Death Panel Love in a Fucked Up World w/ Dean Spade
Sep 24, 2025
Dean Spade, law professor and organizer focused on trans liberation, prison abolition, and mutual aid. They explore how systems shape relationships and organizing, trust as the groundwork for collective risk, managing critique without disposability, and friendship and care as essential infrastructure for movements.
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How A Shame Reaction Broke Roommate Trust
- Dean recounts a recurring personal household pattern: rushing to tidy his boyfriend's things from childhood shame about messy housing.
- He learned to notice the reaction's origin, stop rationalizing it, and ask for compassion instead of unilateral action.
Practice Curious Feedback Rituals
- Get better at giving and receiving feedback by asking preferences and starting from curiosity, not judgment.
- Practice questions like how people prefer to receive critique and treat feedback as connection, then ask friends to help parse it.
Treat Feedback As A Signal Of Investment
- When you get feedback, look first for what signals care or investment and ask 'what here is useful?'
- Use friends to parse imperfect critiques so a moment that could end a relationship becomes an opportunity to deepen it.
