This is the third in a series of episodes on HOW TO LIVE IN 2025, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and actions we need to thrive, develop, create, and resist. At the end of each of these episodes, I’ll offer an exercise – a thought exercise, spiritual exercise, or practical exercise – that brings an experiential dimension to what I and the shows guests talk about.
“This book has a lot of the wisdom of things that feminists and queers have learned in the community about sexuality, but the book is really for anybody who is political, even those just starting out and beginning to realize that there is something wrong with the systems they live under. I want to be in movements. Our movements are made of relationships. So, if you’re just getting into our movements, or if you’ve been here for years and have been watching the ways we hurt each other and fall apart relationally, this book is about identifying these common patterns.”
I was thrilled to be the first guest on the new Mutual Aid Podcast. Very fun conversation with people who are deeply engaged with mutual aid work and coming from non-US locations. You can listen here:
Grateful to Wren Sanders and Them for inviting Susan Stryker and I to this conversation about how to navigate this terrifying moment of the second Trump presidency, including advice for campus activists, reflections on trans history, and more. If you visit the page where they posted about it and scroll down you can find some cute clips of the conversation.
Such a treat to talk to Tuck and Ozzy about my new book, the dangers facing trans people during a second Trump administration, how we fight back and survive, and much more.
You can listen and download a 57-minute sample of the audiobook here!
SCROLL DOWN FOR DATES AND ACCESS INFO
My new book is coming out and I am doing a bunch of conversations about it. I will keep updating this list as they get confirmed, but for now, mark your calendar, and use the links below to get tickets when relevant (I’ll update the links with specific event links as my hosts make them ready).
I’m asking that everyone wear KN95 or N95 masks to in-person events and please test before you come, in hopes of making these events more accessible to more people. Masks will be provided at events, and people will be asked to wear them unless an access need prevents it. If you have other access questions or requests about these events, please contact the people hosting the events, since they know more about their venues than I do.
May 11, Verso “Mutual Aid in 2026: How Minneapolis Fights Back”, Online in conversation with Jessica Rosenberg and Autumn Brown
May 24, Literal Fair 2026, Barcelona
May 29, Fiber Festival Keynote, Amsterdam
ACCESS INFO
Most of the events above are spaces I cannot visit beforehand and have never been to, so I’m trying to think about how to maximize transparency about access, and also support COVID safety to the best of my ability. There is no doubt that these events will be imperfectly accessible, and I am making efforts to increase access where I can. I am grateful to friends at various Mask Blocs and Clean Air Clubs, especially Mask Bloc Seattle and Seattle Clean Air Collecitve, as well as to Emi at Long COVID Justice, for advice in developing this approach.
I hope my approach will build awareness around COVID safety and other access needs, and provide transparency for people considering attending about what to expect. Here’s what I’m doing:
Please contact the venues for follow up questions–they know more than me about what is possible in their space. I hope these efforts increase the chance of people connecting to these events, and I look forward to being with you all online or in person!
P. S. It may take some venues a little time to fill the survey out. Many are volunteer-run spaces.
Recent Past Events
2025:
January 17, Elliott Bay Books, Seattle, in conversation with Angela Garbes
January 19, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR, with Demian DinéYazhi
January 24, Creating Change Conference, Las Vegas, NV, in conversation with Jaime Grant
January 29, Possible Futures Bookstore, New Haven, CT, with Luciana McClure-Lewis
January 30, Yale Law School, New Haven, CT
January 31, Making Worlds Bookstore, Philadelphia, PA
February 2, Word Is Change Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY, with Morgan Bassichis
February 3, Bluestockings Bookstore, NY, in conversation with Mariame Kaba
February 4, Brooklyn Heights Branch, Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, NY, with J. Wortham
February 12, Online, hosted by Seattle University School of Law
February 14, Fireweed Collective, Online
February 26, Online, Barnard Center for Research on Women
February 28, California Institute for Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA
March 2, In person at Restore Oakland, or register here if you want to attend online, organized by Ella Baker Center
March 2, Hosted by Queer Crescent at Merritt House, Oakland
March 3, University of California, Berkeley (this event is both in-person and online)
March 5, Brooklyn Rail, Online
March 7, Stories Books & Cafe, Los Angeles
March 12, Online, hosted by University of Maine
March 15, Community Book Center, New Orleans
March 16, John Thompson Legacy Center, New Orleans
March 30, Hosted by Simon Fraser University and UBC, Vancouver, B.C.
March 31, Online, hosted by Firestorm Books, in conversation with Kai Cheng Thom
April 3, Downtown Public Library, hosted by A Room of One’s Own Bookstore, Madison
April 4, University of Wisconsin, Madison
April 5, Cactus Club, Milwaukee (this event will also be livestreamed)
May 1, Cleveland Park Library, hosted by Loyalty Books, Washington, D.C., with Jaime Grant, author of Polyamory for Dummies
May 3, Red Emmas, Baltimore, MD
May 7, Chicago, IL, co-sponsored by Haymarket Books, Pilsen Community Books, and In These Times.
May 21, Powell’s Books, Portland, OR in conversation with Garrett Felber about his book A Continuous Struggle
May 22, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR
May 23, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
May 23, Heart Of The Valley Anti-Capitalist Bookfair @ The Book Bin, Corvallis, OR
September 21, Love in a F*cked Up World Reading Groups Meet Up, Online (fundraiser for the podcast)
October 1, The Great Hall w/ Lighthouse Bookshop, Edinburgh UK, in conversation with Nat Raha and Wu Tsang
October 2, Kinning Park Complex w/ Arika, Glasgow UK (mutual aid workshop)
October 2, Listen Gallery, Glasgow UK, in conversation with Hannah Proctor and Winnie Herbstein to launch their book Slamming Doors: Falling out and fighting back in a housing crisis
October 3, Blackwell’s, Manchester UK, in conversation with Wu Tsang
October 6, UCL, London UK
October 9, Old School Rooms w/ Pages of Hackney, London UK, in conversation with Nim Ralph
October 10, Birkbeck, London UK
October 15, Interrupting Criminalization, Online
October 17, Casino for Social Medicine, Berlin Germany
October 18, Casino for Social Medicine, Berlin Germany, How to Break an Addiction in conversation with Annie Spencer
October 20, XAOS Queer Care Club Vienna, Vienna Austria, in conversation with Cindy Milstein
October 25, #NoWar2025: Exploring Abolition Movements, Online
October 26, Lovelite, Berlin Germany, with the Berlin Internationals Polyamory Group
November 8, Workshops for Gaza, Online
November 19, Videogram, Online
November 20, Mutual Aid 101: Navigating Conflict w/ Shareable, Online
November 21, Queer/ing Mutual Aid Athens and the Athens Museum of Queer Arts, Athens GR
November 22, Disability Unbound: Mutual Aid for Survival and Resistance, Online
November 23, Texas UU Justice Ministry, Online
December 7, Institute for the Development of Human Arts End of Year Fundraiser, Online
2026:
January 11, The PDX Bad Girls Club, Online
February 8, Herban Cura, Online
February 15, Fireweed Collective, Online, The Romance Myth #6: Too Much or Not Enough?
February 20, Libreria Antigone, Rome, IT
March 12, Institut Català Internacional per la Pau, Barcelona
March 14, Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study, Online, Psychoanalysis In Conversation with Laplanche and Praxis in Relationships
March 23, Bagnomaria w/ Libreria Antigone Milano, Milan
March 29, The Radical Cat Reno, Virtual
April 23, Seattle Central College, Online
April 25, East Bay Meditation Center, Online w/ Weyam Ghadbian and René Rivera
April 26, Verso Book Club Reading Group, Online w/ Beatrice Alder-Bolton
As liberation movements face intense repression from CEOs, cops, landlords, politicians, and Zionists, Dean Spade and friends put together a list of questions we can all ask ourselves, so we don’t reproduce the logics of the state.
Dean is author of the classics Mutual Aid and Normal Life: Administrative Violence and the Limits of the Law, and future classic Love in a F*cked-Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together.