Love in a F*cked-Up World

How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together

By: Dean Spade

Narrated by: Dean Spade

In this inspiring self-help handbook, a trans activist dares us to be the change we want to see—both out in the world, and amongst our closest connections.

Lifelong activist and educator Dean Spade dares us to decide that our interpersonal actions are not separate from our politics of liberation and resistance. Many activist 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 the idea that one romantic partner will be the solution to all our problems? How do we bring our best thinking about freedom and justice 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, preparing us for the work of changing the world.

Critic reviews

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

“Against the backdrop of societal expectations, Love in a Fucked-Up World offers a beautiful and radical perspective on how to cultivate relationships that are not only fulfilling but also revolutionary. That change our world —and ultimately our earth— at its root. Drawing on decades of leadership in social movements, Dean Spade inextricably links personal healing with collective liberation, encouraging readers to rethink the ways we connect, love, and resist in an increasingly complex world.”—Tourmaline, co-editor of Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility

"Compassionate, clarifying, and profoundly wise, Love in a F*cked Up World is radical leftist thought leader Dean Spade's latest gift to anyone interested in the intersection of love and justice... In this clear and highly practical book, Spade offers an enormously helpful map for creating relationships—whether friendly, sexual, and/or romantic—that feed and strengthen not only the individuals involved, but their communities and social commitments as well... This is the book I desperately needed when I first joined social justice movements as a teenager, and I am so very grateful that activists of all ages may read it now."
—Kai Cheng Thom, author of Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls

“As a politicized person and a queer therapist, I have long wished for more self-help literature that is collectivist, anti-capitalist, and grounded in radical tradition. Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked-Up World nails it, a loving and fearless book full of rigor, candor, and wisdom from someone who has lived a life devoted to activist community.”—hannah baer, therapist and author of trans girl suicide museum

Praise for Mutual Aid:

"At once a call-to-arms, a balm for all those despairing at the present and future, and a blueprint for how we might better live with one another."—Daniel Fernandez, The Nation

Great book

Lots of fantastic suggestions for healthy relationships of all sorts. Also great resource for a process of self reflection around wellness in relationships of all sorts. If everyone read this book and applied just half of what’s offered here, we would be living in a much better world.

Beautifully insightful 🫶🏼

I wish I could go back in time and have my past self read this. I can’t wait to meet this author in Chicago at the socialism conference!

very good!

a lot of helpful ideas surrounding relationship therapy whether you're queer, straight, monogamous, polygamous, or anywhere in between

READ AND ACT

To read this book and not act on the realizations you'll have is less than you deserve✨️