Dean Spade facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Dean Spade
Spade in 2015
Born	1977 (age 47–48)
Education	Columbia University (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (JD)
Occupation	Lawyer, activist, author
Employer	Seattle University School of Law
Known for	Transgender activism

Dean Spade (born 1977) is an American lawyer, writer, and activist who works to support transgender people and social justice. He is also a professor of law at Seattle University School of Law.

Growing Up and School

Dean Spade grew up in a rural area of Virginia. His mother raised him and his sister by herself. Sometimes, his family received government help to make ends meet.

When he was 9, Dean started helping his mom and sister clean houses and offices to earn money. By age 11, he was cleaning on his own and later painted houses for extra income. When he was 14, his mother passed away. After that, he lived with two different foster families.

Dean went to Barnard College at Columbia University, where he studied political science and women's studies. He graduated with top honors. Later, he earned his law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2001. During this time, he wrote about the challenges he faced in getting healthcare that matched his non-binary gender identity.

Making a Difference: Dean's Career

In 2002, Dean Spade started the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) in New York City. This is a special non-profit group that gives free legal help to transgender and gender non-conforming people, especially those with lower incomes or people of color. From 2002 to 2006, Dean worked as a lawyer at SRLP. He helped win an important case for transgender youth in foster care called Jean Doe v. Bell.

Dean also got involved in community efforts, like a campaign in 2009 to stop the city of Seattle from building a new jail.

His work has been recognized by others. The Advocate magazine named him one of their "Forty Under 40" in 2010. Utne Reader magazine also listed him as one of "50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World" in 2009. This was for a project he worked on with Tyrone Boucher called Enough: The Personal Politics of Resisting Capitalism.

Dean has taught law at several well-known universities, including CUNY School of Law, UCLA Law School, and Harvard Law School. He also gave a special lecture at Yale Law School. He received an award for his article "Documenting Gender," which explores how gender is recorded in official documents.

Dean has written a lot about his own experiences as a transgender law professor and student. He has discussed challenges like unfair treatment in higher education. He has also written about how the law can sometimes be limited in solving problems of unfairness. His research looks at how big events, like the "War on Terror," affect transgender rights. He also studies how transgender identities are handled by official systems and how social movements are organized.

His first book, Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, came out in 2012. It was nominated for an award. His second book, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next), was published in 2020.

Dean has worked with other activists and writers. He collaborated with Paisley Currah and co-authored a guide for transgender men's health with Dr. Nick Gorton. He has also worked often with sociologist Craig Willse. Together, they created a manifesto (a public statement of beliefs) called I Still Think Marriage is the Wrong Goal. They also made a paper magazine called MAKE, which was about activism, and later a website.

Activism and Beliefs

Dean Spade is Jewish and has worked with groups that advocate for social justice and equality.

Books by Dean Spade

• Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law (2012). A second, updated edition was published in 2015. It has also been translated into Spanish.
• Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) (2020). This book has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, and Czech.