Facebook group. Willse and Spade were also the co-creators of MAKE, "propaganda for activist agitation", a paper zine (1999–2001) and website (2001–2007). In the past, Spade has written other zines including Piss and Vinegar (2002), telling the story of his transphobic arrest during the 2002 World Economic Forum protests in New York City. Mimi Nguyen interviewed Spade and Willse about the experience in Maximumrocknroll. Personal life Spade grew up in rural Virginia, the child of a single mother who was sometimes on welfare. At the age of 9 he joined his mother and sister in cleaning houses and offices to make money. Two years later he started cleaning by himself and moved on to painting summer rentals for additional income. At the age of 14 his mother died of lung cancer. Following her death he lived with two sets of foster parents. Spade graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and women's studies, and then graduated from the UCLA School of Law in 2001. He has written about seeking a mastectomy for sex-reassignment surgery in Los Angeles during this time period, and how the reliance on a mental-health/disability model to gain access to such surgery did not fit a person with a non-binary gender expression. Spade is Jewish, and has worked closely with the Seattle chapter of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA). Works References External links Dean Spade: Seattle University School of Law Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights - CUNY School of Law Yale Law School - James A. Thomas Lecture - Dean Spade - VIDEO 1977 births American civil rights activists Barnard College alumni City University of New York faculty Harvard Law School faculty Jewish American writers Jewish anti-Zionism in the United States LGBT Jews LGBT people from New York (state) LGBT people from Virginia American LGBT rights activists Living people New York (state) lawyers Prison abolitionists Seattle University faculty Transgender law in the United States LGBT lawyers Transgender men Transgender Jews Transgender rights activists UCLA School of Law faculty Transgender academics Transgender studies academics 21st-century American Jews 21st-century LGBT people American transgender writers