'Normal Life' looks at the current moment in trans politics, understanding that it is often assumed that trans resistance strategies should mimic the lesbian and gay legal rights frameworks that have become so visible in recent decades. — 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 conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses… — Dean Spade Copy Share
One of the concepts I was having trouble illustrating was the concept that administrative systems create narrow categories of gender and force people into them in order to get their basic needs met - what I call "administrative violence." I had images of forms with gender boxes and ID cards with gender markers, but I also wanted an image that… — Dean Spade Copy Share
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 these systems of meaning and control each time (i.e. racism, ableism, xenophobia, etc.). I needed a term like that, but "oppression" implies a kind of top-down understanding of power that is at odds with the Foucaultian… — Dean Spade Copy Share
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 "pass" more should be the ones who are represented. A recent advocacy guide focused on advocating around trans health care access produced by the largest trans advocacy organization in the US instructs readers that advocacy will… — Dean Spade Copy Share
