Stanley-Eric-Captive-Genders-Trans-Embodiment-and-Prison-Industrial-Complex

Captive Gendersone homogenous category of identity, but instead occupy multiple subjectivitiesacross race, class, nationality, and ability. For example, transgenderwomen were disproportionately targeted for hate-motivated violence, representingroughly 65 percent of the reported violence against transpersonsin 2009, and of the twenty-two anti-LGBTQ murders reported, people ofcolor accounted for 79 percent of these murders, and 50 percent of thosemurdered were transgender women. 3Most current discussions of transgender issues separate out transphobia,heterosexism, and misogyny from racism, ethnocentrism, andEurocentrism. 4 In examining transgender identities in isolation, a white,middle-class transgendered subject is assumed. By analyzing anti-transgenderviolence as separate from race and class, the lived experiences andspecificity of transpersons of color are ignored. Moreover, examinationof violence against transpersons in isolation is myopic because it fails toconnect anti-transgender violence to other systems of oppression, such aspoverty and racism.The interconnection of racism, classism, and transphobia propelsmany transpersons of color into positions that put them at an increasedrisk for violence. Due to rejection from the lesbian and gay community,as well as the structural realities of racism, many transpersons of colorwho are victims of violence have limited support systems in place andthus, for survival purposes, often have to consider performing dangerouswork. For example, many turn to sex work out of economic necessity, orwork long hours in minimum-wage jobs because they have been forcedto quit school or leave home, resulting in a lack of social, economic,and emotional resources. By foregrounding violence enacted againsttranspersons of color while also demonstrating that this violence is notindividual or random, but part of a much larger structure of racism,classism, and trans/homo-phobia, a more complex, multilayered way ofunderstanding identity and the interlocking systems of oppression andviolence can be mapped.Barbara Perry argues that hate crimes are assaults against the communityto which an individual appears to belong and are significantlyoriented toward creating a spectacle of subordination, as well as physicalharm. 5 Hate crimes, Perry argues, are intended to send a message tothe communities who bear witness, as well as to the immediate victims,to get back “in their place.” 6 Even though the bulk of hate crimes arenot committed by hate groups, acts of transphobic or racist violence arenonetheless attempts to turn beliefs in transgender “deviance” or white142