Brenda Cossman

Education and career

Cossman holds degrees in law from Harvard and the University of Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from Queen's University. In 2002 and 2003, she was a Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she was Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University. Her teaching and research is in the area of family law, feminist theory, law and film, and sexuality and the law. Her most recent book on Sexual Citizens: The Legal and Cultural Regulation of Sex and Belonging was published by Stanford University Press in 2007. Her publications include the co-authored Bad Attitudes on Trial: Pornography, Feminism and the Butler Decision (University of Toronto Press) and Censorship and the Arts (published by the Ontario Association of Art Galleries).

She is actively involved in law reform, particularly in the area of same sex couples and definitions of family. She authored reports for the now-defunct Law Commission of Canada as well as the Ontario Law Reform Commission on the legal regulation of adult relationships.

Professor Cossman is also a frequent commentator in the media on issues relating to law and sexuality, most frequently for the Globe and Mail and the CBC. She served as a member of the Pink Triangle Press Board of Directors for 10 years, working as a frequent contributor to their main publication, Xtra!

She is currently the director at The Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies.