“Instead of focusing on what the law says about trans people, which is really what the law is saying about itself as a protector of trans people, we should be focused on what systems of law and administration do to trans people and our interventions should aim to dismantle harmful, violent systems such as criminal punishment and immigration enforcement.” PeopleShouldLawAimFocusedCriminalsPunishmentViolentImmigrationAdministrationEnforcementInterventionTransProtector Author:Dean Spade
“When social movements engage in legal reform, they often mobilize images of people from their constituent population who most match national norms about what "deserving citizens" are like, and use those people as spokespeople and as lead plaintiffs in legal cases. This strategy requires that people who are experiencing intersectional harm - who are vulnerable through multiple vectors of demonization and marginalization - be further marginalized and disappeared by the advocacy.” PeopleUseSocialCasesMovementCitizensStrategyPopulationHarmVulnerableReformMultipleNormDeservingConstituentsAdvocacyMarginalizedSocial MovementsMarginalizationVectorsSpokespeople Author: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, and as conforming to white norms as much as possible. When these strategies are used, the most dangerous conditions and the people who are most vulnerable cannot be discussed or addressed.” PeopleTryingHardUsedWhiteConditionsDangerousHard WorkCitizensOrganizationStrategyWorkersCriminalsVulnerableReformArrangementsConformNormConstituentsHard Worker Author:Dean Spade
“When we approach legal reform work, we can ask questions like: Will this provide actual relief to people facing violence or harm or will it primarily be a symbolic change? Will this divide our constituency by offering relief only to people with certain privileged statuses (such as people with lawful immigration status, people with jobs, married people, etc.)?” PeopleJobsCertainAsksViolenceApproachMarriedHarmImmigrationReformReliefEtcDividesOfferingPrivilegedSymbolic Author:Dean Spade
“Intellectual traditions emerging from populations that have always been the constitutive other in the development of the properly free citizen - indigenous people, populations labeled physically or mentally unfit, black people, migrants, women, prisoners - have always produced robust critiques of the what Dylan Rodriguez calls "white bourgeois freedom."” PeopleBlackWhiteDevelopmentCitizensIntellectualTraditionPopulationPrisonerBlack PeopleDylanIndigenousEmergingCritiqueBourgeoisRobustMigrantsIndigenous People Author:Dean Spade
“I see the concepts spatially in my mind. I see the boxes and corrals and grids into which administrative systems require people, things and information to be fit in order to be legible, made to live, or in order to facilitate death and abandonment.” PeopleMindMadeOrderInformationFitConceptsBoxesAbandonmentFacilitateAdministrativeGrids Author:Dean Spade
“I am often talking about the ideas collected in Normal Life in contexts that are not academic, or that are full of people who are not primarily engaging as theorists or theory-readers. Being able to make ideas visual, especially critical ideas about movements that can be difficult to hear because of attachments we have to certain national narratives, or because of ways that we see ourselves, is especially useful.” PeopleWayIdeasAbleCertainDifficultTalkingMovementTheoryReaderNormalCriticalNarrativeVisualsAttachmentAcademicEngagingNormal LifeTheorists Author:Dean Spade
“In recent years I have become more interested in making the critical ideas that I love teaching and talking about available in more forms, because many people prefer to engage with ideas in films, infographics, comics and other forms that are not traditional books or articles.” PeopleYearsBookIdeasFilmFormTalkingTeachingAvailableCriticalTraditionalArticlesLove Teaching Author: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 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 would capture how basic services like shelters are gender segregated.” PeopleNeedsWantedFormOrderForceViolenceTroubleMetsConceptsBoxesGenderCardsCategoriesCaptureShelterAdministrativeMarkersBasic NeedsIllustrating Author:Dean Spade
“Gender segregated shelters are inaccessible to many trans people, and trans women in particular are often forced to choose between going into a men's shelter where they face enormous danger, or remaining street homeless and facing the violence, harassment, arrest, and exposure risks of that.” PeopleMenFacesViolenceRiskStreetsDangerParticularGenderEnormousShelterHomelessExposureTransHarassmentInaccessible Author:Dean Spade
“I am thoughtful about introducing terms that tend to be in circulation primarily in academic circles. "Homonormativity" and "homonationalism" are by no means solely academic terms, and in fact circulate in important ways in many activist circles, but in general I find them to be terms that most people I meet are not familiar with.” PeopleWayMeanImportantFactsTermCirclesFamiliarThoughtfulActivistAcademicIntroducingCirculation Author:Dean Spade
“Many people who are drawn to work about racism and transphobia may be new to thinking deeply about colonialism and indigenous resistance in their North America.” PeopleThinkingMayAmericaRacismResistanceColonialismIndigenousNorth AmericaThinking Deeply Author: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 ability norms.” PeopleCoursesAbilityRightsDeserveConservativeGenderNormTransAdvocacyPortrayal Author: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 "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 be more successful if the message is delivered by people who pass as non-trans men and women.” PeopleIfsMenShouldPlayCareSuccessfulParticularExpressionReaderMessagesMen And WomenOrganizationGenderFocusedGuidesAccessDebateTraditionalHealth CareAgain And AgainTransAdvocatingAdvocacy Author:Dean Spade
