Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You Edited by Ryan Conrad (review)

A white, gay-identified Florida teen, Kaitlyn Hunt, 18, faces felony charges for “lewd and lascivious battery of a child 12 to 16,” after the parents of her 15-year-old girlfriend pressed charges against her in February 2013. The support for Hunt has been overwhelming and cries of homophobia have been the central rallying point of her defenders; however, some have argued that this is not an issue of homophobia, but rather the consequence of antiquated sex-offender laws. In reality, it is both. LGBTQ folks have a long history of marginalization under the law as sexual minorities and deviants. This issue has become obscured by the mainstream LGBT movement’s focus on legal inclusion through marriage, the military, and protective legislation such as hate crime laws (HCL). Against Equality: Prisons Will Not Protect You (PWNPY) is the third book in the Against Equality collective’s series. All three books take the mainstream strategy of “inclusion” to task. This short and concise pocket-sized book is ten chapters full of a deeply critical and timely analysis that is engaged with two main themes: queer critiques of HCL and queer critiques of sex-crime laws.

Dean Spade’s introduction captures the central paradox of PWNPY: How do queers, trans folks, and people of color hold the criminal (in)justice system accountable for the violence done on and through their bodies when that very system is charged with preventing harm and violence in the first place? Spade explores the ways that LGBTQ individuals and organizations have turned to HCL as a way not only to ensure their safety but also to secure their full and equal citizenship under the law. Acknowledging that violence is a real and legitimate concern, Spade argues that the deeply ingrained notion that law enforcement and the criminal punishment system will provide the safety that queers need is false and premised on key cultural myths about who are the victims and perpetrators of violence, and who gets punished and imprisoned for violence. According to Spade, these myths need to be acknowledged and dispelled in order to create real safety and accountability. Citing the work of queer and trans activists, whose work is explored further in the anthology, Spade offers tangible and tested strategies for resisting the current criminal punishment system. In particular, Spade also offers a philosophical shift: to change the way we create and believe in enemies, and to understand banishment and exile as ill-fated solutions to the problems that we all face as people who create and face harm daily. Spade pushes us to imagine what it would look like to create a world where we can prevent and address harm without “throwing people away or putting them in cages” (10).

A collection of previously published materials from personal blogs to Alternet, the essays range from in-depth explorations of specific cases to organizational statements against HCL. One drawback of this anthology of archival material is at times a repetition of analysis; however, I will draw out major themes and arguments here. The first part of the anthology, and therefore this review, deal with HCL. Writing for Black & Pink, an organization of LGBTQ prisoners and allies, Jason Lydon provides a comprehensive list of major themes in critiques of HCL all gleaned from radical, queer, anti-racist feminist organizations whose work focuses on dismantling the criminal punishment system. Lydon argues that HCL do not distinguish between marginalized groups and groups with institutional power. This means that the language of HCL makes it possible for white people to accuse people of color of hate crimes, and likewise straight people can accuse queers of hate crimes (14). In addition, Lydon notes that hate crimes occur because we live in a culture that deems certain lives are more valuable than others, not because there aren’t enough laws to stop them from happening. When organizations put resources into passing HCL it takes away from the deeper and more...