WGS385H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Dean Spade, Matthew Shepard, Neoliberalism

• School: UTSG
• Department: Women and Gender Studies
• Course: WGS385H1
• Professor: Leila Pourtavaf

Document Summary

Focuses on two main legal reform initiatives: anti-discrimination law: example: add gender identity/expression in employment non-discrimination act, hate crime laws: example: matthew shepard and james byrd, jr. Logic of visibility and inclusion are central to both laws, but there are some troubling limitations of these approaches. Assumption state sanctioned human rights provides relief - how different institutions life and death chances - biopolitics. Through his work - we need to offer a critique of legal reform and fighting for certain types of rights doesn"t work. How we resist neoliberalism - thinking about statistically what are things that are happening and how do we change them. Trans in mainstream activism - at forefront of gay liberation in 60s to 90s when it was incorporated into neoliberal reformist demands - didn"t improve life chances for constituents of these categories. Anti-discrimination laws give the basis for individuals are given access to fight discrimination.