I Hope We Choose Love
A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World
Ratings7
Average rating4.5
15
A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World
Ratings7
Average rating4.5
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.
Reviews with the most likes.
Half of the book was impenetrable; half was a masterpiece. Half of me wanted to start it over the moment I finished, the other half wanted to move on. (We compromised: I flipped back and reread maybe a tenth.) This was a library copy; I've ordered my own so I can mark it up.
Thom gets it. She gets power structures and distractions and ambiguity. Responsibility, consent, nuance, storytelling. Asking the right questions. Aspects of life I know well, so her thoughtful perspective lends absolute credibility to her writings on what I don't know as well or at all: it's one thing to be peripherally aware of violence against trans women, a whole different thing to read Thom's first-person experiences. Same with coming out, or mentoring/being mentored. How Thom navigates the world is quite different from anything I've ever experienced, and I can't say that I understood her every message... but to be a better ally I will keep trying.
Occasionally gave me ‘The Body is Not an Apology' vibes - clear but compassionate talk from a former social worker/therapist. Many of the essays take the form of questioning current circumstances and complexities, to open discussion that will hopefully result in community acknowledgement and healing. There is a through line of personal experiences relayed that emphasizes the fight for recognition and respect is ongoing for trans women, particularly trans women of colour. The poems included are a concentration of these ideas. Sex/sex worker positive. ⚠️SA, suicide
