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.)?

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.

I often notice how students can gain the capacity to use certain critical methodologies through engaging with very different texts - how a graphic novel about gentrification and an anthology about Hurricane Katrina and a journalistic account of war profiteering might all lead to very similar classroom conversations and critical engagement. I'm particularly interested in this when teaching law students who often resist reading interdisciplinary materials or materials they interpret as too theoretical.

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.

Let’s be gentle with ourselves and each other and fierce as we fight oppression.

Trans rights formation that mimics the models and strategies of the lesbian and gay rights framework is growing, and there are many significant strategy disagreements between those building that work and those doing racial and economic justice centered trans work.

I am arguing that it is a mistake for trans activists to focus our resources and attention on winning inclusion in legal equality frameworks, such as anti-discrimination laws and hate crimes laws, that will not provide relief from the life-shortening conditions trans populations are facing. Winning legal equality - getting the law to cast us as victims of discrimination who the state will protect - will not support our survival.