By Dean Spade, 2011
This symposium invites us to consider the impact of Judith Butler’s work on legal scholarship in the area of gender and sexuality. I am interested in re flecting particularly on trans politics and law for two reasons. First, because Butler’s work has had such a significant impact on the emergence of the current iteration of trans politics of the 1 990s and 2000s. Second, because I believe there is a great deal more that Butler’s work can offe r to significant questions facing trans resistance for mations as the field of trans legal rights advocacy institutionalizes and as trans legal scholarship engages and responds to that institutionalization.