Life hasn't always been fair for me. Between growing up Jewish in North Carolina and living openly as a bisexual, I've experienced condemnation and invisibility. While I don't entertain any notion that one person can make life fair for all, I do believe I can help to make life fairer for some. I am particularly interested in helping to make the lives of people who exist outside common gender constructs more fair.
I believe that people who fall outside the traditional categorizations of male and female experience some of the most blatant discrimination in our society. I used to view this as a situation of men keeping down women and transgendered people, but I have seen in recent years that this is a rather elementary perspective. Men and women and transgendered people all experience various forms of discrimination, even if they are heterosexual or monogamous or traditionally gendered. I have experienced prejudice and discrimination as a bisexual person, even though I have a somewhat feminine identity and have periodically chosen men as partners. I have also seen how the choices people make in their personal lives are affected by their gender identities. Who a person lives with, how and when one has children, who one dates, how one makes financial and medical decisions, and more are all determined in part by gender identity and gender attraction.
I am fascinated by the intersections of gender, personal life, and law. To that end, I am interested in studying family law from a gender perspective.
I believe I am prepared for this course of study through my experience as an activist in the bisexual community and through my professional and academic skills. I have spoken at conferences on bisexual community and on the connections between bisexual and transgendered people. I spent much of my undergraduate career discussing ways bisexual people contributed to literature, history, and the social sciences. I am also open about my sexual orientation with my family and my friends, and I have seen how bisexuality has affected the way I make choices in my family life. I am well versed in examining the intersection of gender and society, through my extensive undergraduate coursework in women's studies and through the community I chose to become involved with since graduating. I have also prepared by way of my experience working as a technical writer and as an editor.
Through these professional and personal activities, I have learned how to speak publicly, how to argue my viewpoint, how to research technical material and then translate it into a form anybody can comprehend, how to study, how to fill in gaps of understanding, and how to write with stamina and persistence. These seem to me to be the essential skills of both completing law school and enjoying success as an attorney.