I am so excited to announce Love in a F*cked Up World, the podcast! The first episode is out today — a conversation with @adriennemareebrown — and I’ll be releasing new episodes every two weeks for the next few months. Look out for conversations with @tourmaliiine, Mariame Kaba, Weyam Ghadbian (@weyamhealing), @prentishemphill, and Shira Hassan. And Morgan Bassichis (@morgankindof) and I recorded six mini-episodes focusing on tools for addressing specific problems and tangles, like long distance dating, deciding whether to stay or leave a relationship, dealing with hard feelings like jealousy and possessiveness, and how to de-escalate a crush when you want to. I hope you’ll listen, share with friends, and subscribe. Available wherever you get your podcasts — links in bio.
Huge gratitude to my producer Hope Dector, Ciro (@dogtownstudio), and to The Ballet (@theballetnyc) for the theme song.
On January 14, my new book, Love in a F*cked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together, will be out from @algonquinbooks. I’ve been working on this book for nine years. It comes from decades of watching our movement groups and projects get upended by toxic behaviors when it comes to love, sex, and friendship. This book brings our politics into the interpersonal realm, aiming to help us build relationships that can weather the storms we’re facing. Times are absolutely horrifying, and we really need to stick together, take bold action, and take care of each other right now.
Please don’t buy this book from Amazon/Audible. Get it from an independent bookstore. If you are buying online you can use bookshop.org or libro.fm to buy online through independent bookstores.
Follow us @studentcentergaza ! free education for all high schoolers ❤️ Abdullah @_abdallah_qudaih_ & Ibrahim poet_ibi
Alongside the publication of the new edition of Mutual Aid, Verso will be joined by Dean Spade, Autumn Brown, and R. Jessica Rosenberg to discuss how mutual aid efforts have changed between 2019 and 2026, the repression of Stop Cop City activists, and transitioning between acute and ongoing crises.
Tune in May 11 at 5pm CST / 6pm EST – visit our blog for more details.
I’ve been thinking a lot about resentment lately—how it can poison our enjoyment of the things we want and need to do, how it can be toxic for groups, how it is a reasonable response to the intense conditions we live under, and what it looks like to try to work through it so we can stay connected to the people, groups, and activities we care about. In the latest episode, @morgankindof and I talk through some of the tools I’ve been using in recent workshops about resentment and explore how we can work with this difficult mental and emotional tangle.
If you’re enjoying the podcast, I hope you’ll check out the community we’re building on Patreon at patreon.com/Dean. Membership is free and there are message boards and content I don’t post on the more hostile platforms. And please review, rate, and subscribe. It helps other people find the podcast.
Our healing is the groundwork!
What @spade.dean is talking about reminds me of what Grace Lee Boggs taught us: “Transform yourself to transform the world.” Healing work is relational, and a part of every liberation movement that’s come before us. When we neglect the parts of ourselves that need healing, the bullsh*t is bound to come out sideways and ripple into our relationships and movements.
🌿Tend to what you need: join me in community at Emotional First Aid, a free virtual workshop for queer & trans freedom fighters. May 14, 4-5:30 PST. 🔗🔗🔗
#liberation #queer #transformation #thepersonalispolitical
❤️🔥BIRTHDAY FUNDRAISER FOR INCARCERATED TRANS ELDER❤️🔥
Thanks to her continued advocacy from the inside, Rona Love has finally been moved to Beford Hills after three years in a men’s prison. support Rona Love’s transition to Bedford and her continued fight for a state pardon!
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Reflexiones útiles del libro Apoyo Mutuo de Dean Spade @spade.dean la versión en español 💕🍓
In a time of global poly-crisis, could mutual care be the most radical act of resistance?
We are honoured to welcome lawyer, author, and activist Dean Spade as our Symposium keynote speaker during FIBER Festival 2026, on Friday May 29 at de Brakke Grond (remote).
For over two decades, @spade.dean has been a leading voice in movements for queer and trans liberation grounded in racial and economic justice. His work on mutual aid, prison abolition, and grassroots organising offers practical ways to build solidarity in times of crisis.
Spade is a professor at Seattle University School of Law and the author of several books. In ‘𝘔𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘈𝘪𝘥: 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘚𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘋𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘊𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘴 (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘦𝘹𝘵)’, he outlines a grassroots theory of collective care as a foundation of social justice movements; the book’s newly newly released second edition expands this with reflections shaped by the years since 2020.
Situating these ideas within the festival theme, 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴, this keynote brings an urgent perspective on community mobilisation, social transformation, compassionate activism, and solidarity as vital infrastructures for collective life – and asks what it means to care for one another in a world that remains in flux.
This event is part of the Symposium and included within the Festival Pass. Dean Spade (Keynote – remote) | Fri May 29 | @brakkegrond ➤ Tickets available via our ticketshop 🔗 in bio
Our April book of the month is Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) - New and Expanded Edition by @spade.dean , published by @versobooks ❤️🔥📙
First published in 2020, and now back in a new and expanded edition, Mutual Aid is a radical handbook for anyone who grasps the severity of the global poly-crisis and wants a community-based means to fight back. Dean Spade - lawyer, academic, writer, and activist - highlights the bold and innovative ways ordinary people have developed to share resources and care for those in crisis. Mutual aid isn't charity.
It is a form of organizing integral to all influential and successful social movements. Spade offers practical tools and advice to help with the challenges of working in groups, forming a decision-making process, and preventing and addressing conflict.
Available for purchase in our bio! 📙👀
#thecommonpress #botm #deanspade #mutualaid
I love hearing Vicky Osterweil talk about anything, but most especially about how she understands the gorgeous threat that trans people constitute to the fascist ecocidal monsters who currently run most things in our lives. We met up for this conversation at the invitation of @clagsny, an organization that has been hosting conversations that have profoundly influenced my thinking about queer and trans liberation since the 1990’s.
Vicky’s excellent new book The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World, is just out from @haymarketbooks. Go get it!
Listen to the whole episode wherever you get your podcasts, and please rate, review, and share with friends. If you like the podcast, check out http://patreon.com/deanspade where you can find more videos and cute messageboards where people are talking about the ideas. We pay for all the podcast expenses through listener support, so if you’re up for becoming a paid member of our Patreon, we really appreciate it. We also would love to see you there as a free member.
I had the great pleasure of talking to my friend Eli Clare (@tremors.and.trees) about his new book, Unfurl, and the long arc of his exquisite work shaping trans politics and disability justice over the last many decades.
This week the new edition of my book Mutual Aid came out! If you want to help support the podcast, please pick it up at our store at patreon.com/deanspade. Lots of new reflections on what has happened with mutual aid over the last 6 years. You can also find excerpts from the new edition on Patreon.
