Pride and Prejudices (Queer Lives and the Law)

Both deeply personal and global in scope, Pride and Prejudices presents the life story of international human rights lawyer Keio Yoshida alongside an urgent, engaging overview of the state of LGBTQ+ rights worldwide.

Keio Yoshida came of age in socially conservative Ireland, where homosexuality was criminalized until 1993. Experiencing discrimination and stigma, Yoshida lived a closeted existence, pressured by their loved ones and by larger society to self-censor and hide their true desires and gender expression until they left the country after college.

Intimate and engaging, Pride and Prejudices pairs Yoshida’s story—from coming out as a lesbian, becoming a trailblazing human rights advocate, to later becoming a nonbinary transmasculine rainbow parent—with a treatise on the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ+ rights around the globe. Fascinating examples of landmark case law are covered from the US, Sri Lanka, the UK, India, and more—from Oscar Wilde’s trial in 1895 to Obergefell v Hodges, from “Don’t Say Gay” to Bostock v Clayton County, from Rosanna Flamer Caldera v Sri Lanka to the “gay cake” case.

By weaving together personal history and legal analysis, Yoshida illustrates the devastating consequences of discrimination and criminalization on queer and trans lives, and the importance of stronger legal protections.

Today, as we see increased hostility toward queer and trans communities in the US, Pride and Prejudices offers a hopeful vision of the future—one filled with queer joy and love and liberation—where each of us has the freedom to live our lives authentically, on our own terms.

This brighter and more just world is possible, Yoshida argues, but we must keep fighting for it.