The New Sexual Deviancy

• Pages: 911-1000
• Date: 01 May 2025
• Published date: 01 May 2025
• Author: Jordan Blair Woods
• Subject Matter: Derecho Civil

ARTICLES

The New Sexual Deviancy

JORDAN BLAIR WOODS*

An unprecedented wave of legislation targeting LGBTQþcommunities

has swept across the country in recent years. The scope of this legislation

is vast, targeting LGBTQþpeople in key areas such as education,

healthcare, public accommodations, civil rights, free speech, and child

welfare. Dozens of recent anti-LGBTQþbills have become actual law,

and the ones that have not still stigmatize LGBTQþcommunities. Many

of these laws are being challenged in state and federal courts, and in the

2024–25 term, the U.S. Supreme Court will intervene in this space by

deciding whether states can ban access to gender-aff‌irming care for

minors.

This Article argues that severe polarization in U.S. society and the ero-

sion of U.S. democratic institutions and norms have fueled conditions in

recent years for opponents of LGBTQþrights to weaponize moral panics

about LGBTQþpeople as a means of executing right-wing populist and

Christian nationalist agendas that subjugate LGBTQþpeople in law,

politics, and society. The main contribution of this Article demonstrates

how a complex web of antiquated sexual deviance concepts from differ-

ent intellectual traditions is providing the backbone for new legislation

targeting LGBTQþcommunities and legal strategies to defend this legis-

lation nationwide—a phenomenon that I label in this Article as “the new

sexual deviancy.” This new anti-LGBTQþlegal agenda breathes life

into discredited sexual deviance concepts and harnesses institutional

power in the criminal legal system, medicine, and other major societal

institutions (for instance, families and schools) to subjugate LGBTQþ

people and suppress LGBTQþideas in society. As discussed, these sex-

ual deviance concepts are grounded in dated sociological and psycholog-

ical theories of deviance and propagate harmful stereotypes of LGBTQþ

people as deviants, sinners, mentally ill, sexual predators, and dangers

to children.

* Professor of Law and Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The University of Arizona

James E. Rogers College of Law. © 2025, Jordan Blair Woods. I am thankful for the helpful discussions

and suggestions from Albertina Antognini, Barbara Atwood, Andy Coan, Chris Griff‌in, Xiaoqian Hu,

Jason Kreag, Eunice Lee, Sylvia Lett, Toni Massaro, Gavin Milczarek-Desai, Shefali Milczarek-Desai,

Cathy O’Grady, Justin Pidot, Shalev Roisman, Oren Tamir, and Andrew Woods. I am also grateful for

the feedback that I received at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law faculty

workshop. I am thankful for the help and research assistance from the librarians at the Daniel

F. Cracchiolo Law Library at the University of Arizona. Finally, thank you to the editors and staff of The

Georgetown Law Journal for their careful edits, insightful suggestions, and hard work.

911

This Article contends that it is crucial to understand the new sexual

deviancy as moral panic and a vehicle for enduring anxieties about sex-

ual deviance in society. As argued, the new sexual deviancy pushes us

back to a time when sexual deviance concepts rationalized and justif‌ied

LGBTQþpeople’s subordinate status under the law. This Article identi-

f‌ies several major categories of harm that the new sexual deviancy

poses for LGBTQþcommunities today, including encouraging anti-LGBTQþ

societal discrimination, harassment, and violence; worsening LGBTQþmental

health outcomes and disparities; and undermining LGBTQþsocial vis-

ibility in society. These harms are especially devastating for transgen-

der people and LGBTQþyouth who are already highly vulnerable

and are being targeted most under the new sexual deviancy. The new

sexual deviancy also poses broader harms to society as a whole by

threatening core liberal democratic values of pluralism and peaceful

coexistence.

Although challenging the new sexual deviancy will be diff‌icult, this

Article concludes by prompting some meaningful questions for LGBTQþ

social movements and charting some potentially promising avenues of

reform. Those strategies include coalition building, litigation, protest

and community organizing, and voting.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914

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I. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 920

A. DEMOCRATIC DECLINE IN THE UNITED STATES 920

B. “MORAL PANIC” THEORY 923

1. The Dynamics and Trajectory of Moral Panics 924

a. Concern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924

b. Hostility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 924

c. Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 925

d. Disproportionality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 926

e. Volatility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 927

2. Key Players in Moral Panics ......................... 928

a. Mass Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928

912 THE GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 113:911

b. Moral Entrepreneurs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929

c. Societal Control Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930

d. The Public. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 930

II. WHAT IS THE NEW SEXUAL DEVIANCY? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 931

A. BANS ON GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE FOR MINORS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 932

B. BANS ON TRANSGENDER ATHLETE PARTICIPATION IN SPORTS . . . . . . 934

C. RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO BATHROOMS AND CHANGING

FACILITIES........................... ................... 935

D. CURRICULUM CENSORSHIP, FORCED STUDENT OUTING, AND

STUDENT PRONOUNS AND NAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 937

E. ANTI-DRAG LAWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 938

F. TARGETED RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 939

1. Health Care........................................ 940

2. Child Welfare...................................... 940

G. TRANS ERASURE LAWS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 942

III. TRACING THE NEW SEXUAL DEVIANCY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 944

A. SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF DEVIANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945

1. Social Contagion ................................... 945

2. “Improper” Sexual Socialization of Youth ............. 949

3. Religious Authority................................. 954

4. Vice .............................................. 957

B. PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF DEVIANCE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 958

1. Desistance Paradigms ............................... 959

2. Trans Identity as Mental Illness and Psychotherapy as a

“Cure”............................................ 963

3. LGBTQþAdults as Sexual Predators ................. 967

IV. HISTORICIZING THE NEW SEXUAL DEVIANCY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969

A. SODOMY BANS (CRIMINAL LAW) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969

2025] THE NEW SEXUAL DEVIANCY 913