{"product_id":"queer-injustice-isbn-9780807051153","title":"Queer (In)Justice","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe first comprehensive work to turn a “queer eye” on the criminal justice system, providing an eye-opening study of LGBTQ+ rights and equality.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Drawing on years of research, activism, and legal advocacy, \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e is a searing examination of queer experiences as “suspects,” defendants, prisoners, and survivors of crime. The authors unpack queer criminal archetypes—from “gleeful gay killers” and “lethal lesbians” to “disease spreaders” and “deceptive gender benders”—to illustrate the punishment of queer expression, regardless of whether a crime was ever committed. Tracing stories from the streets to the bench to behind prison bars, the authors prove that the policing of sex and gender both bolsters and reinforces racial and gender inequalities.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e An eye-opening study of LGBTQ rights and equality, \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e illuminates and challenges the many ways in which queer lives are criminalized, policed, and punished.\u003cp\u003eA Note from the Series Editor (Michael Bronski)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e1\u003c\/b\u003e Setting the Historical Stage: Colonial Legacies\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e2\u003c\/b\u003e Gleeful Gay Killers, Lethal Lesbians, and Deceptive Gender Benders: Queer Criminal Archetypes\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e3\u003c\/b\u003e The Ghosts of Stonewall: Policing Gender, Policing Sex\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e4\u003c\/b\u003e Objection! Treatment of Queers in Criminal Courts\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e5\u003c\/b\u003e Caging Deviance: Prisons as Queer Spaces\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e6\u003c\/b\u003e False Promises: Criminal Legal Responses to Violence against LGBT People\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e7\u003c\/b\u003e Over the Rainbow: Where Do We Go from Here?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e For Further Reading\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Queer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e ought to be force-fed to the staffs and boards of directors of every national and state gay organization.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Doug Ireland,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eGay City News\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Mandatory reading”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLesbian\/Gay Law Notes\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Re-evaluates the penal system through a lavender lens...the book sheds light on serious flaws in the legal system, as well as homophobia and bigotry among many in law enforcement.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePhiladelphia City Paper\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Brilliant and searing...eloquent and seamless.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eWindy City Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“\u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e is the book we have been waiting for. By examining the policing of gender, it forces us to reexamine our complicity in the police state when we are fighting for hate crime legislation but should be arguing for decriminalization. It calls us to develop a more radical analysis that understands that ending state violence must be central to a transformative queer politics.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Andrea Smith, cofounder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and author of \u003ci\u003eConquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If you think the struggle for LGBT equality is only about marriage and the military, \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e will be a revelation. In lucid prose, it tells stories of criminalization, victimization, and discrimination, while illuminating strategies for progressive change. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Ruthann Robson, author of \u003ci\u003eLesbian (Out)Law\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eSappho Goes to Law School,\u003c\/i\u003e professor of law, City University of New York School of Law\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A cogent and urgent call to move beyond single issue politics and to take a stand against the often brutal punishment of ‘criminalized queers.’ The authors lay out a framework for a multi-issue social justice agenda that links LGBT activists to feminists, prison abolitionists, and immigrant rights and homeless advocates. This powerful critique should profoundly transform the ways we seek to end violence and fight for our freedom.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Julia Sudbury, editor of \u003ci\u003eGlobal Lockdown: Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex,\u003c\/i\u003e professor of ethnic studies, Mills College\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e is an urgently needed and essential resource for activists and scholars. Accessible and stirring, it clearly and concisely exposes how criminalization is a central issue facing queer and trans politics today. Tracing the historical and contemporary implications of mass imprisonment as a central vector of racial and gender violence this book is a vital tool toward building a movement that challenges the policing of our very identities.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, assistant professor of law, Seattle University School of Law\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“With remarkable passion \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e makes visible the very serious consequences of the prison industrial complex on the lives of LGBT people. It’s an important scholarly critique, an urgent call to action, and a vivid historical account of how the policing of gender and sexuality are intricately linked to race, class, and power.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Beth Ritchie, director, Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[\u003ci\u003eQueer (In)justice\u003c\/i\u003e] thoroughly explores and clearly articulates the multiple, overlapping, and mutually reinforcing way that heteronormative legality is used to marginalize and control other oppressed groups, especially the poor, people of color and women.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Nancy Polikoff,\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBeyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“VERDICT: Illuminating reading for criminal justice scholars and educated readers with an interest in gay rights.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“At times devastating, provocative, explicit, and horrifying, this book will make you deeply sad, deeply angry, and more fully aware of how far we really are from full equality for sexual minorities.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eElevate Difference\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An eye-opener for any reader accepting the myth of equal justice for all.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eBook Marks\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Q]ueer (In)Justice is much more than a litany of horror stories... It is a passionate and powerful weaving of the stories, the history and all its meaning.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eFire Dog Lake\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e provides is a very well researched and written, but usually missing from the conversation, “criminal legal system” context for understanding the LGBT equality movement. Or better, movements, plural. In part, what the authors address is how the civil rights efforts are splintered…The authors use an alarming wealth of stories about how real queer people experience our “criminal legal system.”…One obvious, but powerful, tool of the Powers That Be is to divide us. \u003ci\u003eQueer (In)Justice\u003c\/i\u003e could be one powerful resource to help us find some “togetherness.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eTaylorMarsh.com\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eQueer (In)justice\u003c\/i\u003e is one of the most important books about the struggle for LGBT rights that we've seen in decades. It adds a critical point of discussion, advocating for working beyond the standard 'marriage and military service' framework and instead fighting the entire system of institutional wrongs historically perpetrated against all LGBTs.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eDaily Kos\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eQueer (In)justice\u003c\/i\u003e is an incredibly eye-opening take on the complexity of factors, including race and class, that needs to be considered in a progressive strategy for obtaining justice…to miss out on this book would be to turn your back to reality.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—James Viloria, \u003ci\u003eGay Persons of Color\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJoey L. Mogul\u003c\/b\u003e is a partner at the People’s Law Office in Chicago and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University’s College of Law. \u003cb\u003eAndrea J. Ritchie\u003c\/b\u003e is a police misconduct attorney and organizer in New York City. \u003cb\u003eKay Whitlock\u003c\/b\u003e is a Montana-based organizer and writer whose work focuses on dismantling structural injustice in law enforcement and other public institutions.\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eFrom Chapter 3\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The Ghosts of Stonewall: Policing Gender, Policing Sex\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn a hot August night in 1966, “drag queens” and gay “hustlers” at  the Compton Cafeteria in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco rose  up and fought back when police tried to arrest them for doing nothing  more than being out. The late 1960s saw frequent police raids, often  accompanied by brutality, on gay establishments across the country,  which were meeting with increasing resistance. The previous five years  had also seen uprisings in Watts, Detroit, Chicago, and Newark and  dozens of other cities, in many cases sparked by incidents of widespread  racial profiling and abuse of people of color by police.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt was against this backdrop that, in the early morning hours of  Saturday, June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn in New York  City. Claiming to be enforcing liquor laws, they began arresting  employees and patrons of the private lesbian and gay establishment.  Police action, which included striking patrons with billy clubs while  spewing homophobic abuse, sparked outrage among those present. Led by  people described by many as drag queens and butch lesbians, bar patrons,  joined by street people, began yelling “Gay Power!” and throwing shoes,  coins, and bricks at the officers. Over the next several nights, police  and queers clashed repeatedly in the streets of the West Village. One  report described the impacts of the police response to the uprising as  follows:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt one point, Seventh Avenue . . . looked like a battlefield in  Vietnam. Young people, many of them queens, were lying on the sidewalk  bleeding from the head, face, mouth, and even the eyes. Others were  nursing bruised and often bleeding arms, legs, backs, and necks.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Stonewall Uprising, as the rebellion against the raids came to be  known, has been mythically cast as the “birthplace” of the modern LGBT  rights movement in the United States, although in reality it was but one  of its primary catalysts. In the weeks that followed, the Gay  Liberation Front, inspired by contemporaneous movements such as the  women’s liberation movement, the Black Panthers, and the Young Lords,  was formed. Spontaneous resistance to police raids on gay bars and  bathhouses blossomed in the ensuing decade. The 1970 protest march  commemorating the one-year anniversary of the raid on the Stonewall Inn  grew into an annual worldwide celebration of gay pride.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFast forward three decades to March 2003, when the Power Plant, a  private club in the Highland Park area of Detroit, frequented primarily  by African American gay men, lesbians, and transgender women, was filled  to capacity. Around 3:00 a.m., between 50 and 100 officers from the  Wayne County Sheriff’s Department dressed in black clothing, with guns  drawn and laser sights on, suddenly cut the lights and stormed the  premises, shouting orders for everyone to “hit the floor.” Over 350  people in the club at that time were handcuffed, forced to lie face down  on the floor, and detained for up to twelve hours, left to “sit in  their own and others’ urine and waste.” Some were kicked in the head and  back, slammed into walls, and verbally abused. Officers on the scene  were heard saying things like “it’s a bunch of fags” and “those fags in  here make me sick.” As at Stonewall, the officers claimed to be  enforcing building and liquor codes. The sheriff’s department said they  were responding to complaints from neighbors and concerns for public  safety. They had obtained a warrant to search the premises, but rather  than execute it during the daytime against only the owner of the  establishment, they chose to wait until the club was full, and then  unjustifiably arrested over 300 people, citing them for “loitering  inside a building,” an offense carrying a maximum fine of $500. Vehicles  within a three-block radius of the club were also ticketed and towed,  despite the fact that some of the car owners had never even entered the  club that night.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe policing of queer sexualities has been arguably the most visible  and recognized point of contact between LGBT people and the criminal  legal system. From the images that form the opening sequence of \u003ci\u003eMilk\u003c\/i\u003e—the  2008 biopic about gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk—of groups of  white gay men hiding from cameras as they are rounded up by police in  the 1950s, to the historic clashes with police of the late 1960s and  early 1970s, police repression and resistance to it are central themes  of gay life in the United States. Groundbreaking gay rights  organizations such as the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of  Bilitis have expressed strong concern about bar raids and police  harassment. A study conducted by the National Gay Task Force (now the  NGLTF) in the mid-eighties found that 23 percent of gay men and 13  percent of lesbians reported having been harassed, threatened with  violence, or physically attacked by police because of their sexual  orientation. It remains a daily occurrence for large numbers of LGBT  people. According to reports made to the National Coalition of  Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) in 2008, law enforcement officers were  the third-largest category of perpetrators of anti-LGBT violence.  Incidences of reported police violence against LGBT people increased by  150 percent between 2007 and 2008, and the number of law enforcement  officers reported to have engaged in abusive treatment of LGBT people  increased by 11 percent. In 2000, the NCAVP stated that 50 percent of  bias-related violence reported by transgender women in San Francisco was  committed by police and private security officers.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs demonstrated by the Power Plant incident, in many ways, policing  of queers has not changed significantly since the days when it sparked  outrage and resistance from LGBT communities, although its focus has  narrowed to some degree. According to the New York City Anti-Violence  Project, “Young queer people of color, transgender youth, homeless and  street involved youth are more vulnerable to police violence . . . AVP’s  data analysis also reveals that transgender individuals are at a  greater risk of experiencing police violence Far from fading into the  annals of LGBT history, police violence against queers is alive and  well.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYet with the exception of sodomy law enforcement, since the mid-  1970s resistance to abusive policing of LGBT people has largely been  absent from the agendas of national mainstream LGBT organizations,  particularly as police have increasingly narrowed their focus to  segments of LGBT communities with little power or voice inside and  outside such groups. Similarly, while mainstream police accountability  and civil rights organizations have called for accountability in a  limited number of cases involving LGBT individuals, policing of gender  and queer sexualities has not been central to their analysis of the  issue. It is essential to bring the persistent police violence  experienced by LGBT people to the fore of these movements to ensure the  ghosts of Stonewall do not continue to haunt for years to come.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePolicing Social Order\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn order to better understand the roots and forms of policing of LGBT  communities, it is important to consider the power police possess and  the role they play in society. Police and other law enforcement agents  do not merely objectively enforce the letter of the law. Practically  speaking, they also function as lawmakers in their own right. They are  given considerable latitude in deciding which laws to enforce, how to  enforce them, and which people to target for enforcement. And they often  consciously and unconsciously exercise that broad discretion in ways  that are anything but neutral. Far from being passive players just doing  a job, law enforcement agents play a crucial role in manufacturing,  acting on, and enforcing criminalizing archetypes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe advent of “quality of life” policing in the 1990s further  facilitated this process. This now predominant law enforcement paradigm  is premised on maintaining social order through aggressive enforcement  of quality of life regulations, rooted in age-old vagrancy laws, which  prohibit an expanding spectrum of activities in public spaces, including  standing (loitering), sitting, sleeping, eating, drinking, urinating,  making noise, and approaching strangers. It is based on the theory that  minor indications of “disorder”—a broken window, youth hanging out on  the corner, public drinking—ultimately lead to more serious criminal  activity. While such regulations may appear innocent at first blush, in  reality, by criminalizing ordinary and otherwise lawful activities, this  new paradigm has given police additional tools to stop, ticket, and  arrest increasing numbers of people, most notably youth and homeless  people. In 2006 alone, the NYPD stopped, questioned and\/or frisked over  half a million people, a 500 percent increase over the previous year.  Over 80 percent were Black or Latina\/o, even though these groups make up  only 53.6 percent of the NYC population, while only approximately 10  percent were white, compared to 44 percent of the population. Quality of  life stops also create additional opportunities for police officers to  use force. While “quality of life” offenses are often low-level  misdemeanors or violations (the equivalent of a speeding ticket), an  accumulation of tickets or failure to appear in court often leads to  more serious consequences.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven their extensive reach and the common occurrence of the types of  conduct they prohibit, it is virtually impossible to enforce all  quality of life regulations against all people at all times and in all  places. As Yale law professor Charles Reich notes, “Laws that are widely  violated . . . especially lend themselves to selective and arbitrary  enforcement.” Additionally, the language of quality of life regulations,  such as those prohibiting “disorderly” or lewd conduct or loitering, is  often vague and subject to multiple interpretations when determining  what kinds of conduct to punish, and by whom. Ultimately, “zero  tolerance” for quality of life violations means zero tolerance for  undesirables, and quality of life can mean quality of life for property  and business owners at the expense of quality of life for countless  others.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSocial constructions of deviance and criminality pervade the myriad  routine practices and procedures through which law enforcement agents  decide whom to stop on the streets or highways, whom to question,  search, and arrest, and whom to subject to brutal force. The statistics  reflecting persistent and pervasive racial profiling are as familiar as  they are dizzying. Behind the numbers are the stories of daily  harassment and arbitrary police action premised on presumptions of  criminality that attach to some, but not others.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA Black gay man peacefully walking in a park in New York City was  confronted by an officer pointing a gun at him, saying, “If you an  arcade with friends in a gay neighborhood in Chicago when an officer  passing by in a police car yelled at the young people to “move their  ass.” The officer then pulled over to stop and search them, calling the  young man a “nigger faggot” while telling him his “ass is not big enough  to fuck.” The young man was arrested and charged with disorderly  conduct. The charges were later dismissed. Driving such seemingly  routine incidents are undercurrents of archetypal narratives framing  Black men as inherently up to no good, and gay men as individuals whose  sexuality must be informally controlled, even where they have broken no  law.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn addition to possessing the power to stop and arrest, police also  have the ability to utilize force as a tool of order maintenance.  Criminalizing archetypes framing particular individuals and groups as  inherently dangerous, violent, mentally unstable, or disposable fuel and  justify physical abuse by police. Statistics pointing to the  disproportionate use of force against people of color—including LGBT  people of color—abound, and there is no shortage of illustrations  bringing the numbers to life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA gay Latino man stopped for a traffic offense in Oakland,  California, in 2001 was arrested and placed in a patrol car—but not  until an officer who noticed his pink socks called them “faggot socks”  and slammed his ankle in the car door so hard the man required medical  treatment. Freddie Mason, a thirty-one-year-old Black gay nurse’s  assistant with no prior criminal record, was arrested following a verbal  altercation with his landlord and anally raped with a billy club  covered in cleaning liquid by a Chicago police officer who called him a  “nigger fag” and told him “I’m tired of you faggot . . . you sick mother  fucker.” Two lesbians of color arrested outside a club hosting a  women’s night in Brooklyn, New York, in 2009 were beaten by officers who  called one a “bitch ass dyke.” In each of these cases, under the guise  of responding to alleged minor, nonviolent offenses, officers used brute  force to maintain raced, gendered, and heterosexual “order.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Beacon Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302464180453,"sku":"NP9780807051153","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780807051153.jpg?v=1767735285","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/queer-injustice-isbn-9780807051153","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}