discrimination and workplace equality
• Gender, technology, privacy, and artificial intelligence
• Gender and environmental law
• Gender and immigration law
• Gender and national security
• Gender, race, and intersectionality
• The legal regulation of gender identity and expression
• Feminist legal theory and critical approaches to law
• Emerging legislation, litigation, or administrative action
• Analysis of recent court decisions
• Gender implications of developments in any area of law

These are just starting points, not boundaries. If you see a connection between gender, sexuality, and the law, we want to hear about it.

Join the Conversation

The Blog is an invitation to participate in an ongoing conversation about what gender and the law means, and what it should mean, in a changing legal landscape.

We hope the Blog will be a place for timely analysis, ambitious ideas, thoughtful disagreement, and new voices. We hope it will connect scholarship with practice, the academy with advocacy, and today’s legal questions with tomorrow’s possibilities.

Most of all, we hope it will remind us that legal scholarship is not simply an exercise in describing the law as it exists. It can be a way of questioning it, challenging it, and imagining what comes next.

Pitches or fully formed pieces can be submitted to lawgenderjournal@georgetown.edu. If your pitch is accepted, we will ask you to submit a fully formed piece within five business days. Once a piece is selected for publication, we aim to move from submission to publication in less than two weeks.

The legal landscape is changing quickly. The conversation should keep pace.

Welcome to the Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law Blog. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say.

Submission Guide: GJGL Blog submission form