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I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World
What can we hope for at the end of the world? What can we trust in when community has broken our hearts? What would it mean to pursue justice without violence? How can we love in the absence of faith?
In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.
In a heartbreaking yet hopeful collection of personal essays and prose poems, blending the confessional, political, and literary, Kai Cheng Thom dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today. With the author's characteristic eloquence and honesty, I Hope We Choose Love proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness. Taking its cues from contemporary thought leaders in the transformative justice movement such as adrienne maree brown and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, this provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.
155 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2019
About the author
Kai Cheng Thom
13 books819 followersKai Cheng Thom is a writer, performance artist, social worker, fierce trans femme and notorious liar who loves lipstick and superhero cartoons. A prolific essayist and poet, her work appears online in publications including BuzzFeed, xoJane, Everyday Feminism, and Autostraddle; and in print in Asian American Literary Review, Plenitude, and Matrix Magazine, among others. Her first collection of poetry, a place called No Homeland, will be published by Arsenal Pulp Press in Spring 2017. As a spoken word artist, she has appeared and featured at venues including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and the Banff Centre for the Arts. She is also a mental health community worker and co-founder of the collective Monster Academy: Mental Health Skills for Montreal Youth. Kai Cheng lives in Montreal and Toronto, both of which were built on unceded Indigenous territory. Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 371 reviews
February 24, 2021
Read this slow. It's dense, so resist the need to summarize your feelings in a soundbite or hot take. Just... Sit with it for a while. Then talk about it out loud (in person even!) with one friend. (This is not a casual books-and-wine club book.)
May 17, 2020
I found the poetic thread throughout this book moving, as well as the essays towards the end of the book where the author is really grounded in her experiences with family. These moments to me seemed to really embody the notion of what it means to choose love and how complicated that choice can be.
At the same time, the essays around thinking about harm fell flat for me.
I didn't care for the chapter on cancel culture, namely because I don't believe it exists in the way people like Thom describe. Non-Black writers have had a hay-day talking about the toxicity of cancel culture and call out culture while not discussing what actually propels people to utilize these things in the first place. We hear a lot about how they're both bad; but we don't talk about the factors that often lead people to make these decisions and what were the steps prior to publicly calling out harm and violence. Thom's discussion of these things wasn't any markedly different to me.
I also felt it kind of ironic to discuss the issues with cancel culture and the campaign against R.Kelly in the same space, namely because I don't get the impression that Thom is really rooted in Black feminist communities or frameworks to understand how different communities understand and advocate for justice. As someone who lives in Chicago, I think the R. Kelly case is not something that an outsider looking in can effectively write about to make a point about the propensity for harm and disposability in queer community. There's a lot of complexities that can't be intuited from observing that movement from a distance. Just because something makes the news doesn't mean we have the ability or insight to comment on it from a distance. Plus, there are most likely movements against gender-based violence against Black women, femmes, and girls in Canada that are worthy of mention. But again, I have to question what is the utility of using movements to end violence against Black women, girls, and femmes when there seems to be a decided absence of Black feminist thought throughout the book (beyond adrienne marie brown I mean).
I also question who or what is comprised of this "queer utopia" that is mentioned throughout the book. I'mma be frank, the only people who I've heard mention queer community as a utopia are white people or people who surround themselves in predominately white queer spaces. Which, is fine, but I think you need to own what is considered "utopic" when discussing how it broke your heart. The Black lesbian feminist community I came up it wasn't considered "utopic" but regressive by white queer standards. I also don't know that many of us considered it utopia, but rather a complex community that had to be sustained and maintained as an active practice. It would have been worth deconstructing what gets bracketed as "queer utopia" other than a respite from a cisheteropatriachial world to even elicit the conversation of "queer heartbreak", because people enter both from more varied vantage points than what gets discussed in the book.
Overall, I wanted more from this book. If we're gonna choose love, what does it mean to choose love as a practice? What are good practices the author is committed to that readers could implement in their daily lives? What are the foundational elements of a queer community that chooses love, that chooses alternative ways of dealing with harm? Who are we in conversation about in terms of choosing otherwise? Those components were missing for me, and when they were present they felt fleeting and not quite sustained. I wanted more than bullet points at the end of a chapter about how to facilitate new ways of thinking and doing. I wanted a better understanding of the thinkers and movements that are practicing freedom/abolition that inform the author's thinking. I wanted a certain depth that I felt was lacking here.
At the same time, the essays around thinking about harm fell flat for me.
I didn't care for the chapter on cancel culture, namely because I don't believe it exists in the way people like Thom describe. Non-Black writers have had a hay-day talking about the toxicity of cancel culture and call out culture while not discussing what actually propels people to utilize these things in the first place. We hear a lot about how they're both bad; but we don't talk about the factors that often lead people to make these decisions and what were the steps prior to publicly calling out harm and violence. Thom's discussion of these things wasn't any markedly different to me.
I also felt it kind of ironic to discuss the issues with cancel culture and the campaign against R.Kelly in the same space, namely because I don't get the impression that Thom is really rooted in Black feminist communities or frameworks to understand how different communities understand and advocate for justice. As someone who lives in Chicago, I think the R. Kelly case is not something that an outsider looking in can effectively write about to make a point about the propensity for harm and disposability in queer community. There's a lot of complexities that can't be intuited from observing that movement from a distance. Just because something makes the news doesn't mean we have the ability or insight to comment on it from a distance. Plus, there are most likely movements against gender-based violence against Black women, femmes, and girls in Canada that are worthy of mention. But again, I have to question what is the utility of using movements to end violence against Black women, girls, and femmes when there seems to be a decided absence of Black feminist thought throughout the book (beyond adrienne marie brown I mean).
I also question who or what is comprised of this "queer utopia" that is mentioned throughout the book. I'mma be frank, the only people who I've heard mention queer community as a utopia are white people or people who surround themselves in predominately white queer spaces. Which, is fine, but I think you need to own what is considered "utopic" when discussing how it broke your heart. The Black lesbian feminist community I came up it wasn't considered "utopic" but regressive by white queer standards. I also don't know that many of us considered it utopia, but rather a complex community that had to be sustained and maintained as an active practice. It would have been worth deconstructing what gets bracketed as "queer utopia" other than a respite from a cisheteropatriachial world to even elicit the conversation of "queer heartbreak", because people enter both from more varied vantage points than what gets discussed in the book.
Overall, I wanted more from this book. If we're gonna choose love, what does it mean to choose love as a practice? What are good practices the author is committed to that readers could implement in their daily lives? What are the foundational elements of a queer community that chooses love, that chooses alternative ways of dealing with harm? Who are we in conversation about in terms of choosing otherwise? Those components were missing for me, and when they were present they felt fleeting and not quite sustained. I wanted more than bullet points at the end of a chapter about how to facilitate new ways of thinking and doing. I wanted a better understanding of the thinkers and movements that are practicing freedom/abolition that inform the author's thinking. I wanted a certain depth that I felt was lacking here.
November 25, 2019
I am so grateful for authors like Kai Cheng Thom, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and adrienne maree brown for taking on the difficult, important conversation around social justice as well as queer communities. For diving into the messiness and being honest and exploring the complexities at work. These essays have given me a lot to think about.
March 25, 2023
echoing Sim Kern's call to make this required reading for the online left
January 6, 2020
1. The life expectancy of trans women is not 35. This is a complete fabrication and spreading it is not helpful to anyone. Where the statistic came from and why it is false here: https://enoughtohold.tumblr.com/post/...
2. Understanding legal frameworks is crucial to being able to discuss legal issues.
a. You cannot discuss involuntary treatment of the mentally ill without any discussion of capacity. You can not compare a capable adult telling a doctor or therapist, “Thanks but no thanks!” to a 4 year old child saying they’re going to run away from home. These are not comparable situations that call for comparable interventions. The doctor has no right to interfere in the first person’s life whereas obviously a parent of a four year old can’t just let their four year old disappear into the blue. Even if you don’t understand the legal framework, anyone can see that these aren’t even vaguely analogous situations.
b. You cannot discuss sexual assault while not knowing the legal definition of consent or the legal definition of sexual assault. You cannot meaningfully discuss sexual assault when you insist there is no definition that everyone agrees on. There is. It’s in the Criminal Code. It’s not complicated. There are contextual factors taken into account when assessing whether x act is sexual assault but it’s really not that complicated.
c. You cannot discuss failure to disclose HIV positive status and vitiation of consent without understanding the concept of informed consent. And you shouldn’t bother talking about this if you’re not going to get into the specifics about how in practice, people who are HIV positive are primarily impacted though the law doesn’t mention it specifically, and how serophobia in law renders HIV positive people more vulnerable, and how there may be no risk of transmission to others in the first place (tbh I only know the basic arguments re this issue, but I know there is plenty of research out there that Thom could have drawn upon if she had bothered to try and ground her pieces at all).
d. You cannot discuss whether trans people failing to disclose being trans before having sex with another person should be considered rape by deception if you don’t understand the idea of informed consent in the first place, if you’re not willing to go there and do the work, see whether the concept itself is useless, or whether it has some merit (“stealthing” comes to mind), and distinguish those situations where it might be useful, from those wrt trans people and explain the rationale. Why bring up issues if you’re not going to tackle them at all.
3. Stop gaslighting lesbians about the cotton ceiling rhetoric. It’s disgusting and a perfect example of rape culture within queer communities that is discussed repeatedly in this book. There is a problem of homophobia in trans advocacy that is not new, that goes back decades, and it is the height of cowardice for trans writers to refuse to even acknowledge it.
4. I am too tired to write anymore but I will say that as a collection of personal essays, it can be quite moving. But as a critical look at anything? Lacking. I don’t think that’s what this collection was trying to do, but I’m not sure what this collection was trying to do either.
2. Understanding legal frameworks is crucial to being able to discuss legal issues.
a. You cannot discuss involuntary treatment of the mentally ill without any discussion of capacity. You can not compare a capable adult telling a doctor or therapist, “Thanks but no thanks!” to a 4 year old child saying they’re going to run away from home. These are not comparable situations that call for comparable interventions. The doctor has no right to interfere in the first person’s life whereas obviously a parent of a four year old can’t just let their four year old disappear into the blue. Even if you don’t understand the legal framework, anyone can see that these aren’t even vaguely analogous situations.
b. You cannot discuss sexual assault while not knowing the legal definition of consent or the legal definition of sexual assault. You cannot meaningfully discuss sexual assault when you insist there is no definition that everyone agrees on. There is. It’s in the Criminal Code. It’s not complicated. There are contextual factors taken into account when assessing whether x act is sexual assault but it’s really not that complicated.
c. You cannot discuss failure to disclose HIV positive status and vitiation of consent without understanding the concept of informed consent. And you shouldn’t bother talking about this if you’re not going to get into the specifics about how in practice, people who are HIV positive are primarily impacted though the law doesn’t mention it specifically, and how serophobia in law renders HIV positive people more vulnerable, and how there may be no risk of transmission to others in the first place (tbh I only know the basic arguments re this issue, but I know there is plenty of research out there that Thom could have drawn upon if she had bothered to try and ground her pieces at all).
d. You cannot discuss whether trans people failing to disclose being trans before having sex with another person should be considered rape by deception if you don’t understand the idea of informed consent in the first place, if you’re not willing to go there and do the work, see whether the concept itself is useless, or whether it has some merit (“stealthing” comes to mind), and distinguish those situations where it might be useful, from those wrt trans people and explain the rationale. Why bring up issues if you’re not going to tackle them at all.
3. Stop gaslighting lesbians about the cotton ceiling rhetoric. It’s disgusting and a perfect example of rape culture within queer communities that is discussed repeatedly in this book. There is a problem of homophobia in trans advocacy that is not new, that goes back decades, and it is the height of cowardice for trans writers to refuse to even acknowledge it.
4. I am too tired to write anymore but I will say that as a collection of personal essays, it can be quite moving. But as a critical look at anything? Lacking. I don’t think that’s what this collection was trying to do, but I’m not sure what this collection was trying to do either.
April 7, 2023
POWERHOUSE essays & poems. Take your time with this one. I have so many annotations. So smart, so layered, so honest.
October 20, 2019
This was an interesting read because I've read Kai Cheng Thom's work and was blown away by her in previous years. This essay collection pulls back the curtain to the trauma that accompanies fame whether that comes from the work or being a SJW on the internet (self-declared, since I think of this as a negative term), questions the assumed safety inherit in queer communities, and proposes a few approaches of restorative justice moving forward.
Out from Arsenal Pulp October 8, I had a copy through Edelweiss.
Out from Arsenal Pulp October 8, I had a copy through Edelweiss.
February 22, 2022
this needs to be required reading before anyone is allowed on stan twitter
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June 29, 2023I try not to write public reviews for people I know/semi know but someone asked to hear my thoughts. I read this book because my future book and some of my work is definitely in alignment with Kai’s, though I avoided this book until my manuscript was done in an effort to not accidentally plagiarize lol. I very much enjoyed this book though I wish it were significantly longer, because some of the ideas within the book were topics I’ve already thought deeply about but wish they were developed more for the less informed reader. There were a lot of radical ideas in here that should have been walked through I think for people who have not had the time to sit and think about why punishment or shunning is in fact relatively ineffective. I’m not big on poetry so if you are this is the book for you. The essays at the end were my favorite like others have said. Overall I found this to be a good book that I would give to other as a means of provoking thought, rather than action planning for what happens next.
March 2, 2020
I had my library buy this book so I could read it; so I read the paperback version.
As I read the book, I felt like I wasn't the target audience. On one hand, I'm eager to learn more about the ways people reenact violence toward one another, while simultaneously thirsting for community. I felt like the essays really talked about this at length, and I enjoyed learning more about Kai's personal experience within queer spaces.
On other other hand, I have never been part of any queer community. Part of this is rooted in the fact that I continue to live in predominantly white cities, where many queer people are also white. The other part is that I simply don't fit in, and have found belonging to be a really elusive concept/experience for me. So while many of the critiques about queer community were familiar to me, this was mostly because I spend a lot of time online and often see people talk about these same issues.
So I mostly felt like I was on the outside looking in. It was all very informative and interesting, but deeply disconnected from my own life experience.
I will say that I didn't particularly enjoy how Kai constantly refers to trans women of color, and only specifically mentions Black women to refer to something specific. I dislike this trend I'm seeing of Asian people grouping all people of color together and insisting that we're all having the same/similar experiences.
I am also not a fan of non-Black people using AAVE (woke appears multiple times throughout the book), and the author never really addresses the origin of the term of how it's been co-opted by non-Black people (or acknowledges how a Black women initiated what we now call the #MeToo movement, and how it's been co-opted as well - she simply starts talking about it in an essay).
So, I enjoyed the book - and found her perspective really interesting and her twitter presence is really insightful too. But I didn't like what I perceived to be erasure of Black trans women unless it served a specific point the author was trying to make.
As I read the book, I felt like I wasn't the target audience. On one hand, I'm eager to learn more about the ways people reenact violence toward one another, while simultaneously thirsting for community. I felt like the essays really talked about this at length, and I enjoyed learning more about Kai's personal experience within queer spaces.
On other other hand, I have never been part of any queer community. Part of this is rooted in the fact that I continue to live in predominantly white cities, where many queer people are also white. The other part is that I simply don't fit in, and have found belonging to be a really elusive concept/experience for me. So while many of the critiques about queer community were familiar to me, this was mostly because I spend a lot of time online and often see people talk about these same issues.
So I mostly felt like I was on the outside looking in. It was all very informative and interesting, but deeply disconnected from my own life experience.
I will say that I didn't particularly enjoy how Kai constantly refers to trans women of color, and only specifically mentions Black women to refer to something specific. I dislike this trend I'm seeing of Asian people grouping all people of color together and insisting that we're all having the same/similar experiences.
I am also not a fan of non-Black people using AAVE (woke appears multiple times throughout the book), and the author never really addresses the origin of the term of how it's been co-opted by non-Black people (or acknowledges how a Black women initiated what we now call the #MeToo movement, and how it's been co-opted as well - she simply starts talking about it in an essay).
So, I enjoyed the book - and found her perspective really interesting and her twitter presence is really insightful too. But I didn't like what I perceived to be erasure of Black trans women unless it served a specific point the author was trying to make.
July 19, 2021
What a fantastic collection of essays! Kai Cheng Thom as been on my radar for a while, after listening to two great podcast interviews with her (season 4 episode 16 of Secret Feminist Agenda, and episode 81 of Gender Reveal). I'm so glad I finally picked up this book, which was shorter than I was expecting, but packed with many ideas about queer community, accountability, the often overlapping groups of survivors and perpetrators of violence, social justice movements, transformative justice versus healing, suicide, mental health and mentorship. All of the chapters center the concerns and well being of trans women of color and queer people. There are a few passages in here I will be thinking about for a long time, especially from the essay titled "A School for Storytellers." This is a book I plan to reread.
April 29, 2020
What an extraordinary book. Kai's words echoed so many whispered conversations and hesitant offerings I've had over the past few years, wondering if our fate is an ever-constricting response to trauma. Kai holds a mirror up for all of us to gaze into with honesty, which means feeling into the ways we have each failed to treat others with grace, allowing that little rush of superiority to take us over, or the shame of having gotten something wrong and feeling like everything you've built will crumble as a result. I wept at the stories towards the end of the book about Kai's grandfather's funeral, about wondering where Kai's mothers and elders have gone. The poetry is haunting and powerful. I plan on spreading the word far and wide about this book and hopefully, engaging in some rich conversations about community as a result.
January 16, 2021
Thom refers to herself, semi-jokingly, as a "SJW celebrity" throughout the book, and you can certainly tell that she is someone who has made a career out of having hot takes on Twitter. The essays read like extended Twitter threads, and they don't have the depth or the analysis to offer anything useful. The topics that she is covering are of a particular interest to me from a clinical and political perspective-suicide, community, harm, etc., and they deserve more time, attention, and thought than they are given in this book. You can't meaningfully talk about these things in 2-3 pages, but Thom tries, and mostly fails. If you're looking to deepen your perspective on anything she talks about, I'd skip this and read something else.
July 3, 2021
Un essai/mémoire réflexion sur l'espoir, le monde actuel, les mouvements de justices sociales, les communautés LGBPT2QIA et tellement d'autres sujets abordés de manière vraiment incroyable, touchant et de plein de bonté dans la critique.
J'ai rarement lu un essai dans cette forme, avec des courts poèmes qui accompagnent merveilleusement bien l'essai précédent. La réflexion est juste, touche au cœur de problème que je constate et peine parfois à mettre des mots dessus et pointe vraiment dans des bonnes directions.
On se situe définitivement à la suite de l'ouvrage de Sarah Schulman Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair à beaucoup d'égards, mais Kai Cheng Thom arrive à avoir un portrait d'ensemble que je crois beaucoup plus réaliste et qui est capable de comprendre un peu mieux d'où viennent ces perpétuations de violence (de son métier, mais aussi de sa propre expérience) et propose plutôt de repenser les mécanismes qui crée cette violence que les personnes qui en sont victimes.
Je ne pensais pas aimer un essai à ce point là pour être honnête, beaucoup beaucoup d'idées de réflexions qui vont continuer à tourner dans ma tête. Il y a trop de chose à dire je pense pour tout aborder ici.
J'ai rarement lu un essai dans cette forme, avec des courts poèmes qui accompagnent merveilleusement bien l'essai précédent. La réflexion est juste, touche au cœur de problème que je constate et peine parfois à mettre des mots dessus et pointe vraiment dans des bonnes directions.
On se situe définitivement à la suite de l'ouvrage de Sarah Schulman Conflict is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair à beaucoup d'égards, mais Kai Cheng Thom arrive à avoir un portrait d'ensemble que je crois beaucoup plus réaliste et qui est capable de comprendre un peu mieux d'où viennent ces perpétuations de violence (de son métier, mais aussi de sa propre expérience) et propose plutôt de repenser les mécanismes qui crée cette violence que les personnes qui en sont victimes.
Je ne pensais pas aimer un essai à ce point là pour être honnête, beaucoup beaucoup d'idées de réflexions qui vont continuer à tourner dans ma tête. Il y a trop de chose à dire je pense pour tout aborder ici.
October 16, 2020
I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom is a beautiful, heartbreaking, thought-provoking collection of poems and essays that delve into complex questions about belonging, healing, and hope in the LGBTQ community.
I absolutely adored this collection. As other readers have stated, it feels impossible to write a coherent review of this collection after only one read. This deserves to be read, digested, and discussed with others. I will definitely be reading more of Kai Cheng Thom's work and hope to read I Hope We Choose Love many more times in the future.
I absolutely adored this collection. As other readers have stated, it feels impossible to write a coherent review of this collection after only one read. This deserves to be read, digested, and discussed with others. I will definitely be reading more of Kai Cheng Thom's work and hope to read I Hope We Choose Love many more times in the future.
November 7, 2020
Ahaha this was timely! Tbh not a fan of her poetry or her writing style necessarily, but her takes were so hot that overall got a lot out of this! Really appreciated her essays on queer kinship structures, consent, mental health
February 1, 2022
I'm so glad I got more into non-fiction this year, because otherwise I wouldn't have read some excellent books, including this one. It might be my favourite piece of non-fiction I've read this year so far.
I've learned a lot through the non-fiction I've read this year, but none of the books before this one were so relevant to my personal life. I'm a trans non-binary person who volunteers in my queer community and in social justice spaces. My experience is obvisouly different (more privileged) than Kai Cheng Thom's experience as a trans woman of colour, but the insights she offers into issues in the queer community and social justice spaces were both informative and helpful.
Some of the essays deal with issues I've noticed in the queer community I'm involved in. Some trauma-induced harmful behaviours she mentions I've witnessed, or sometimes enabled. It made me think a lot about things I've seen/done. It made me think about how to be better to my community. There's of course a central theme of choosing love, centring love and healing in our fights, and a lot of these essays were valuable advice to me, personnally. Things I want to think about moving forward, especially considering some of my work centers queer/trans youth.
I would highly, highly recommend to anyone who is involved in their queer community, online or IRL. I'll note that there are a few essays centring suicide/self-harm/intimate violence/sexual assault, so if this is triggering for you, you might want to pass. Otherwise, I think it offers an incredibly interesting perspective on what needs change in social justice spaces, to go towards a more compassionate, loving approach in our fights. Will reread, and try to put it in as many hands as possible.
JAN 2022 REREAD: Slightly less groundbreaking the second time around, probably because my first read of this found me at the right time and helped with shifting some of the ways I thought then. There are still some essays and poems in this that hit me So Hard. The things said on suicide, found family, mentorship and anger/revenge/love were and still are extremely important to this. I will still come back to it often, and I'm glad to finally have a physical copy I can annotate every time I pick it up.
I've learned a lot through the non-fiction I've read this year, but none of the books before this one were so relevant to my personal life. I'm a trans non-binary person who volunteers in my queer community and in social justice spaces. My experience is obvisouly different (more privileged) than Kai Cheng Thom's experience as a trans woman of colour, but the insights she offers into issues in the queer community and social justice spaces were both informative and helpful.
Some of the essays deal with issues I've noticed in the queer community I'm involved in. Some trauma-induced harmful behaviours she mentions I've witnessed, or sometimes enabled. It made me think a lot about things I've seen/done. It made me think about how to be better to my community. There's of course a central theme of choosing love, centring love and healing in our fights, and a lot of these essays were valuable advice to me, personnally. Things I want to think about moving forward, especially considering some of my work centers queer/trans youth.
I would highly, highly recommend to anyone who is involved in their queer community, online or IRL. I'll note that there are a few essays centring suicide/self-harm/intimate violence/sexual assault, so if this is triggering for you, you might want to pass. Otherwise, I think it offers an incredibly interesting perspective on what needs change in social justice spaces, to go towards a more compassionate, loving approach in our fights. Will reread, and try to put it in as many hands as possible.
JAN 2022 REREAD: Slightly less groundbreaking the second time around, probably because my first read of this found me at the right time and helped with shifting some of the ways I thought then. There are still some essays and poems in this that hit me So Hard. The things said on suicide, found family, mentorship and anger/revenge/love were and still are extremely important to this. I will still come back to it often, and I'm glad to finally have a physical copy I can annotate every time I pick it up.
June 5, 2021
This was a difficult book for me to read. There is a very heavy focus on suicide and self-harm, as well as many other potentially triggering topics (including abuse, violence, discrimination, etc, etc), so please be aware of that going in.
There was a lot of discussion that really made me think about my own assumptions and beliefs, which is something I really appreciate about this book. The author dared to ask questions I don’t think we ask enough. She also dared to reflect on those herself, in ways that were exceptionally vulnerable.
However, I also felt that there were a lot of generalisations made. To an extent, that is necessary with any book, especially a fairly short one with a pretty ambitious goal, but it sometimes diluted the impact of the message for me. Additionally, there were a lot of pretty big leaps in logic, where the arguments and conclusions didn’t always match up for me very strongly. I also felt the author sometimes attempted to tackle some absolutely huge and sensitive topics in just a few pages, which often resulted in a lack of space for much needed nuance, or even references.
So there were a number of moments that definitely missed the mark. But there were some solid arguments, many moving reflections on personal experience, and plenty of opportunities for the reader to question the status quo, all of which I greatly appreciated.
There was a lot of discussion that really made me think about my own assumptions and beliefs, which is something I really appreciate about this book. The author dared to ask questions I don’t think we ask enough. She also dared to reflect on those herself, in ways that were exceptionally vulnerable.
However, I also felt that there were a lot of generalisations made. To an extent, that is necessary with any book, especially a fairly short one with a pretty ambitious goal, but it sometimes diluted the impact of the message for me. Additionally, there were a lot of pretty big leaps in logic, where the arguments and conclusions didn’t always match up for me very strongly. I also felt the author sometimes attempted to tackle some absolutely huge and sensitive topics in just a few pages, which often resulted in a lack of space for much needed nuance, or even references.
So there were a number of moments that definitely missed the mark. But there were some solid arguments, many moving reflections on personal experience, and plenty of opportunities for the reader to question the status quo, all of which I greatly appreciated.
November 28, 2022
I had high hopes for this one, but it definitely fell flat for me. The essays and poems were, for the most part, brief and pretty anemic, especially in comparison to the fantastic "Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars."
I also agree wholeheartedly with Zaynab's review in that I found this collection sorely lacking in its approach to harm, consent, and a straw-"queer utopianism" I have seen widely criticized but never practiced. I'm not going to try to paraphrase Zaynab's excellent points –– go and read the review, you'll be glad you did –– but suffice it to say that the growing trend of critiquing "social justice dogma" and "callout culture" in queer and trans communities has become a useful way to elide actual repair for and solidarity with survivors of abuse, in favor of protecting the status quo.
I also agree wholeheartedly with Zaynab's review in that I found this collection sorely lacking in its approach to harm, consent, and a straw-"queer utopianism" I have seen widely criticized but never practiced. I'm not going to try to paraphrase Zaynab's excellent points –– go and read the review, you'll be glad you did –– but suffice it to say that the growing trend of critiquing "social justice dogma" and "callout culture" in queer and trans communities has become a useful way to elide actual repair for and solidarity with survivors of abuse, in favor of protecting the status quo.
December 28, 2021
★★★★★ (5)
powerful essays and poetry on Thom's experiences as a Chinese Canadian trans woman, including critiques of systemic oppression, "social justice", trans visibility, and the queer community itself.
We must love ourselves. We must encourage love—love that is radical, love that digs deep. Love that asks the hard questions, that is ready to listen to the whole story and keep loving anyway. Love for the survivors, love for the perpetrators, love for the survivors who have perpetrated and the perpetrators who have survived. Love for the community that has failed us all. We live in poison. The planet is dying. We can choose to consume each other, or we can choose love. Even in the midst of despair, there is always a choice. I hope we choose love.
powerful essays and poetry on Thom's experiences as a Chinese Canadian trans woman, including critiques of systemic oppression, "social justice", trans visibility, and the queer community itself.
March 21, 2020
This isn't really a review, because I don't know how to review nonfiction made up of essays* and poetry, but this was definitely a worthwhile read. It's an attempt to reframe how we think about justice and the meaning itself of healing in marginalized communities - where so many of us are traumatized, and it talks both about the concept of safety in the context of trauma and about the commodification of trauma in the Discourse™.
As there is a lot in here about how queer communities fail their members that uncannily (or maybe not, all things considered) mirrors queer book twitter's most dysfunctional behavior patterns, I think many of my friends and followers could get something out of it as well.
* I think? I don't really even know the right name for them in English.
As there is a lot in here about how queer communities fail their members that uncannily (or maybe not, all things considered) mirrors queer book twitter's most dysfunctional behavior patterns, I think many of my friends and followers could get something out of it as well.
* I think? I don't really even know the right name for them in English.
May 15, 2020
This was a thought-provoking read, a discussion-inducing read and I am very glad I read it. That said, I am never quite sure how to rate nonfiction essay collections. So let's just say that the rating represents how I felt while reading and after reading.
'What I hope for is to live as brilliantly as the mothers and sisters I've never met. I want to live for the ones who don't, for the ones who went before. I Want To Live As Long and Lovingly as I Can' - Kai Cheng Thom
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
This essay collection really allowed readers an intimate journey through Thom's mind and thought processes, as she tackled topics that have impacted her or are very dear to her heart and purpose.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Communities heal but they also hurt.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Love is essential, but more than that, it must be accepting, understanding, steadfast, and strong. That what we say and do in the absence of love can have outward rippling effects that can be cripplingly devastating.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Thom talks about the wave of acceptance that seems to blanket trans women and the queer community, while also highlighting institutions within and without queer community that do not actively engage in true acceptance and elevation of trans women and queer lifestyle and expressions.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
She looks at violence within queer community and how it is overwhelmingly ignored, dismissed, not taken seriously. These essays serve not only in documenting her experiences and ruminations, but are an important tool that should be used to engage in stimulating dialogue and world-changing behaviour.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
An insightful, thought-provoking, discussion-inducing read.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
'What I hope for is to live as brilliantly as the mothers and sisters I've never met. I want to live for the ones who don't, for the ones who went before. I Want To Live As Long and Lovingly as I Can' - Kai Cheng Thom
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
This essay collection really allowed readers an intimate journey through Thom's mind and thought processes, as she tackled topics that have impacted her or are very dear to her heart and purpose.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Communities heal but they also hurt.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Love is essential, but more than that, it must be accepting, understanding, steadfast, and strong. That what we say and do in the absence of love can have outward rippling effects that can be cripplingly devastating.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
Thom talks about the wave of acceptance that seems to blanket trans women and the queer community, while also highlighting institutions within and without queer community that do not actively engage in true acceptance and elevation of trans women and queer lifestyle and expressions.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
She looks at violence within queer community and how it is overwhelmingly ignored, dismissed, not taken seriously. These essays serve not only in documenting her experiences and ruminations, but are an important tool that should be used to engage in stimulating dialogue and world-changing behaviour.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
An insightful, thought-provoking, discussion-inducing read.
🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏🌏
March 31, 2024
Amazing read, very thankful for my teacher who chose this book for class. I genuinely think every Queer person should read it - actually everyone should. The Queer community is extremely present on the internet, but even us need a good « go touch some grass » moment and this book is pretty much that.
In a weird way this book pushed me back into activism movement. I left it during Covid, mostly due because of mental health, world events, too much time on the internet seeing how humans are dumb and disgusting. And while I still think the world is going crazy, it’s better to fight than not.
Can’t wait to read more of her works.
Here are some of my favorite quotes :
« We know so much about trauma but so little about how to heal it. » p. 9
« Are you an anti-SJW/alt-fighter trying to use this as fodder for your masturbatory Reddit thread? » p. 18
« Freedom is not abuse. Freedom is never abuse. » p.31
« Is it more important to you for your child to have an easy, « normal », life or a fulfilling, liberated one? » p. 105
« Safe and free are not the same thing // living and alive are not the same thing » p.153
In a weird way this book pushed me back into activism movement. I left it during Covid, mostly due because of mental health, world events, too much time on the internet seeing how humans are dumb and disgusting. And while I still think the world is going crazy, it’s better to fight than not.
Can’t wait to read more of her works.
Here are some of my favorite quotes :
« We know so much about trauma but so little about how to heal it. » p. 9
« Are you an anti-SJW/alt-fighter trying to use this as fodder for your masturbatory Reddit thread? » p. 18
« Freedom is not abuse. Freedom is never abuse. » p.31
« Is it more important to you for your child to have an easy, « normal », life or a fulfilling, liberated one? » p. 105
« Safe and free are not the same thing // living and alive are not the same thing » p.153
November 10, 2021
While I was in the woods, I decided to dig into some ebooks I have been meaning to read forever. This was one of them as I love Kai Cheng Thom's writing in general. I did not realize just how much I would need it. These solo trips to the woods began as a healing exercise after one of many devastating experiences with Queer and radical "community." Experiences that Kai herself has also dealt with and been parts of both sides of (as have I and most of us.) It was validating and helpful to read her humble and realistic assessments of humans and our relationships to one another, our movements' and communities' strengths and weaknesses, and her ever present hopes for a kinder, gentler future. Poetry is not my thing so I never know if it is "good" or not, but I loved all of these essays.
June 9, 2023
This collection of essays and poetry is about queer community, how we love and what we can do to love better and be the key to each other's thriving (not just survival). She lays bare the ways in which people fail to love each other fully, gives us a look into ways people do love and continue to love, and (most importantly) asks us to imagine a world where we do embrace love and to think about how we can get there.
There were a couple of pieces that I wish she had expanded on more or made certain points more clear, but there were so many amazing essays in here! I'm definitely excited to check out her other works.
CW: transphobia, homophobia, suicide, SA, domestic abuse, violence, and death
There were a couple of pieces that I wish she had expanded on more or made certain points more clear, but there were so many amazing essays in here! I'm definitely excited to check out her other works.
CW: transphobia, homophobia, suicide, SA, domestic abuse, violence, and death
August 13, 2020
Powerful !!!
June 18, 2022
“i. integrity
i would die
for my truth
i have already done this
several times
what would you do
for yours?”
i would die
for my truth
i have already done this
several times
what would you do
for yours?”
September 18, 2023
Everything Kai Cheng Thom writes restores my faith in humanity.
November 8, 2023
I read this one really slowly because I wanted to pay it close attention, and sometimes I took breaks after a particularly heavy essay. But overall I loved this and would highly recommend it.
March 26, 2020
So profoundly good and important. Vital reading for trans women, queers, and activists of all kinds.
I don't know how to talk about the impact of this writing. It's completely true, all of it.
I don't know how to talk about the impact of this writing. It's completely true, all of it.
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