Confronting the Limits of Gay Hate Crimes Activism

A Radical Critique

Bibliographic Data

ID15005339
AuthorsJane Spade, Craig Willse
Year2000
Volume21
Issue1
Publication date2000-01-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueChicana/o Latina/o Law Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1061-8899 • E-ISSN: 2169-7736
PublisherCalifornia Digital Library (CDL) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5070/c7211021122
OpenAlexW780389983
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited1

Questioning the emancipatory potential of hate crimes activism for sexual and gender non-normative people, this paper outlines the limits of criminal justice remedies to problems of gender, race, economic and sexual subordination. The first section considers some of the positive impacts of hate crimes activism, focusing on the benefits of legal "naming" for disenfranchised constituencies seeking political recognition. In the next section the authors outline the political shortcomings and troubling consequences of hate crimes activism. First, they examine how hate crimes activism is situated within a "mainstream gay agenda," a term they use to designate the set of projects prioritized by large, national gay rights organizations. The authors question the assimilationist drive of mainstream gay activism, and illustrate how such activism fails to reflect commitments to anti-racism, feminism, and economic redistribution. Second, they critique how the rhetoric of hate crimes activism isolates specific instances of violence against queer and transgender people, categorizing these as acts of individual prejudice, and obscures an understanding of the systemic, institutional nature of gender and sexuality subordination. Finally in this section, the authors interrogate hate crimes statutes as a practice of "identity politics" that, despite accomplishing certain goals, nonetheless dangerously reifies constructs of homosexual identity. In the third and final section, they look at how work on hate crimes occupies a place of "legitimacy" in the world of lesbian and gay activism. Preserving a sense of what hate crimes activism hopes to accomplish, they suggest other political strategies that pursue broader work for social and economic justice and build coalitions across identity categories

Criminology · Hate crime · Political science · Politics · Radical right · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Gender Studies · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Law, Rights, and Freedoms

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