Dean Spade

Dean Spade (born 1977) is an American lawyer, transgender activist, writer, and associate professor of law at Seattle University School of Law. Since graduating from UCLA School of Law in 2001, he has organized a number of activist projects such as the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a non-profit providing free legal services to genderqueer marginalized groups in New York City. Spade entered academia as the 2009–2010 Haywood Burns Chair at CUNY School of Law, followed by his role as the Williams Institute Law Teaching Fellow at UCLA Law School and Harvard Law School. Throughout his career, he has written numerous articles, books, papers, and zines, and has also directed a documentary titled Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back!.