I am arguing that it is a mistake for trans activists to focus our resources and attention on winning inclusion in legal equality frameworks, such as anti-discrimination laws and hate crimes laws, that will not provide relief from the life-shortening… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Critical Race Theory offers of discrimination frameworks as ways of understanding and eradicating racism. The focus on "discrimination" as the way to understand racism in the US has meant that racism is considered a question of discriminatory intentions - whether… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
One of the concepts I was having trouble illustrating was the concept that administrative systems create narrow categories of gender and force people into… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Let’s be gentle with ourselves and each other and fierce as we fight oppression. — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
More conservative advocacy work often encourages portrayals of trans people as people who deserve rights. Deservingness, of course, corresponds to national racial, gender and… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Instead of focusing on what the law says about trans people, which is really what the law is saying about itself as a protector… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
In addition to encouraging us to participate in narratives of "deservingness" that cast large parts of our constituencies as "undeserving," legal reform strategies encourage… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
"Oppression" or "systems of oppression" operate as a shorthand terms in much writing and speaking so that we do not have to list all… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
I am interested in recent scholarly work examining the emergence of women's studies and ethnic studies departments and the development of the neoliberal university. — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Choosing an agenda that supports the apparatuses of racial violence always pays better. — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
My work is heavily influenced by critiques that many critical intellectual traditions, especially Critical Race Theory, have made of reform projects focused on legal… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
Legal reform organizations are usually trying to portray their constituents as "hard workers," as "not criminals," as citizens, as part of normative family arrangements,… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
One particular debate that I have seen play out again and again is whether trans people who have more traditional gender expressions or who… — Dean Spade Copy Share Image
