Dean Spade

American Quarterly just published an conversation between me, Eric A. Stanley and the authors of Queer (In)Justice.  You can download it here.  Speaking of abolition, last week’s public forum about King County’s plans to pour a ton of money into rehabilitating our youth jail and the court buildings where kids of color get sentenced to jail and parents of color get their kids taken away was very contentious. I wrote something about what happened and why the forum should not have been shut down here.

In other news, Normal Life is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award! Some of the finalists in the Seattle region are reading together on April 25 at 7pm at Vermillion. Hope to see you there!

A few recent things to share: Here is a link to a radio interview between me and the brilliant and inspiring activist-scholars Eric Stanley and Reina July about trans politics and prison abolition that took place in January on Romantic Friendship radio.  I also want to share this open letter created by activist from a recent LGBTQ delegation to Palestine that I participated in in January.  Please sign on!  Below is a photo from my trip–a mural on a part of the separation wall.  I’m working on creating some writing about my trip to share with photos that will hopefully be posted here soon.  Finally, Toshio Meronek recently interviewed Eric Stanley and I about Captive Genders and Normal Life in advance of our trip to speak at UC Davis. You can read Toshio’s article here.

I just posted my Law and Social Movements syllabus for this coming spring semester.  I made some changes, added some new materials, and I’m excited to see what happens.  Also, KUOW recorded my recent book talk at Elliott Bay Book Company and played it on the radio. You can listen here.

Normal Life is available in stores now! I hope you’ll order it from your independent bookstore.

I’ve just posted an article I wrote for a 2010 symposium about the impact of Judith Butler’s work on legal scholarship that was recently published by the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law.  I welcome feedback!

The exciting new online journal, feminists@law, recently published their first issue.  I wrote a little essay in there about what feminist legal theorists might learn from science fiction.  And I’ve just updated my list of upcoming speaking engagements. Have a look in case you want to come by!

Meaghan Winter recently interviewed me for Guernica, have a look. In other news, I’m very excited that Nat Smith and Eric Stanley’s anthology, Captive Genders: Transembodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex is coming out in August.  Finally, I’m happy to report that, working with the editors at South End Press, I’ve finally settled on a title for my forthcoming book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law.

I wrote up a little something about the language that we use to talk about body parts that are most strongly associated with gender norms. It might be of use, particularly, to health practitioners and others who talk about bodies a lot.

I wrote up a little summary of some of the things I often tell people who come to me because they are considering law school and want to know if it is a good route to making transformative change.   I hope this might be a helpful document for activists considering law school.