Read This Book…

I want to give content warnings for sexual assault, suicide, abuse, anti-trans violence, and racism up front because I’m going to talk about some of these things in this recommendation.

Kai Cheng Thom is the author of Fierce Femmes & Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir, which is an excellent bit of fantastical fiction and I am pleased to say that her nonfiction is just as good. I Hope We Choose Love is nonfiction about how we on the left/liberal side and specifically the queer community tend to eat our own. Our capacity for forgiveness and for allowing people room to improve and grow is sometimes non-existent, especially for people who we consider a part of our own community. Often the people in the queer community who aren’t allowed to be human, that is, to make mistakes, are also often queer people of color.

This book is organized into three sections: Let Us Live, Let Us Love, and Let Us Believe. It alternates between thoughtful, nonfiction essays and powerful, intimate poetry. She covers so many of the unnecessarily difficult and incredibly unhealthy things that happen in the liberal queer community that often aren’t talked about, such as the almost toxic self-righteousness, the culture of enabling, lack of internal and peer accountability, and more.

One of the essays about suicide I found particularly important. There is a sometimes extreme culture around allowing our peers and loved ones have the final say on what they do to their body, which, yes, my body my choice but stick with me. This then extends to the idea that if someone is determined to take their own life, then it is not anyone’s job to stand in their way. That author argues that hey, this is incredibly messed up and maybe what they need is someone to step up and say, no, I’m not letting you do this, even if you hate me for it. I’d rather you be alive and hate me, than not alive at all. The author also urges us to work harder on making the world a place where people want to stay living.

Another essay that I appreciate as a person who is childfree is about how radical queer culture is often about things like communal living but the reality is often people pairing off and creating a queer version of the nuclear family.

Phenomenal book that I highly recommend!