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

Captive Genderslarger a system of heteronormativity. Hate crimes legislation and protectionmaintained by these national LGBT organizations in the end settlesfor access into a heterosexist system, thereby marginalizing the connectionbetween individual hate crimes, historical legal precedent, and institutionalviolence. As a result, these groups espouse conservative, myopic politicalstrategies and reject the opportunity for a more revolutionary and transformativepolitic that centers on broader conceptions of social justice.By not taking into consideration the ways in which the criminal justicesystem regulates, pursues, controls, and punishes the poor and communitiesof color, LGBT hate crimes initiatives reproduce harm and donot end it. Calling for an increased role of the criminal justice system inenforcing hate crimes legislation is insular in that it assumes a white, gay,wealthy subject while also soliciting victims of hate-motivated violence toreport into a penal system without regard for the fact that people of colorand the poor are disproportionately punished. By ignoring racism andeconomic inequality in their arguments for hate crimes statutes, nationalgay rights organizations assume an assimilationist stance that reinforcesthe status quo at the expense of communities of color and the poor.Political Failings—Sustaining the Prison Industrial ComplexHate crimes legislation proposed by national LGBT organizations likethe Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force,and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund is fundamentallyflawed. Hate-motivated violence is an important issue, but one that mustbe examined through the lens of “oppressive violence” and contextualizedwithin intersecting systems subordination, including racism, classism,sexism, and heterosexism. As Cathy Cohen writes, “We must…start ourpolitical work from the recognition that multiple systems of oppressionare in operation and that these systems use institutionalized categoriesand identities to regulate and socialize.” 58 When national LGBT organizationsplace anti-gay violence at the center of analysis without regard forhow their legislation is dependent on a punitive criminal justice system;the marginalization of communities of color and the poor; static, uncomplicated,and myopic versions of identity; and assimilation into existingsystems of domination, they are refusing to acknowledge their own complicityin maintaining systemic oppression.When national LGBT groups rely on political projects that furtherhate crimes legislation, they are feeding the prison industrial complex.Hate crimes legislation is punitive in that it is only enacted after someone156