ABSTRACT

This chapter recognizes the ways in which the institution of marriage has evolved with changing cultural, political and religious sentiments. It analyzes how the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, specifically the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause, of the US Constitution has transformed to grant citizens the right to marry. The term berdache is a term dating back to the 1700s and was coined by Europeans to describe 'special gender roles in Native-American cultures that anthropologists have interpreted as ceremonial trans-vestitism, institutionalized homosexuality, and gender variance/multiple genders'. The Court noted that society's understanding of human sexuality also evolved over time, especially with regard to the ways in which gays and lesbians were treated by medical science and under the law. In addition, there is a common misconception that all transgender people undergo sex-reassignment surgery.