Nancy J. Knauer (Temple) has posted Gender Matters: Making the Case for Trans Inclusion on SSRN.  Here is the abstract: 

The transgender communities areproducing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. Forcommunity members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, hasan immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groupswho have attempted to make sense of the world through description,interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. Thetransgender project also has universalizing elements because, existingwithin the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular genderarticulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselvesin relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender wechoose, the gender we create, the gender we reject, the gender we are,and the gender we are assumed to be.

Lesbianand gay advocacy organizations began to incorporate transgender issuesin the late 1990s, as signaled by the now ubiquitous “T” that appearsat the end of the popular acronym “LGBT.” The resulting alliance,however, has been an uneasy one, and the feminist response has beenarguably even less welcoming. This Essay maintains that the progressiveresistance to transgender narratives is rooted in a form ofpost-feminist agnosticism regarding gender that focuses on the temporaland historically contingent nature of gender.

It is difficultto make sense of transgender demands for gender self-definition fromwithin a world view where gender is merely a cultural construct. To thecontrary, contemporary transgender narratives provide a first-handaccount of gender as it is experienced at the beginning of the 21stcentury and establish that gender continues to shoulder great socialmeaning. Once we allow that gender matters, the transgender truthclaims regarding the press and weight of gender no longer ring of falseconsciousness, and the demand for the right to gender self-definitiontakes on a new urgency.

Part II discusses this post-feministgender agnosticism and explains how liberation ideology erased anddemonized transgender identities in traditional feminist and LGBhistories. Part III examines the commonality of all gender narrativesand suggests that perhaps we might all be a little genderqueer. Part IVreminds us that identity formation is historically contingent anddiscusses the opportunities presented by the use of “queer” as astrategic position of alliance. Most importantly, it asks us to imaginewhat types of legal reform would be necessary to create space for thetype of gender self-definition envisioned and demanded by thetransgender narrative – one that respects internal gender identity,gender expression, and gender embodiment. The final section outlinesspecific actions steps to further trans inclusion in our law schools.