Dean Spade's Intersectional Resistance And Law Reform

In “Intersectional Resistance and Law Reform,” Dean Spade proposes that the United States was founded through “racialization…(which) continues to operate under new guises… that produce, manage, and deploy gender categories and sexuality and family norms” (16). More over, these laws and norms tend to maintain the “status quo,” and employ an inherently flawed justice system that is only equipped to address single-axis discrimination issues (5). Thus, the intersectionality movement is largely dismissed by the social and justice systems, as it utilizes “critical intersectional tools… that are often (too) difficult for legal scholars to comprehend” (17). Interstionality’s progress is also impeded by advocates leaving to support single-axis issues. However, Spade warns that this approach is ineffective, as it fails to protect the most marginalized members of society.

Hence, the author promotes an intersectional approach, such as the one developed in Oakland, Ca. that gives individuals “access to identity documents, housing, job training, drug and alcohol treatment, and education. (It also) bans employers from asking about prior convictions on job applications; ends probation curfews…repeals California’s three-strikes law; reallocates funds from prison construction to education” (19). Spade also supports abolishing the federal database for immigration checks. In essence, the author suggests that the United States’ legal system must be transformed into a “fair and neutral system,” that would enable it to successfully address intersectionality and the inequality, which accompanies it