Black Lives Matter: Race, Gender, and State Sanctioned Violence

• In Event: 237 - Informal Discussion Roundtable Session

Abstract

This study will explore the nature of negative interactions among Black trans and gender non-conforming people with the state, broadly, as a result of both everyday encounters and protest in the current moment of an emerging social movement led by Black youth advocating for a response to previously under-reported crimes against Black trans and gender non-conforming people; the Black Lives Matter Movement.

Thinking of Max Weber’s definition of the state as a way for governments to legitimize the use of force among its people, this study will ask how Black trans and gender-nonconforming people are treated by police, transportation security administration, courts, among others. This study will also explore the interplays within these negative interactions between gender-presentation (i.e. identifying as a Black trans-woman versus a Black trans-man) and experiences of policing and state violence.

Through the use of qualitative research methodology, this work will be twofold. First, this study will discuss the everyday negative encounters Black trans and gender non-conforming people have with the state. Second, this study will explore the ways in which Black trans and gender non-conforming people critically engage with protest, or choose not to engage with protest, while we are simultaneously seeing the Black Lives Matter Movement challenge notions of policing and police brutality amongst Black people in the United States.

Author

• Ash Stephens, University of Illinois at Chicago