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

by Dean Spade

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643756462
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	01/14/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 6.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

11/04/2024

Lawyer and activist Spade (Mutual Aid) offers an intermittently insightful dating manual guided by “our most radical, visionary ideas of liberation.” He contends that modern society is rooted in damaging cultural scripts (for example, the myth that love supersedes all other bonds, or that being “rich, skinny, and married” ensures happiness) that push unrealistic expectations of romantic partnerships and devalue platonic bonds. This creates a world where romance is at once more important and more misunderstood than ever, with dominant systems of power (racial capitalism, consumerism, the patriarchy) undermining the very “satisfying, inspiring, and ethical relationships” that would help people survive them. Spade calls for readers to recognize such scripts and how they inform unhealthy emotional reactions (like unfairly blaming one’s partner), and to tap into their feelings through such practices as talk therapy. In the process, he makes trenchant points about the ways culturally specific narratives of sex and romance must be rethought in favor of more holistic, community-centered models of connection. Sometimes, however, Spade stretches his thesis too far, as when he suggests that the police and other authorities reinforce harmful expectations that other people—including romantic partners—should “make us feel safe” or else be blamed “when we feel afraid.” While not all of Spade’s arguments land, there’s enough here to satisfy progressive activists looking for love. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

A National Indie Bestseller

Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Ms. Magazine

"Dean Spade's Love in a F*cked-Up World is a revolutionary guide for navigating relationships in these challenging times. With unflinching honesty and radical compassion, Spade offers invaluable insights into how dominant cultural scripts shape our connections, providing practical tools for breaking free from harmful relational patterns. I highly recommend this book for anyone seeking to build more authentic, liberating relationships while dismantling oppressive systems. As someone deeply invested in helping people create secure attachments in non-traditional relationships, I'm thrilled to see Spade's intersectional, justice-oriented approach to love and intimacy. This work has the power to transform not just our personal lives but our communities and movements as well."—Jessica Fern, author of Polysecure and Polywise

“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 F*cked-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

"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

“Dean Spade is a force, and I was psyched for his latest, which challenges us to put our money where our mouths are in relationships. Spade makes plain the importance of confronting conditioning in love, sex and romance and making way for the revolution(ary) in all our relationships.”—Ms. Magazine

“Whether an individual has had years of therapy and relationship experience or none of either, Spade’s clear and hopeful voice will provide advice, direction, and comfort.”—Booklist

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

"Peter Kropotkin called mutual aid a 'factor in evolution.' The Black Panther Party called it 'survival pending revolution.' Dean Spade tells us that mutual aid is fundamental to making revolution. It is about building solidarity, preparing for battle, and creating a culture of collective care to displace the atomizing culture of individualism and the market. An indispensable guide for our moment, this book teaches us that effective social movements are impossible without mutual aid. Read every page. Carry it everywhere. Share it with everyone. Change everything."—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"Urgently calling for radical creativity and transformative change, Spade invites readers to think critically about their roles in groups and liberation."—Heather Munao, Booklist

"Spade outlines how the systems we currently have in place are not set up to meet people’s needs—as we’ve seen highlighted by last year’s major global disruption."

—Maria Ricapito, Marie Claire

"Love in a F*cked Up World is the medicine, guidebook, and workshop we need now. This book is full of practical guidance, thought provoking questions to meditate on, and illuminating stories about what it takes to heal and build together. And it does so by refusing to let ourselves off the hook. This is a portal into self and therefore world-transformation. Dean’s expertise and care shines through each page and his timing with the publishing of this manifesto is impeccable."—Chani Nicholas, New York Times–bestselling author of You Were Born for This and co-founder of the CHANI app

From the Publisher