Love in a F*cked Up World
Why do so many of us act our worst in relationships? How can we hold on to our liberatory values even when strong feelings are involved? For 25 years, Dean Spade has been working in movements for queer and trans liberation and to end police, prisons, immigration enforcement, and war. In his new podcast, Love in a F*cked Up World, Dean and his guests offer concrete tools for building and sustaining strong relationships, because our connections to each other are the building blocks of our resistance.
Episodes
28 episodes
Gossip
Morgan Bassichis is back talking gossip with Dean. Why is it so hard to tell people things directly? Why is it so hard to keep things confidential? How can we tell whether we’re sharing information because it is useful for caring, or because we...
Resentment
Tea kettle studies non-expert Morgan Bassichis is back with Dean to talk about resentment—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 condi...
Vicky Osterweil
Vicky Osterweil, author of In Defense of Looting, joins Dean for a Trans Day of Visibility event organized by
Eli Clare
Dean chats with his friend, the brilliant writer and activist Eli Clare, about his newest book, Unfurl, which Eli describes as a queer disabled love song. Dean and Eli talk about grief a...
Benji Hart
Dean sits down with friend and collaborator Benji Hart, a facilitator, educator, writer, and artist with years of experience in multiracial abolitionist organizing. Together, they discuss their anti-militarism work with the group Dissenters and...
Am I Working Too Hard to Fix Myself?
Morgan Bassichis is back with Dean to talk through a listener question about when self-improvement work is too rigorous and/or driven by shame. Morgan and Dean go deep, thinking together about the really painful beliefs about ourselves that som...
Andrea Ritchie
Dean is joined by longtime collaborator and dear friend Andrea Ritchie, author of Practicing New Worlds,
Chani Nicholas
Chani Nicholas, queer feminist astrologer and author of You Were Born for This, joins Dean to talk about how she got politicized, how we hold fear and choose purposeful action in these difficult times, what it takes to stand up for wha...
Green Dreamer
Dean is excited to share an episode of the podcast Green Dreamer, hosted by kaméa chayne. Green Dreamer features thoughtful, engaging interviews with organizers, writers, artists, and thinkers working...
Peter Gelderloos
Dean speaks (in person!) with Peter Gelderloos, whose work has profoundly shaped Dean’s political development since he first encountered H...
Holly Whitaker
Dean sits down with Holly Whitaker, author of Quit Like a Woman and host of the Co-Regulation podcast to talk about Holly’s critical feminist analysis of how the alcohol industry and ...
Giving and Receiving Feedback
In societies where we throw people away regularly, where carcerality is woven into the emotional fabric of all of our psyches and relationships, it can be VERY hard to give and receive direct feedback. Often we don’t tell people when t...
Shira Hassan
Shira Hassan brings her brilliance and decades of experience in harm reduction, transformative justice, and self-help to this deep-dive conversation. With thoughtful questions for Dean about Love in a F*cked Up World, she opens a nuanc...
7 Steps for De-escalating a Crush
Crushes can be fun and enlivening, but sometimes they are ill-timed or ill-suited, and it can be hard to shake them off. Morgan Bassichis is back to discuss one of the most popular tools from Dean's book Love in a F*cked Up World: 7 Steps for D...
AMA with Jessica Lanyadoo (Part 2)
Jessica Lanyadoo is back with Dean for part two of this AMA, where they tackle more listener questions. They dive into everything from negotiating relationship terms — like how to open a relationship, set boundaries, and talk about safer sex — ...
AMA with Jessica Lanyadoo (Part 1)
Jessica Lanyadoo joins Dean for the first AMA episode of Love in a F*cked Up World. Jessica and Dean answer listener questions about how to navigate our relationships with friends in the context of these terrifying times, how to deal with diffe...
Kelly Hayes
Kelly Hayes joins Dean Spade to talk about the relational work of movement building. In a critical moment in Chicago, Kelly and Dean talk about how to establish the trust needed to take the kinds of risks necessary to fight ICE and fascist inva...
Weyam Ghadbian
Weyam Ghadbian joins Dean Spade to talk about Dean's tool 7 Steps for Deescalating a Crush, how Weyam encouraged Dean to discuss the transformative power of love, when attachment theory is useful, and when it's ok to give self help books as gif...
How to Survive the End of the World: Be My Senpai
Dean is excited to share an episode of one of his favorite podcasts, How to Survive the End of the World, hosted by Autumn Brown and adrienne maree brown.In this episode, "Be My Senpai" the si...
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
How can you tell when it's time to leave a relationship with a person, project, job, or group? How can you tell if you have a tendency to walk away too fast or to stay too long in relationships? Morgan Bassichis is back to go deep into these qu...
Prentis Hemphill
Prentis Hemphill joins Dean Spade in this episode to talk about love, organizing, and healing. They talk about projection, practice, and their approaches to writing books in the self help genre.Check out Prentis's book,
Long Distance and Electronic Communication
Is sexting sex? And is sexting cheating if someone is monogamous? How can we be clear in our communication and boundaries? Can we feel ok giving a maybe or accepting a no? Morgan Bassichis is back with Dean to talk through frequentl...
Mariame Kaba
Mariame Kaba joins Dean Spade for this episode of Love in a F*cked Up World. Mariame and Dean talk about the dangers of putting leaders on pedestals in our movements, what to do when you or someone you know is getting canceled, how to ...