UNSAFE: The carceral roots of the anti-trans backlash
About this Event
The twenty-first century “gender wars” have been driven by a powerful and seductive narrative: that safety can be secured through exclusion, surveillance, and the policing of difference. These punitive logics have gained momentum across the political spectrum, fueling an anti-trans backlash and distorting the meaning of safety itself.
Unsafe is a clear-eyed and decisive challenge to the toxic ideas at the heart of this backlash. With patient rigour, Lamble exposes how carceral approaches to safety fail to address root causes of harm, ultimately deepening social divisions and legitimising new forms of violence and control.
Drawing on feminist and queer traditions, as well as their experience organizing against prisons and policing, Lamble makes a principled case for a different vision: one where safety is not built on punishment but on collective care, radical solidarity, and transformative justice.
This event will also feature responses by local activists and intellectuals. Following the presentations there will be a Q&A, followed by a light vegetarian meal with gluten free options.
Lamble is a community organizer and Professor of Criminology and Queer Theory at Birkbeck, University of London. Their work explores questions of gender, sexuality, and justice with a focus on feminist and abolitionist alternatives to prisons, police, and punishment. They are based in London.
The event will be held in the Parlour Room of Dominion-Chalmers, which is accessible by an elevator. Ramp access to the entrance of the building is available off the parking lot on Lisgar. Automated real-time captioning will be provided.
This event is co-sponsored by the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies (University of Ottawa), the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation (Carleton), the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Carleton), the Ottawa Trans Library, the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project (CPEP), and Octopus Books.
Copies of the book are available from Haymarket Books: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2765-unsafe
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
CAD 0.00
