Mary Bernstein

Mary Bernstein is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. Her scholarship seeks to understand the role of identity in social movements and how movement actors interact with the state and the law, with a particular focus on the LGBT movement. She has published numerous articles in the fields of social movements, sexualities, gender, and law and is co-editor of three books: Queer Families, Queer Politics: Challenging Culture and the State (Columbia University Press, 2001), Queer Mobilizations: LGBT Activists Confront the Law (NYU Press, 2009) and The Marrying Kind: Debating Same-Sex Marriage Within the Lesbian and Gay Movement (University of Minnesota Press, 2013). Recent publications include “What Are You? Explaining Identity as a Goal of the Multiracial Hapa Movement” (co-authored with Marcie De La Cruz, Social Problems); “Identity Politics” (Annual Review of Sociology); “Paths to Homophobia” (Sexuality Research and Social Policy); “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained? Conceptualizing Social Movement ‘Success’ in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” (Sociological Perspectives); and “Culture, Power, and Institutions: A Multi-Institutional Politics Approach to Social Movements” (co-authored with Elizabeth Armstrong, Sociological Theory). Recent awards include the Outstanding Article Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements (2009). She is currently deputy editor of the journal Gender & Society.

Mary Bernstein is the author of Perry and the LGTBQ Movement.

Urvashi Vaid

Urvashi Vaid is the Director of Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at the Columbia Law School.  Vaid is a long time organizer and leader in the LGBT and progressive movements who has served as executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and a staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project.  She worked for ten years in global philanthropy serving as executive director of the Arcus Foundation and deputy director of the Ford Foundation’s Governance and Civil Society Unit, and   is a current Board member of the Gill Foundation. Vaid is the author of Irresistible Revolution:  Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics and Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation.  She is co-editor with John D’Emilio and William Turner of an anthology of histories of key LGBT policy wins titled Creating Change: Public Policy, Sexuality and Civil Rights.

Professor Vaid is the author of “Now You Get What You Want, Do You Want More?”.

Natasha J. Rivera-Silber

Natasha J. Rivera-Silber is a third-year student at N.Y.U. Law School. Prior to law school, she attended Yale College where she studied History and Ethnicity, Race & Migration.  She then received an M.A. in U.S. History at Yale University, where served as a Teaching Fellow in Gay & Lesbian History and U.S. International History. In law school, she has been an Articles Editor for the N.Y.U. Law Review, an AnBryce Scholar, and a board member of the Latin American Law Students Association.  She also served as a student representative for the N.Y.U. Immigrant Rights Clinic. Through the clinic, she co-authored two amicus briefs for the Supreme Court: one in Vartelas v. Holder, which was cited by the Court, and the other in Arizona v. United States.  Next year, she will join the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. In 2014, she will clerk for the Honorable Ann Claire Williams, United States Court of Appeals Judge for the Seventh Circuit.

Natasha J. Rivera-Silber is the author of “Coming Out Undocumented” in the Age of Perry.

Sara Maeder

Sara Maeder is a second-year law student at NYU, where she is a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar.  Prior to law school, she worked as a paralegal, first at Lambda Legal and then at Children’s Rights.  Sara worked as a legal intern at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project last summer, and will spend this coming summer at The Defender Association in Seattle, WA.  She currently serves as a political action chair of OUTLaw at NYU, and as a staff editor for the Review of Law and Social Change.

Sara Maeder is the author of Divorcing Marriage from its Incidents: Framing Perry as a Celebration of Family Self-Determination.