The point for me is to create relationships based on deeper and more real notions of trust. So that love becomes defined not by sexual exclusivity, but by actual respect, concern, commitment to act with kind intentions, accountability for our actions, and a desire for mutual growth.

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.

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

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.

Trans activism in the US has most frequently been grassroots, centered on poverty and criminalization, and often oppositional to the exclusionary "mainstreaming" threads in gay and lesbian politics and feminist politics.

More conservative advocacy work often encourages portrayals of trans people as people who deserve rights. Deservingness, of course, corresponds to national racial, gender and ability norms.

When we approach legal reform work, we can ask questions like: Will this provide actual relief to people facing violence or harm or will it primarily be a symbolic change? Will this divide our constituency by offering relief only to people with certain privileged statuses (such as people with lawful immigration status, people with jobs, married people, etc.)?