Dean Spade

• Transgender law
• LGBT law
• Administrative law
• Law and social movements
• Poverty law

Biography

Dean Spade is an associate professor at Seattle University School of Law, where he teaches Law and Social Movements, Poverty Law, and Administrative Law. Prior to joining the faculty of Seattle University, Spade was a Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School, teaching classes related to sexual orientation and gender identity law, and law and social movements.

In 2002, Spade founded the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (www.srlp.org), a nonprofit law collective that provides free legal services to transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people who are low-income and/or people of color. SRLP also engages in litigation, policy reform, and public education on issues affecting these communities and operates on a collective governance model, prioritizing the governance and leadership of trans, intersex, and gender-variant people of color. While working at SRLP, Spade taught classes focusing on sexual orientation, gender identity, and law at Columbia Law School and Harvard Law School.

Spade was recently awarded a Dukeminier Award for his 2008 article "Documenting Gender" and the 2009–2010 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY Law School. He was selected to give the 2009–2010 James A. Thomas Lecture at Yale. His book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, was published in December 2011 and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

At Columbia Law School, Spade is working with the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law's "Engaging Tradition" project from 2012–2014.

 

• Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, South End Press, 2011
• "Laws as Tactics" in Columbia J. of Gender & L.2011 , 21 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 40 (2012)
• "For Those Considering Law School" in 6 Unbound: Harvard J. of the Legal Left 111 (2011)
• "Be Professional!" in 33 Harv. J. L. & Gender 71 (2010)
• "Introduction: Transgender Issues and the Law" in 8 Seattle Journal of Social Justice 447 (2010)
• "Medicaid and Gender-Confirming Health Care for Trans People: An Interview with Advocates" in 8 Seattle Journal of Social Justice 497 (2010)
• "Trans Law Reform Strategies, Co-Optation, and the Potential for Transformative Change" in 30 Women’s Rights L. R. 288 (2009)
• "Trans Politics on a Neoliberal Landscape" in 18 Temp. Pol. & Civ. Rts. L. Rev. 353 (2009)
• "Documenting Gender" in 59 Hastings L. J. 731 (2008), awarded the 2008 Dukeminier Award and reprinted in UCLA Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law

• LGBT Pride Program, Istanbul Turkey, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, June 2012
• Les Complices, Zurich, Switzerland, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, June 2012
• Konsthall C, Stockholm, Sweden, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, June 2012
• The Feminist Library, London, England, Critical Trans Politics, June 2012
• Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, June 2012
• Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, From the “Critique of Rights” to “Gay Rights Discourse”: A Queer Journey to Palestine, May 2012
• Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, Politicizing Trans/Transforming Politics Conference, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law, May 2012