Vulnerable Subjecthood: The Risks and Benefits of the Struggle for Hate Crime Legislation

In this paper I argue that to understand and reduce violence we must study the productive moments of power, particularly the discourses that (re)produce ideas and practices of violence. I focus here on questions of labeling a violent act a crime and how identity-based activist work for hate crime legislation shapes conceptions about what it means to be a member of that identity group. I present data on anti-violence activism done by and for transgender people in the United States between 1990 and 2005. I detail how, following a precedent set by past identity groups, these activists framed violence against transgenderists as caused by hate and fought for inclusion of gender identity in hate crime legislation. I argue that, while this style of activism promoted recognition of transgender people as valuable humans and marked the violence they experienced as unjust, it also constructed the group as universally hated and at constant risk for horrific violence. Thus, although scholars have focused on the positive consequences of hate crime legislation, I find that the struggle for such laws can have negative symbolic consequences for identity groups, mainly the construction of a vulnerable subjecthood. I conclude with a suggestion for an alternative tactic for both constructing subjecthood and doing anti-violence activism.