Dean Spade
Encyclopedia
Dean Spade is a lawyer, civil rights activist, writer, and Assistant Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law. In 2002, he founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project
, a non-profit law collective in New York City
that provides free legal services to transgender
, intersex
and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. Spade was a staff attorney at SRLP from 2002 to 2006, during which time he presented testimony to the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission
and helped achieve a major victory for transgender youth in foster care in the Jean Doe v. Bell case. More recently, Spade was involved with the campaign to stop Seattle from building a new jail.
The Advocate
named Spade one of their "Forty Under 40" in May 2010. Utne Reader
named Spade and Tyrone Boucher on their list of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in 2009, for their collaborative project Enough: The Personal Politics of Resisting Capitalism.
Spade was the 2009-2010 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY Law School, the Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School
, and was selected to give the 2009-2010 James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale Law School
. He received a Jesse Dukeminier
Award for the article "Documenting Gender". Spade's current research interests include the impact of the War on Terror on transgender rights, the bureaucratization of trans identities, and models of non-profit governance in social movements. His first book, Critical Trans Politics, is forthcoming from South End Press
.
Spade has collaborated extensively in the past, including editing two special issues of Sexuality Research and Social Policy with Paisley Currah
and coauthoring a guide to Medical Therapy and Health Maintenance for Transgender Men with Dr. Nick Gorton. Spade has collaborated particularly frequently with sociologist Craig Willse. Their collaborative projects include I Still Think Marriage is the Wrong Goal, a manifesto and extremely popular Facebook
group (external link). Willse and Spade were also the co-creators of MAKE, "propaganda for activist agitation", a paper zine (1999–2001) and website (2001–2007). In the past, Spade has written other zines including Piss and Vinegar (2002), telling the story of his transphobic arrest during the 2002 World Economic Forum
protests in New York City. Mimi Nguyen interviewed Spade and Willse about the experience in Maximumrocknroll.
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is a legal aid organization based in New York City that serves transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming people. The organization was formed in August 2002 by attorney and transgender civil rights activist, Dean Spade...
, a non-profit law collective in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
that provides free legal services to transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. Spade was a staff attorney at SRLP from 2002 to 2006, during which time he presented testimony to the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission
National Prison Rape Elimination Commission
The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission was a U.S. bipartisan panel established by the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act. The commission was charged with studying sexual assaults in U.S. jails and prisons and presenting a report based on its findings. The report was released in June 2009...
and helped achieve a major victory for transgender youth in foster care in the Jean Doe v. Bell case. More recently, Spade was involved with the campaign to stop Seattle from building a new jail.
The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
named Spade one of their "Forty Under 40" in May 2010. Utne Reader
Utne Reader
Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs...
named Spade and Tyrone Boucher on their list of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in 2009, for their collaborative project Enough: The Personal Politics of Resisting Capitalism.
Spade was the 2009-2010 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY Law School, the Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
, and was selected to give the 2009-2010 James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
. He received a Jesse Dukeminier
Jesse Dukeminier
Jesse Dukeminier was a professor of law for 40 years at the University of California, Los Angeles, and authored or co-authored a significant number of articles and textbooks in the areas of property law, wills, trusts, and estates...
Award for the article "Documenting Gender". Spade's current research interests include the impact of the War on Terror on transgender rights, the bureaucratization of trans identities, and models of non-profit governance in social movements. His first book, Critical Trans Politics, is forthcoming from South End Press
South End Press
South End Press is a non-profit book publisher run on a model of participatory economics. It was founded in 1977 by Michael Albert, Lydia Sargent, John Schall, Pat Walker, Juliet Schor, Mary Lea, Joe Bowring, and Dave Millikan, among others, in Boston's South End...
.
Spade has collaborated extensively in the past, including editing two special issues of Sexuality Research and Social Policy with Paisley Currah
Paisley Currah
Paisley Currah is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. He was born in Ontario Canada, received a B.A. from Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario and an M.A and Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University. He lives in Brooklyn.-Research:With...
and coauthoring a guide to Medical Therapy and Health Maintenance for Transgender Men with Dr. Nick Gorton. Spade has collaborated particularly frequently with sociologist Craig Willse. Their collaborative projects include I Still Think Marriage is the Wrong Goal, a manifesto and extremely popular Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
group (external link). Willse and Spade were also the co-creators of MAKE, "propaganda for activist agitation", a paper zine (1999–2001) and website (2001–2007). In the past, Spade has written other zines including Piss and Vinegar (2002), telling the story of his transphobic arrest during the 2002 World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....
protests in New York City. Mimi Nguyen interviewed Spade and Willse about the experience in Maximumrocknroll.