Month: March 2018

It is primarily through the critique of writers of the Independent Gay Forum (IGF), mainly Andrew Sullivan and David Boaz, that Lisa Duggan comes to assert that “freedom”, “equality”, and democratic politics through this neoliberal mindset are deeply perverted.  Sullivan’s exclusive targeting of the masculine gay limits the “equality” pushed for in his writings and also reinforces typical misogyny which exists throughout the heteronormative order.  Sullivan also suggests that gay people must simply ask to exist in a privatized space, where the only political victories are marriage equality and the right to serve in the military.  As Duggan notes, “…we have been administered a kind of political sedative — we get marriage and the military, then we go home and cook dinner, forever” (Duggan 62).  David Boaz, another neoliberal writer for the IGF, sees the family only as a gendered institution that is used for privatizing social costs, and again insists only that gays be included in this system.

In “Boystown”, Blair demonstrates the power of social media in reproducing racism.  Under the guise of protecting the neighborhood from crime, Facebook pages were used as a channel of hate speech and racism, distanced from the “real world” and through uncensored white privilege were able to control a racist narrative about the city in which they lived.  These social media pages “allowed residents to public produce and engage with bigoted attitudes, ideologies, and discourses through photographs, videos, and concurrent threaded comments” (Blair 298) and therefore legitimized degrading and criminalizing people of color.

Through the colonialist ideology of the “native”, Third World gay men are essentially positioned as a commodity, or an object to be consumed.  This of course is reinforced by capitalism and the notion of “gay” capital in which travel is one of the primary sources of revenue.  In this space in which Third World gay men are fetishized by white gay men on vacation, “gay capital becomes an active participant in the same processes of nativization and recolonization that heterosexual tourism helped to inaugurate” (Alexander 79).

 

 

Citations:

Alexander, M. Jacqui. “Imperial Desire / Sexual Utopias: White Gay Capital and Transnational Tourism”. Pedagogies of Crossing, edited by M. Jacqui Alexander, Duke University Press: 2005, pp. 67-88.

Blair, Zachary.  “Boystown”. No Tea, No Shade, edited by E. Patrick Johnson, Duke University Press: 2016, pp. 287-303

Duggan, Lisa. “Equality, Inc.”. The Twilight of Equality?, edited by Lisa Duggan, Beacon Press: 2004, pp. 43-66.

Zachary Blair’s Boystown describes the way that digital media reinforces racism and racial segregation in Boystown, a prominent gay neighborhood in Chicago. In 2009, following a series of violent assaults in the Boystown neighborhood over a short period of time, residents formed multiple watch groups as well as a sort of “digital neighborhood watch” on Facebook (Blair, 292). While the intention of these digital efforts was to stop or reduce violent crime, they reinforced racial segregation by taking and sharing pictures of people of color in the streets (Blair, 293). These pictures were posted to the Facebook group and depicted people of color as disproportionately responsible for crime (Blair, 294). As a result, “digital interactions…legitimized racism by providing Boystown residents and business owners with social experiences that supported degrading and criminalizing people of color” and shifted race relations in the community (Blair, 298). This led to white residents redefining crime to criminalize people of color by enacting fictitious noise and loitering ordinances (Blair, 298). The Facebook groups also gave a platform for the sharing and legitimization of racist views (Blair, 298). “Boystown’s neighborhood-based digital practices…create and exclusionary heteronormative environment where racism can flourish” (Blair, 300).

Reference

Blair, “Boystown. Gay Neighborhoods, Social Media, and the (Re)production of Racism”

In the essay What’s Wrong With Rights?, Dean Spade articulates systematic failures that prevent trans-identifying individuals from receiving equal treatment under the law and equal rights. In law reform, this takes the lack of representation and care with regards to trans bodies within the legal system making any potential reforms ineffective. This is because that, while the intent of LGBTQ-inclusive laws is to bring awareness to discriminatory crimes that regularly occur, there are too many societal and racial intersections that involve society’s awareness of trans bodies for it to be considered effective. Law reform must come hand-in-hand with an understanding society with an accompanying inclusiveness outside of legal matters.

With regards to hate crime laws, Spade argues that one of the issues with dealing with hate crimes is the oversimplification of how to process said crimes through our current legal system. He says that this results in thinking that “the criminal punishment system is the proper way to solve [hate crimes]” (44). Because there are many systematic flaws that disadvantage marginalized groups through the justice system (an example being the War on Drugs, which intersects with racial discrimination), strengthening hate crime laws to fit around the legal system reinforces the systematic shortcomings.

REFERENCE

“What’s Wrong with Rights?”, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Dean Spade

 

Law reform projects, while often well intentioned, are unable to protect the ‘more vulnerable’ people in the trans community, or even the majority of trans folks. While it can be true that the more privileged (read middle-upper class white trans folks) many see some level of benefit from the inclusion of nondiscrimination laws, these laws fail to account for systemic oppression and multiple factors of oppression such as race, sex, class, etc. Furthermore, these laws only add to the arsenal of those systems which perpetuate systemic oppression and that are the largest perpetrators themselves of discriminatory violence. As Dean Spade wrote in Chapter 2 of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, “Since the criminal punishment system itself is a significant source of racialized-gendered violence, increasing its resources and punishment capacity will not reduce violence against trans people.” [1] If real change were to happen, expanding the power of the police and of the criminal justice system is not the place to start.

[1] Spade, D. (2015). Normal life administrative violence, critical trans politics, and the limits of law. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

In Dean Spade’s essay, he identifies several shortcomings of current anti-discrimination and hate crime law reforms. There is hope that these laws will benefit people within marginalized groups, but there are many limitations to current law reforms. Errors of anti-discrimination laws include the false notions of equality or fairness with the new law reforms because oppression and discrimination of numerous identities (Spade, 2015, p.43). Spade claims that “the perpetrator perspective” obscures the historical framework of systemic prejudice against people of color. For example, these anti-discrimination law reforms theoretically end racism, but in reality enhance color-blindness. Additionally, Spade (2015) claims that hate crime law reforms oversimplify hate crimes and discount transphobia in prison systems. For example, Spade asserts that the prison system targets people these hate crime law reforms are supposed to protect and reinforces transphobia even though it claims to be more inclusive (Spade, 2015, p. 47).

Spade, D. (2015). Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. London, England: Duke University Press.

When reflecting on the flaws of the legal protection of transgender people, Spade uses Alan Freeman’s term, “perpetrator perspective,” which seeks to address the lack of consideration for systems of oppression when the perpetrator is identified as an individual. While discrimination law bans inequality on the basis of identity, it prevents the factor of acknowledging if that identity has been subject to historical exclusion. Spade gives the example of the dismantling of affirmative action and desegregation programs, which were gutted because of the threat of “inequality” they posed to white people despite their goal of providing equal access to those who are marginalized.

As a result of its singular focus on the perpetrator as an individual, hate crime law possesses similar weaknesses. Spade notes that hate crime laws neither deter perpetrators from committing crimes of hate nor ensure the safety of the people they are intended to protect. Hate crime law has no actual effect on whether or not someone will commit a crime of this nature because it does not attempt to confront the perpetrator’s bias. Spade also asks the question “what does it mean to use criminal punishment—enhancing laws to purportedly address violence against these groups?” (Spade 45-46). The nature of hate crime law is solely punitive and targets groups of people who these laws are supposed to protect.

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.

Dean Spade singles out many shortcomings of the anti-discrimination law reform for trans people.  One of these shortcomings is the anti-discrimination laws inability to make an effective change to the exclusion of marginalized groups.  He argues that in the efforts for inclusion in discrimination regime, the campaigns rely heavily on “rhetoric that affirms the legitimacy and fairness of the status quo” (Spade 44). He allows goes on to explain how it is hard to prove discrimination for people who have more complicated relationships to marginality.  For example,  immigrants are particularly difficult to protect against discrimination if they are facing issues of being undocumented, as well as facing discrimination based on race, disability, and gender identity.

One shortcoming in hate crime laws that Dean Spade expresses, is the use of the criminal punishment system as a method to stop transphobia since the “criminal punishment system is the most significant perpetrator of violence against trans people” (Spade 47).  To use the criminal punishment system would thus be backwards and ineffective in battling transphobia.

Citations:

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.

In Dean Spade’s essay, “What’s Wrong With Rights?”, Dean Spade identifies the shortcomings of both current law reforms and shortcomings of hate crime laws. For example, current law reform such as discrimination laws takes into account what is called the perpetrator perspective. This perspective fails to take into account the historical context of discrimination such as racism. Additionally, it seeks out those who are overtly biased rather than those who discriminate due to systemic or institutional systems in place. It fails to take into account daily disparities due to race, class, gender, disabilities, etc. These discrimination laws also increase the idea of colorblindness which does not take into account the systemic issues that shape this discrimination. Spade goes on to argue that the perpetrator perspective creates a false sense that marginalized groups are now equal and will be treated fairly. This does a disservice to the individuals the laws are trying to protect.

Spade goes on to highlight the shortcomings of hate crime laws. Hate crime laws oversimplify the issue and have no deterrent effects on criminals who commit the crimes against marginalized groups. Spade goes on to argue that people do not read law books and choose not to engage in bias motivated violence before committing a crime just because it carries a harsher sentence. Therefore, these laws do not increase the life chances of the people they aim to protect. Further, hate crime laws strengthen and legitimize the criminals that target the individuals and communities that these laws are made to protect.

Citations

Dean Spade, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2015), selected pages.

With respect to recent anti-discrimination law reform for trans people, Dean Spade identifies several reasons why anti-discrimination laws are ineffective in actually improving the quality of trans lives.  Working off of Alan Freeman’s critique of the perpetrator perspective, Spade notes how the imposed view of discrimination as something which occurs between a perpetrator and a victim completely ignores larger structures of discrimination which have existed in the past and will continue to exist without more powerful reform.  Spade argues that anti-discrimination laws cannot address disparities in life conditions “that we know stem from and reflect long term patterns of exclusion and exploitation cannot be understood as ‘violations’ under the discrimination principle, and thus remedies cannot be won” (Spade 43).

With regard to hate crime laws, Spades primary critique is that ultimately these laws do more to reinforce and expand the prison system which so often falsely holds and abuses trans people.  Simply put: “Criminal punishment cannot be the method we use to stop transphobia when the criminal punishment system is the most significant perpetrator of violence against trans people” (Spade 47).  Spade notes, “Could [the veterans of Stonewall] have imagined that the police would be claimed protectors of queer and trans people against violence, while imprisonment and police brutality were skyrocketing?” (Spade 46).  Prison abolitionists argue that prison reform, rather than addressing unfairness and injustice in prisons, more often lead to prison expansion than anything else.

 

Citations:

Spade, Dean.  Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law.  Durham & London: Duke University Press. 2015.

Spade identifies the idea that anti-discrimination law perpetuates “the false impression that the previously excluded or marginalized group is now equal, that fairness has been imposed, and the legitimacy of the distribution of life chances restored” as a shortcoming in current law reforms (Spade, 43). This idea cuts off room for further growth because it, inaccurately, portrays the struggle as over.

He also identifies the conceptualization of how hate crimes are motivated as a shortcoming in hate crime laws (Spade, 42). By thinking of a hate crime as a bigoted individual versus a trans person, the proposed hate crime statues ignore systemic transphobia (Spade, 42). Additionally, this conception of transphobia reflected in laws would mean that only individuals who overtly, and provably, considered the victim’s gender expression could be legally punished (Spade, 43).

 

References

Dean Spade, What is Wrong with Rights?