Love in a F*cked Up World

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Prisons are designed to isolate, break social ties, and destroy communities. Yet, people fight hard to keep relationships going across prison walls, and through all the crises that prisons manufacture. Episode 30 is Part Two of a multi-episode series on relating across prison walls. The series features conversations with friends inside prison, people who have been released, and people who have been doing direct support to prisoners for decades, about the barriers to connection that prisons create and the ways people stay connected despite them. This episode focuses on building and maintaining new relationships between people inside and outside.

Share this Episode with Friends Inside
Interested in sharing this episode with friends inside? Some people might be able to find our podcast on their Kiosk system, but for those who can’t we suggest printing the transcript and mailing it in. Here it is in a format that takes up less pages to make printing cheaper and get through page limits:
8 page (smaller font) .pdf / 12-page (larger font) .pdf

Share the transcript of the first episode of “Love and Relationships Across Prison Walls,” too.

Watch the Videos
You can watch the videos of Part 1 and Part 2 on my Youtube channel. They’re kind of like mini-documentaries for you to use at community events: screen them and get people together to write letters after. This can be a great way to build community around abolitionism and liberation on your campus or in your local community.  

Free Copies of Love in a F*cked Up World for People Inside Prisons
Anyone on the outside can request a free copy of Love in a F*cked Up World (the book) for someone inside prison by filling out this form or submitting a request via the contact form on my website. Anyone inside can request a free copy by writing to 1977 Books, 1468 Woodley Road, Montgomery, AL 36106.

Become a Penpal
One of our hopes for making this episode is that more people will become penpals to prisoners. If you’re interested in becoming a penpal, find a chapter of Black and Pink near you, or check out other penpal programs: 

• Black & Pink
• Power Blossoms
• Abolitionist Mail Project
• Trans Pride Initiative
• Critical Resistance Prisoner Mail Program
• Flying Over Walls
• ARC Gender Justice
• Letters for Liberation
• Prisoner Correspondence Project

Links and Resources for this Episode

• Read and support Daughters Magazine.
• Watch this full-length interview with Corey about feminist relationships across walls and more.
• Listen to a full-length conversation with Amber and her friends M and S on Patreon (link will be available here by 10/30). 
• Buy and read Eric King’s books, A Clean Hell and Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners. 
• Read more about Eric’s release here. 
• Read more about Amber’s case here. 

Support the Podcast
If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon to dive deeper into this conversation and others, recommend future guests, and meet other people working through these ideas. You can join for free.

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Sex educator and Nasty Work author Ericka Hart joins Dean for a conversation about youth liberation, bodily autonomy, and finding pleasure and joy in our bodies as they change and age. Together, they explore queer parenting, the complexities of parasocial relationships, and imagining a sexually free world.

Learn more about Ericka's work on her website, check out her book Nasty Work and her podcast, Hoodrat to Headwrap.

You can read the draft of the training document that Dean mentions in the intro, about sex and romance within groups, on Patreon here. Please check it out and add your feedback. 

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon to dive deeper into this conversation and others, recommend future guests, and meet other people working through these ideas. You can join for free.

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What is accountability? In a society where so much harm is minimized and ignored, many of us long to hold others accountable. At the same time, most of us are pretty defensive when people bring up concerns about our behavior, fearing that if we admit mistakes we’ll be rejected, abandoned, or permanently stigmatized. 

In this episode, Morgan Bassichis returns to talk with Dean about some of the places we can get stuck when we are trying to be right in a conflict, or when we’re trying to avoid finding out about the impact of our actions because it brings up shame. They discuss things that friends can do in conversation to help each other feel heard and understood and to support each other when blame and shame are coming up.

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon to dive deeper into this conversation and others, recommend future guests, and meet other people working through these ideas. You can join for free.

Morgan's will be performing "In Concert with Amy Winehouse" at Joe's Pub in January 2027. Follow @morgankindof for info and tickets. 

For more resources on accountability, check out the Building Accountable Communities video series.

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To kick off Season 2, Jessica Lanyadoo is back to answer more listener questions with Dean. In this episode, they respond to questions about confidentiality, self care, and building and maintaining community when friends couple off or make choices that don't align with your values. 

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon where you can find videos, conversations, and message boards 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. 

Jessica Lanyadoo is host of Ghost of a Podcast, out twice weekly and available everywhere podcasts are heard. Find out more about her work at lovelanyadoo.com and join her on Patreon at patreon.com/jessicalanyadoo

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Prisons are designed to isolate, break social ties, and destroy communities. Yet, people fight hard to keep relationships going across prison walls, and through all the crises that prisons manufacture. Episode 26 is Part One of a multi-episode series on relating across prison walls. This episode features conversations with friends inside prison, people who have been released, and people who have been doing direct support to prisoners for decades, about the barriers to connection that prisons create and the ways people stay connected despite them. Topics include the way prison strains or distorts relationships, how to strengthen and repair relationships being stressed in these ways, dealing with unequal power dynamics in relationships, and adjusting to new relationship dynamics as someone comes out of prison.

Watch this episode on YouTube
Support the podcast on Patreon

Become a Penpal
One of our hopes for making this episode is that more people will become penpals to prisoners. If you’re interested in becoming a penpal, find a chapter of Black and Pink near you, or check out other penpal programs: 

• Black & Pink
• Power Blossoms
• Abolitionist Mail Project
• Trans Pride Initiative
• Critical Resistance Prisoner Mail Program
• Flying Over Walls
• ARC Gender Justice

Links and Resources for this Episode

• Watch this full-length interview with Corey about feminist relationships across walls and more.
• If you want to reach out to Endjah, message Dean on Instagram, Patreon, or his website.
• Write to Donald Antonio Scott, 16317-067 USP Terre Haute, PO Box 33, Terre Haute, IN 47808
• Buy and read Eric King’s books, A Clean Hell and Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners. 
• Read more about Eric’s release here. 
• Read Endjah’s writing here. 
• Read more about Amber’s case here. 
• Read and support Daughters Magazine.

Share this Episode with Friends Inside
Interested in sharing this episode with friends inside? Some people might be able to find our podcast on their Kiosk system, but for those who can’t we suggest printing the transcript and mailing it in. Here it is in a format that takes up less pages to make printing cheaper and get through page limits:
8 page (smaller font) .docx / 10-page (larger font) .docx

Send us a message

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 want to seem important or get social credit? How can we help each other practice direct communication? How can we bring greater care to how we talk about each other, so that we can resist disorganizing patterns in our communities and groups?

All this in less than 20 minutes?

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon where you can find videos, conversations, and message boards 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. 

Send us a message

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 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. They talk through some of the tools Dean has been using in recent workshops about resentment and explore how we can work with this difficult mental and emotional tangle.

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon where you can find more videos and cute message boards 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. 

Resources for episode:

Dean Spade: Resentment video for ASA Roundtable

Mutual Aid 101: Navigating Conflict When Building Power with Dean Spade

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Vicky Osterweil, author of In Defense of Looting, joins Dean for a Trans Day of Visibility event organized by CLAGS (The Center for LGBTQ Studies at CUNY). Dean and Vicky talk about the gorgeous threat that trans people constitute to fascism, the power of holding multiple contradictory truths, and how to keep trying things and experimenting to create revolution.

Vicky's new book, The Extended Universe: How Disney Killed the Movies and Took Over the World, is out now from Haymarket Books. Also check out more from Vicky at CAW (Collective of Anarchist Writers).

Video of this episode is available on YouTube. We will add the link to the full event including ASL interpretation on the CLAGS YouTube channel here when it becomes available.

If you're enjoying Love in a F*cked Up World, check out our Patreon where you can find more videos and cute message boards 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. 

Send us a message

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 and what it means to live with a broken heart, dealing with feelings of betrayal and disappointment in longtime movement work, and the persistence of internalized shame. They also talk about the importance of different types of connections across the long arc of Eli's exquisite work shaping trans politics and disability justice over the last many decades.

Learn more about Eli's work.

It's publication week for the new edition of Mutual Aid! Join us on Patreon for excerpts and videos about the new edition. You can also order it directly from us on Patreon to support the podcast.

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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 explore the deep connections between transformative justice and artistic practice. Benji shares insights from their experience facilitating transformative justice processes, emphasizing the importance of treating the work as planting seeds, understanding that change takes time and finding meaning in the process itself.

Join us on Patreon for unique content, live events, and conversations to go deep on themes from the podcast. You can order the new edition of Mutual Aid or buy cute things like hats and hoodies to keep the podcast going, and submit your questions for future episodes!

More from Benji:

Article: No Abolition Without Demilitarization: Black and Muslim Solidarity for Ending Police Worldwide

Book chapter: "An Experiment in Addressing Intraorganizational Violence" in Constellations of Care, edited by Cindy Barukh Milstein

Check out Benji's Patreon