Abolition as Lodestar: Rethinking Prison Reform From a Trans Perspective

Abstract

Carol Steiker, and Dehlia Umunna, for providing feedback on early ideas and drafts; encouraging me to write, and then keep writing; and showing me potential paths forward when I needed guidance most. Inspiring conversations with Anna Nathanson, Rio Scharf, Dean Spade, Mal(colm) Sullivan, Isra Syed, and members of the HLS Critical Race Theory Conference 2020 Organizing Committee led me to pursue this project and were touchstones throughout. Noah Remnick and Ezra Ritchin provided feedback and recommended sources that helped me to emphasize the inclusion and solidarity at the core of my argument. There is truly nothing like a close read from Jules Welsh, who took time away from editing their inspired Note to conduct a scrupulous analysis of the language I use and then to discuss it with me with pedagogical prowess. I cannot thank Gabriel Arkles enough for providing me with remarkable, memo-length feedback that reconceptualized the categories I use and improved the Note immensely. Finally, Virginia Wright shepherded this piece through the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender's wonderful editing process, alongside Haley Kulakowski and Rachel Schaub; thank you all for helping me to say precisely what I meant to say. This Note is dedicated to Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco-may our mourning be a political act.

Keywords: prison law, LGBT, transgender rights, abolition, constitutional law, Eighth Amendment, Sentencing Reform, Law and Society, Sexuality, Gender, and the Law