My research focuses on two themes. First, I investigate how different narratives about sexual violence influence the practice & politics of international law. In particular, my research questions how legal actors interpret or invisibilize men, transgender women, and people outside the gender binary who experience sexual violence. Second, I am interested in broader questions about criminal law & sexual victimhood, focusing on how efforts to address gendered violence can actually result in harmful policy choices (for example, regarding prison rape, sex worker rights, and more).
Below is a selected list of my published work; for more, follow me on Google Scholar.
*****
(Re)Constructing an International Crime: Interpreting Sexual Victimhood in the Rohingya Genocide and Beyond, 45 U. Pennsylvania Journal of Int’l Law 299 (2024).
Decolonizing the Corpus: A Queer Decolonial Re-Examination of Gender in International Law’s Origins, 43 Michigan J. Int’l Law 557 (2022).
Expanding the Gender of Genocidal Sexual Violence: Towards the Inclusion of Men, Transgender Women, and People Outside the Binary, 25 U.C.L.A. Journal of Int’l Law & Foreign Affairs 157 (2021).
Hashtagging Justice: Digital Diplomacy and the International Criminal Court on Twitter, 16 Hague Journal of Diplomacy 391 (2021).
Disciplinary Sodomy: Prison Rape, Police Brutality, and the Gendered Politics of Societal Control in the American Carceral System, 105 Cornell Law Review 1775 (2020).
Concerns About the Non-Inclusion of Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in The Gambia v. Myanmar, Opinio Juris Blog (2020).
‘It Ruined My Life:’ FOSTA, Male Escorts, and the Construction of Sexual Victimhood in American Politics, 26 Virginia J. Social Policy & Law 201 (2020).
Gay Male LAT Couples and the Law, in Living Apart Together: Legal Protections for a New Kind of Family (Cynthia Bowman ed., 2020).
‘Homosexualization' Revisited: An Audience-Focused Theorization of Wartime Male Sexual Violence, 21 Int’l Feminist J. Politics 409 (2019).
Central African Republic: Re-Imagining the Crime of ‘Forced Nudity,’ in Feminist Judgments and the ICC, edited by Louise Chappell, Rosemary Grey, Kcasey McLoughlin, & Suzanne Varrall (forthcoming 2024).
A Hopeful Conversation: Overcoming Impunity for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (Roundtable Discussion with Susana SáCouto, Zubaida Akbar, Karima Bennoune, Lisa Davis, & Beth Van Schaack), Proceedings of the American Society of International Law Annual Meeting (forthcoming 2024).