What’s Wrong With Rights? Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics & the Limits of Law

The Critical Law, Gender and Sexualities Speaker Series invites you to a talk by Dean Spade:
What’s Wrong with Rights? Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law.

Much of the legal advocacy for trans and gender nonconforming people

in the US has reflected the civil rights and “equality” strategies of

mainstream gay and lesbian organizations – agitating for legal reforms

that would ostensibly guarantee equal access, nondiscrimination, and

equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the state

and its legal, policing, and social services apparatus – even its policies

and documents of belonging and non-belonging – are neutral and

benevolent. However, many trans people, especially the most

marginalized, are more at risk for poverty, violence, and premature – or

social – death by virtue of those same putatively neutral legal structures.

Join us for a talk by attorney, educator, and trans activist Dean Spade

on his new book Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans

Politics and the Limits of Law (South End Press, 2011). Visit Dean’s

website at www.deanspade.net.

Anyone interested in participating in a reading group of Chapter One of

Normal Life on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 at 4:00pm should contact

Stacy_Douglas@carleton.ca for more information.