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Quote by 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.”

Quote by Dean Spade

Author

Dean Spade, born in 1977, is a writer whose work primarily focuses on social issues such as gender, race, and class, exploring their manifestation in law, politics, and social movements. more

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“Making my work more visual is something I am increasingly excited about. I am hopeful that it will broaden access to some of the ideas being engaged in activist and scholarly communities of which I am part.”

Ideas Community Excited Access Engaged Visuals Hopeful Activist Scholarly

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.”

People Way Mean Important Facts Term Circles Familiar Thoughtful Activist Academic Introducing Circulation

Author:Dean Spade

“I have deliberated carefully about which of the terms that are unfamiliar to many of my readers I wanted to take time to introduce and explain, and which terms I would not introduce, despite the fact that I find them useful in my other work, in teaching, or in other activist contexts.”

Facts Wanted Term Teaching Reader Despite Activist Introducing Take Time Unfamiliar

Author: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 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 model I rely on in my work.”

Writing Kind Understanding Term Needed Models Racism Lists Oppression Rely Etc Odds Xenophobia Top Down Shorthand

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.”

People Thinking May America Racism Resistance Colonialism Indigenous North America Thinking Deeply

Author:Dean Spade

“There are sharply different, competing models of what trans advocacy looks like - those that seek to follow the path laid out by the most visible and well-funded lesbian and gay rights organizations in the US and those that seek to use grassroots strategies, center issues of race and poverty, and aim to dismantle harmful institutions and conditions to redistribute life chances.”

Wells Looks Different Use Chance Race Poverty Path Issues Rights Conditions Gay Models Organization Aim Institutions Strategy Visible Competing Trans Gay Rights Advocacy Grassroots

Author:Dean Spade

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

Pay Support Violence Agendas

Author:Dean Spade

“Military inclusion has never been a central demand from trans populations, who consistently name criminalization, immigration enforcement, poverty and joblessness as top priorities.”

Names Poverty Military Demand Population Priorities Immigration Inclusion Consistently Enforcement Joblessness Trans Top Priorities

Author:Dean Spade

“As trans advocacy has institutionalized and developed, the context of the undemocratic nature of US non-profits and the ways that white, wealthy individuals can intensely influence the directions of advocacy have increasingly come to the surface for trans activists.”

Way Individual White Influence Profit Surface Wealthy Activist Trans Advocacy Non Profit

Author:Dean Spade

“Trans activism in the US has most frequently been grassroots, centered on poverty and criminalization, and often oppositional to the exclusionary "mainstreaming" threads in gay and lesbian politics and feminist politics.”

Poverty Gay Feminist Activism Thread Trans Grassroots

Author:Dean Spade