Activist Quote by Dean Spade

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

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

Let’s be gentle with ourselves and each other and fierce as we fight oppression.

— Dean Spade

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

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

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

"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

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

Choosing an agenda that supports the apparatuses of racial violence always pays better.

— Dean Spade

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

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

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