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E.J. Graff

E.J. Graff writes on social-justice and human-rights issues, particularly discrimination and violence against women and children; marriage and family policy; and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lives. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center and the author of What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).

Recent Articles

Marry Me in ... Maine?

E.J. GraffOct 23, 2012
The sixth in a Prospect series on the 174 ballot measures up for a vote this November. Last week, I announced my caution about the chances of winning same-sex marriage at the ballot in Maryland . Just after I wrote that, a Washington Post poll showed that voters are leaning 52 percent to 43 percent in favor of upholding the marriage-equality law there. I got a lot of pushback, based on that poll. Look, that’s better than the reverse. But those of us who have watched same-sex marriage get voted on—and voted down—32 times since 1996 have learned a few basic things: The spread is meaningless. All undecideds vote against us. Our side loses two to five points at the ballot. We end up where we started before the campaign. I don’t think that voters lie to the pollsters. I think that most people don't think about lesbians and gay men very much. If they don't give the issue much thought, they vote for the status quo: marriage as they've always known it. Faced with the sentence “marriage is...

Another One Bites the Dust

E.J. GraffOct 18, 2012
The cognoscenti have been telling me that the Supreme Court won't officially decide whether or not to take a DOMA case until after the election, lest they influence our voting one way or another. But today we got yet another clue that they will have to—and which way they will almost certainly decide. That's because today the Second Circuit Court of Appeals announced that it finds DOMA Section 3 unconstitutional, in yet another decision written by a conservative Republican-appointed judge, as was true in the Massachusetts cases decided by the First Circuit. The case: Edie Windsor, a widow who had been with her wife for 40 years—legally married, of course, only for a few years at the end—was suing the federal government for taxing her wife's estate as if they were legal strangers. A New York federal trial court judge decided summarily that was unconstitutional nonsense—as has every federal court that's heard such a case, in now ten opinions. The Second Circuit today upheld that, saying...

Voting While Trans

E.J. GraffOct 18, 2012
(AP Photo/Stephan Savoia)
Here’s the thing I loved about talking with Mara Keisling this week: her flat-out declaration that transpeople are winning their civil rights and cultural acceptance battles. I’m crazily Tiggerish on lesbian and gay issues: we’ve come so far so unbelievably fast, over my lifetime, that some days I bounce with glee. But given that the trans part of the LGBT coalition got started about 15 years later and has had very different challenges, I was still an Eeyore about their efforts. So it made my day to hear Keisling, the National Center for Transgender Equality executive director, declare a coming victory. “Science is on our side, first of all,” she explained. “Common sense is on our side. Decency is on our side. When you get that combination, you win every time.” But of course, winning is not the same as has won— which is why we were discussing the right to vote, and whether transpeople will be able to exercise it this year. Until NCTE launched its “ Voting While Trans ” initiative, it...

Marry Me in Maryland?

E.J. GraffOct 16, 2012
(Flickr/mdfriendofhillary)
(Flickr/friendofhillary) In all probability, Marylanders for Marriage Equality will be disappointed by November 6th's referendum results. This fall, opponents of marriage equality will lose a much-beloved talking point: that in every state in which same-sex marriage has gone on the ballot, voters have rejected it. On November 6, the freedom to marry someone of the same sex is up for a vote in four states: Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington. Each state's initiative and situation is quite different, but in at least one (Maine), and possibly three (Maine, Maryland, and Washington), voters are going to offer marriage licenses to their lesbian and gay neighbors. Let's start by looking at Maryland. The backstory: In February, the Maryland legislature passed, and on March 1, Governor Martin O'Malley enthusiastically signed, a marriage-equality law. Named in jujitsu fashion, "The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act" explicitly addressed the canard that allowing civil...

Are Women Better Off Than We Were Four Years Ago: Take Two

E.J. GraffOct 11, 2012
The story so far. Last week I objected to the question “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” I object to the idea that my well-being can be reduced purely to economics, or to few things that the president can affect. (One colleague wrote: My 90-year-old mother would certainly say she’s not better off than she was four years ago, but that’s more about her health than about her wallet!) So I’m going to hijack that question for my own purposes and ask: Are women better off than we were four years ago—not just financially, and not just in ways affected by President Barack Obama’s administration, but overall? Last week we checked in on our financial well-being, given that finances are indeed important. But there’s more to life than our checkbooks and retirement plans. So welcome to Episode Two: Our Bodies, Our Well-Being. There’s some good news and some bad news. As you know, this past year, some prominent menfolk have been deeply distressed to learn that we believe that...

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