A theoretically grounded and methodically sophisticated empirical analysis of transgender politics

"Transgender Rights packs a surprising amount of information into a small space. Offering spare, tightly executed essays, this slim volume nonetheless succeeds in creating a spectacular, well-researched compendium of the transgender movement." -Law Library Journal Over the past three decades, the transgender movement has gained visibility and achieved significant victories. Discrimination has been prohibited in several states, dozens of municipalities, and more than two hundred private companies, while hate crime laws in eight states have been amended to include gender identity. Yet prejudice and violence against transgender people remain all too common. With analysis from legal and policy experts, activists and advocates, Transgender Rights assesses the movement's achievements, challenges, and opportunities for future action. Examining crucial topics like family law, employment policies, public health, economics, and grassroots organizing, this groundbreaking book is an indispensable resource in the fight for the freedom and equality of those who cross gender boundaries. Moving beyond media representations to grapple with the real lives and issues of transgender people, Transgender Rights will launch a new moment for human rights activism in America. Contributors: Kylar W. Broadus, Judith Butler, Mauro Cabral, Dallas Denny, Taylor Flynn, Phyllis Randolph Frye, Julie A. Greenberg, Morgan Holmes, Bennett H. Klein, Jennifer L. Levi, Ruthann Robson, Nohemy Solórzano-Thompson, Dean Spade, Kendall Thomas, Paula Viturro, Willy Wilkinson. Paisley Currah is associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute. Richard M. Juang cochairs the advisory board of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, DC. He has taught at Oberlin College and Susquehanna University. He is the lead editor of NCTE's Responding to Hate Crimes: A Community Resource Manual and coeditor of Transgender Justice, which explores models of activism. Shannon Price Minter is legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

While medical identification and treatment of gender dysphoria have existed for decades, the development of transgender as a “collective political identity” is a recent construct. Over the past twenty-five years, the transgender movement has gained statutory nondiscrimination protections at the state and local levels, hate crimes protections in a number of states, inclusion in a federal law against hate crimes, legal victories in the courts, and increasingly favorable policies in bureaucracies at all levels. It has achieved these victories despite the relatively small number of trans people and despite the widespread discrimination, poverty, and violence experienced by many in the transgender community. This is a remarkable achievement in a political system where public policy often favors those with important resources that the transgender community lacks: access, money, and voters. The Remarkable Rise of Transgender Rights explains the growth of the transgender rights movement despite its marginalized status within the current political opportunity structure.

Revised and Expanded Edition Wait—what's wrong with rights? It is usually assumed that trans and gender nonconforming people should follow the civil rights and "equality" strategies of lesbian and gay rights organizations by agitating for legal reforms that would ostensibly guarantee nondiscrimination and equal protection under the law. This approach assumes that the best way to address the poverty and criminalization that plague trans populations is to gain legal recognition and inclusion in the state's institutions. But is this strategy effective? In Normal Life Dean Spade presents revelatory critiques of the legal equality framework for social change, and points to examples of transformative grassroots trans activism that is raising demands that go beyond traditional civil rights reforms. Spade explodes assumptions about what legal rights can do for marginalized populations, and describes transformative resistance processes and formations that address the root causes of harm and violence. In the new afterword to this revised and expanded edition, Spade notes the rapid mainstreaming of trans politics and finds that his predictions that gaining legal recognition will fail to benefit trans populations are coming to fruition. Spade examines recent efforts by the Obama administration and trans equality advocates to "pinkwash" state violence by articulating the US military and prison systems as sites for trans inclusion reforms. In the context of recent increased mainstream visibility of trans people and trans politics, Spade continues to advocate for the dismantling of systems of state violence that shorten the lives of trans people. Now more than ever, Normal Life is an urgent call for justice and trans liberation, and the radical transformations it will require.

"From Harvey Milk to Barney Frank, and from ACT UP to Proposition 8, in the past few decades, no political change has been more significant than the civil rights advancements of LGBTQ citizens. LGBTQ Politics is the first authoritative reader to approach the complexity of queer politics from a political science persective, bringing together original contributions from leadings scholars in the field on key issues in LGBTQ politics. These original essays cover a wide range of essential topics, including marriage equality, transgender discrimination, gay and lesbian political candidates, LGBTQ human rights advocacy, HIV prevention, and LGBTQ movements of the Global South. The volume also includes a number of critical essays that reflect upon the state of political science as a discipline that has struggled to address queer politics. Contributors draw from a variety of subfields in political science, including comparative politics, political theory, American politics, public law, and international relations. Essays that focus on mainstream institutional politics appear alongside contributions grounded in grassroots movements and critical theory. While some essays express concerns that the democratic basis of the LGBTQ movement has been undermined, others celebrate the movement's successes and offer visions for the future. A comprehensive, thought-provoking, and authoritative collection, LGBTQ Politics: A Critical Reader is required reading for anyone looking to learn about the politics of sexuality"--Back cover.

While the growing attention to trans rights and the development of trans-specific interest groups suggest that the time is right for a trans rights movement akin to prior civil rights movements, The Politics of Right Sex explores the limitations of rights-based mobilization and litigation for advancing the interests of trans communities. Synthesizing critical theory, transgender studies, and extant law and society research, Courtenay W. Daum argues that trans individuals, particularly those situated at the intersection of gender, race, class, and immigration status, are regulated by myriad forces of governmentality that work to maintain the sex and gender binaries and associated power hierarchies. Because many informal practices and norms are located beyond the reach of civil rights laws, a trans politics of rights may produce some modest legal and legislative reforms but will not eliminate the disciplinary forces that work to subject trans individuals. It will also privilege those who are able to conform with dominant gender norms at the expense of the interests of those individuals who are gender nonconforming, gender queer, trans people of color, and others unable or unwilling to embrace a transnormative presentation of self and/or lifestyle. In order to disrupt the dominant discourse and hierarchical power arrangements in pursuit of collective liberation for all as opposed to rights for some, The Politics of Right Sex advocates for a more confrontational approach that directly engages and challenges the hegemonic power structures that govern and discipline trans individuals.

Illuminates transgender activists' successful strategies to organize for social and political change in the US. In recent years, gender-variant people—including those we now call transgender people—have won public policy victories that had previously seemed unwinnable: the American Psychiatric Association replaced the term “gender identity disorder” with “gender dysphoria” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Department of Justice announced that discrimination on the basis of gender identity constituted sex discrimination, and the Department of Health and Human Services decided that it would no longer stop Medicare from covering gender reassignment surgery. What accounts for these and other victories? Anthony J. Nownes argues that a large part of the answer lies in the rise of transgender rights interest groups in the United States. Drawing on firsthand accounts from the founders and leaders of these groups, Organizing for Transgender Rights not only addresses how these groups mobilized and survived but also illuminates a path to further social change. Nownes shows how oppressed and marginalized people can overcome the barriers to collective action and form viable organizations to represent their interests even when their government continues to be hostile and does not. Anthony J. Nownes is Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the author of Interest Groups in American Politics: Pressure and Power, Second Edition and Total Lobbying: What Lobbyists Want (and How They Try to Get It).