Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together

Dean Spade, in conversation with Morgan Bassichis 

Around the globe, people are faced with spiraling crises, from the pandemic and climate change-induced disasters to the ongoing horrors of mass incarceration, genocide, racist policing, endemic gender violence, and severe wealth inequality. More and more of us feel mobilized to fight back, often dedicating our lives to  collective liberation. But even those of us who long for change seem to have trouble when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Too often we think of our political values as outward-facing positions again dominant systems of power.  Many projects and resistance groups fall apart because people treat each other poorly, trying desperately to live out the cultural myths about dating and relationships that we are fed from an early age. How do we divest from cultural programming that gives us harmful expectations about sex, dating, romance and friendship?

How do we recover from the messed up dynamics we were trained in by childhood caregivers? How do we bring our best thinking about freedom into step with our desires for healing and connection? Love in a F*cked-Up World is a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, so we can stick together while we work for survival and liberation.

Reserve a copy of the book and a seat!

Advance Praise for Love in a F*cked Up World:

“Dean Spade has written a pragmatic, timely book to help us navigate our most intimate relationships with a collective mindset; release romance myths and approach love as a practice; and cultivate discernment and freedom where we are trained towards judgement and ownership. He teaches us with gentle, relatable clarity and questions that allow us to reflect on how we are loving each other in this fucked up gorgeous world, and how to hold on to each other as the changes come.” - adrienne maree brown, author of Loving Corrections, Pleasure Activism, and Emergent Strategy

“Everyday we have the chance to be the change we want to see in the world in how we treat each other. And yet, it is often in our intimate relationships that we fail to live our values - in often very painful ways. In Love In A F*cked-Up World, Dean Spade helps us love better, care better, build better, and even break up better so that we can come together (and apart) in ways that keep our communities and movements intact.”  --Ijeoma Oluo, author of So You Want To Talk About Race, Mediocre, and Be A Revolution

We Keep Each Other Safe: N95, KN95, KF94, or equivalent masks are required for this event. Please bring one if you have one, they will also be available here. If you are feeling sick please stay home and rest up! We are on the ground floor with no stairs. The bathroom may be a challenge for wheelchairs (alternative is across the street), please call us with any access questions and accomodations we can make.

Dean Spade is the author of Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law and Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next). He has worked for twenty-five years as a leading voice for trans liberation, prison abolition, and mutual aid, and has been interviewed by Bloomberg TV, Democracy Now, the Nation, the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast, and countless other media outlets. He teaches at the Seattle University School of Law. Find him at deanspade.net.

MORGAN BASSICHIS is a comedian, musician, and writer who has been called “a tall child or, well, a big bird” by The Nation and “fiercely hilarious” by The New Yorker. Their past performances include A Crowded Field, Questions to Ask Beforehand, Don’t Rain On My Bat Mitzvah, Nibbling the Hand that Feeds Me, Klezmer for Beginners, Damned If You Duet, More Protest Songs!, and The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions: The Musical.

Morgan’s book of to-do lists, The Odd Years, was published by Wendy’s Subway in 2020. They co-edited, with Rachel Valinsky and Jay Saper, the anthology Questions to Ask Before Your Bat Mitzvah (Wendy’s Subway, 2023). Morgan has released two albums: March is for Marches with Ethan Philbrick (2019) and More Protest Songs! Live From St. Mark’s Church (2018). Their first museum show, More Little Ditties, curated by Dan Byers and Amber Esseiva, was co-commissioned in 2023 by the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts at Harvard University and the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.