Unlivable Lives Violence and Identity in Transgender Activism

by Laurel Westbrook (Author)
November 2020
First Edition
Hardcover
$85.00, £71.00 Paperback
$29.95, £25.00 eBook
$29.95, £25.00
Courses
Social Movements Gender & Crime
Title Details

Rights: Available worldwide
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9780520316591
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Illustrations: 7 b/w illustrations

About the Book From Our Blog About the Author Reviews Table of Contents Awards Related Books

About the Book

Anti-violence movements rooted in identity politics are commonplace, including those to stop violence against people of color, women, and LGBT people. Unlivable Lives reveals the unintended consequences of this approach within the transgender rights movement in the United States. It illustrates how this form of activism obscures the causes of and lasting solutions to violence and exacerbates fear among members of the identity group, running counter to the goal of making lives more livable. Analyzing over a thousand documents produced by thirteen national organizations, Westbrook charts both a history of the movement and a path forward that relies less on identity-based tactics and more on intersectionality and coalition building. Provocative and galvanizing, this book envisions new strategies for anti-violence and social justice movements and will revolutionize the way we think about this form of activism.

From Our Blog

Reading List: Supporting Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Youth

UC Press is proud to support scholarship that advocates for the health and well-being of trans and gender-nonconforming young people. The books on this list speak to a shared mission: improving the …

Women’s Equality Day: 100 years after the 19th Amendment

This year is the 100th anniversary of the ratification Nineteenth Amendment, and Women’s Equality Day marks the anniversary of its certification. This day offers an opportunity for reflection: how far have we …

Pride Month: Celebrating Trans Lives

From the earliest marches in 1970 to this month’s events around the Bay Area and the world, Pride has celebrated and commemorated the LGBTQ community’s culture and heritage for over 40 years. …

About the Author

Laurel Westbrook is Associate Professor of Sociology at Grand Valley State University and cofounder of Sociologists for Trans Justice.

Reviews

"This book will appeal to all people interested in trans politics. Versatile and accessible, it will be helpful to activists and useful for graduate and undergraduate courses in social movements, sociology of gender, public policy, law, criminology, and women/gender/sexuality studies."
—Mobilization

"A timely, compelling, and provocative read that balances abstract ideas about identity politics, social movements, and violence with interesting empirical findings about the workings of anti-violence projects focused on the safety, health, and welfare of people who are transgender."—Valerie Jenness, author of Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic

"An outstanding study of how activists’ rhetoric shapes our thinking about social problems. Its careful analysis is both convincing and unsettling, and deserves to be widely read."—Joel Best, author of American Nightmares: Social Problems in an Anxious World

"In this grounded-theory analysis, Westbrook critiques the unintended consequences of identity politics, arguing that anti-violence narratives centered on spectacular individual stories of deadly violence create a false sense of homogeneity regarding trans identities and the kinds of vulnerabilities a heterogeneous trans population actually faces. Westbrook's proposal to delink identity politics from anti-violence activism in favor a more structural and intersectional analysis is a welcome contribution to this important topic."—Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution

"Unlivable Lives provides a grounded, useful account of the limits of trans anti-violence activism that is insufficiently intersectional and centers law enforcement responses to violence. This thoughtful book will be a resource to scholars and activists alike."—Dean Spade, author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics and the Limits of Law

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. Unlivable Lives: The Origins and Outcomes of Identity-Based Anti-Violence Activism
2. Violence Matters: Producing Identity through Accounts of Murder
3. Atypical Archetypes: The Causes and Consequences of Famous Victims of Violence
4. Homogeneous Subjecthood: How Activists' Focus on Identity Obscures Patterns of Violence
5. Valuable and Vulnerable: How Activists' Tactical Repertoires Shape Subjecthood and Generate Fear
6. Shaping Solutions: How Identity Politics Influences Violence-Prevention Efforts
7. Facilitating Livable Lives: Alternative Approaches to Anti-Violence Activism

Appendix A: Transgender Anti-Violence Organizations
Appendix B: Collecting Data on Murders of Transgender People
Notes
References
Index