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.