Dean Spade Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

Arguing Failing Focus Gender Immigration Poverty Racism

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.

Dean Spade

Gay, Organization, Issues

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
"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.

Dean Spade

Xenophobia, Writing, Top Down

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

9 Copy quote
Legal reform has significant dangers: changing only the window-dressing of harmful systems but leaving the violence of the systems in tact, failing to provide actual relief for those facing the worst conditions, and legitimizing or expanding systems of harm.

Dean Spade

Leaving, Reform, Relief

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
I went to law school which is a 3-year program in the US that is focused primarily on memorizing certain doctrines and taking exams that test whether you can apply those doctrines to help prepare for the bar exam. If you are lucky, you get a few classes where you are encouraged to think more critically and read critical texts rather than just casebooks, and perhaps write a paper that is not a legal memo or brief.

Dean Spade

Writing, School, Thinking

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

6 Copy quote
Over the past decade I have watched many friends go through graduate school and write dissertations. Through that process, I have seen how they are guided by mentors to understand particular norms within their disciplines and to learn about what they can and cannot, should and should not say, and which ideas can go together and which cannot. I never went through this process.

Dean Spade

Writing, School, Past

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Hard Work, Organization, White

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
We should interact with legal reform tactically, knowing that it will not meet our ultimate goals but asking whether there are ways that engaging with particular reforms might benefit our work and help reduce certain harms or dangers.

Dean Spade

Knowing, Goal, Reform

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

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

Dean Spade

Military, Names, Priorities

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
Trans rights formation that mimics the models and strategies of the lesbian and gay rights framework is growing, and there are many significant strategy disagreements between those building that work and those doing racial and economic justice centered trans work.

Dean Spade

Gay, Rights, Justice

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Successful, Men, Expression

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Teaching, Facts, Introducing

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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

Development, Study, Scholarly

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Mean, Thoughtful, Circles

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
'Normal Life' looks at the current moment in trans politics, understanding that it is often assumed that trans resistance strategies should mimic the lesbian and gay legal rights frameworks that have become so visible in recent decades.

Dean Spade

Gay, Rights, Understanding

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

White, Way, Influence

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
My work is heavily influenced by critiques that many critical intellectual traditions, especially Critical Race Theory, have made of reform projects focused on legal equality.

Dean Spade

Race, Intellectual, Reform

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
I strive to find materials that will engage students, expand their capacities as critical readers and thinkers, and feel immediately relevant to their daily lives and future work in court and social service systems.

Dean Spade

Students, Daily Life, Strive

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Book, Teaching, Talking

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Ideas, Hopeful, Community

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses to get a single class on race or poverty offered - I developed most of my thinking about these topics through activist reading groups and collaborative writing projects with other activist scholars.

Dean Spade

Reading, Writing, School

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
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.

Dean Spade

Attachment, Talking, Ideas

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
I wrote Normal Life using concepts that have been helpful to me, and hoping to offer those as accessible tools for thinking differently about the pitfalls trans resistance faces, in particular the temptation to focus on legal equality and the limitations of that approach, and the alternative approaches being taken by racial and economic justice focused trans activists.

Dean Spade

Taken, Thinking, Justice

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
We have seen the most well-funded gay and lesbian rights organizations valorize the US military in their work seeking inclusion in military service.

Dean Spade

Military, Gay, Rights

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

4 Copy quote
I often notice how students can gain the capacity to use certain critical methodologies through engaging with very different texts - how a graphic novel about gentrification and an anthology about Hurricane Katrina and a journalistic account of war profiteering might all lead to very similar classroom conversations and critical engagement. I'm particularly interested in this when teaching law students who often resist reading interdisciplinary materials or materials they interpret as too theoretical.

Dean Spade

War, Teaching, Reading

"On Normal Life". Interview with Natalie Oswin, societyandspace.org. January 15, 2014.

10 Copy quote

Latest quotes from interviews

"It feels like every person is using their whole brain and heart to figure out these nearly impossible dilemmas about how we do our work, with our principles, in the current conditions. And it feels like the thing we know to be true about working collectively - that we have better ideas together than we do individually."

- Dean Spade,

societyandspace.com, added Sep 22, 2015

More (46)