iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 08/07/2026

I just discovered there is a second M. E. O’Brien publishing books! Should I be worried? Should I befriend them? Should we do panels together? www.walmart.com/ip/The-Ghost...

Book cover of The Ghost of Kazakhstan by M. E. O’Brien, with a damaged photo of a housing block.

2160

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 09/06/2026

We don’t usually see each others headers. Here’s mine. Quote post with yours (if you feel like it)

Burning NYPD van during the George Floyd Rebellion of 2020

080

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 28/05/2026

We have a new forthcoming book! @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social and I have been working with an incredible line up of authors for an edited volume of post-revolutionary science fiction stories. It will be out in about a year, and a great follow up to Everything for Everyone.

Publishers Marketplace new book announcement square, blue border. Reads:

Publishers Marketplace
Deal Report
WHEN WE WIN
By Eman Abdelhadi, M. E. O'Brien
Imprint: Haymarket
Authors of EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O Brien, ed.'s WHEN WE WIN: DISPATCHES FROM REVOLUTIONARY FUTURES, a collection of stories that imagine liberated worlds in which today's freedom struggles have triumphed, featuring contributions from Jordy Rosenberg, Mimi Lok, Anand Gopal, and Sophie Lewis, to Dao Tran at Haymarket, for publication in spring 2027 (world).
Rights: roisin@haymarketbooks.org
Fiction: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
May 26, 2026

915547

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 20/05/2026

My friend and comrade Alex Colston has been violently detained again by the Israeli state. Please call to push for his release. Free them all, from the river to the sea.

IG screenshot: Alex was on the flotilla, along with many others. We know the US dragged its heels last time. Put pressure now, please
U.S. CITIZEN ABDUCTED BY ISRAD) ALEXANDER
"ALEX" COLSTON
Representative:
Yvette Clarke - (202) 225-6231
New York Senators:
Schumer - (202) 224-6542
Gillibrand - (202) 224-4451
GLOBAL SUMUD US.
@us_globalsumud, katharnukshai, humansofgsf and
adnaanimo

With photo of a white man in his 30s with a close cut beard.

12517

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 06/05/2026

I’m speaking at two events in NYC this Saturday! Second is a book launch for Amy De’Ath’s incredible new work on feminist poetry and value form theory. At Unnameable Books in Brooklyn at 7 PM. It’s truly a magnificent book. I’ll be speaking with Amy and poet Marie Buck

Event flyer with a doubled abstract image. Text:

BEHIND OUR BACKS feminized poetry and capitalist abstraction

Amy De'Ath with M.E. O'BRIEN / MARIE BUCK

UNNAMEABLE BOOKS /615 VANDERBILT AVENUE / BROOKLYN NY 11238

SATURDAY 9 MAY, 7PM-9PM

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS DISCOUNT CODE: OUR20

084

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 06/05/2026

I’m speaking at two events in NYC this Saturday! First is this incredible conference on Radical Imagination with CUNY’s Center for Place Culture and Politics, held at People’s Forum. I’m on a panel about futures on Sat afternoon. pcp.gc.cuny.edu/event/radica...

Event flyer with long lat lines background. Text:
Radical Imagination /Temporalities and Geographies of Struggle

May 8 & 9, 2026

The People's Forum / 320 W. 37th St. New York

Featuring VIJAY IYER / EMAN ABDELHADI / YASMINE BATNIJI /KIM DIEHL / PUYA GERAMI / GHAZAL GHAZI / STEPHANIE LUCE / M. MURPHY / M. E. O'BRIEN
MARISA SOLOMON / NEFERTI XINA M. TADIAR

CUNY * CPCP CENTER FOR PLACE,
CULTURE, AND POLITICS

060

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 22/04/2026

This Saturday I’ll be presenting at a symposium at UMASS Amherst. Come by and say hi if you are in the area. Saturday April 25, 2026 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Event flyer. Cool but hard to decipher illustration

“Insurgent Utopianism as Revolutionary Method

Keynote Talk for the 2026 Methods Symposium

organized by the graduate students of the English Department

Saturday
April 25, 2026
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

South College E470
Open to the public

M. E. O'Brien writes and speaks on gender freedom and capitalism. She has written two books: Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care (Pluto Press, 2023) and a co-authored speculative novel, Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 (Common Notions, 2022). She is a member of the editorial collective of Pinko, a magazine of gay communism.”

161

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 08/04/2026

Presenting a paper coming up in NYC

Image of an overgrown backyard in Brooklyn. In two odd fonts reads: “BACKYARD PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sunday, April 19th, 2026 /7PM / 131 Columbia St /Brooklyn. NY 11231
M.E. O'Brien SEXUAL DIFFERENCE AND COMMUNISM
Ash Martin THE EROTICS OF THE PRECONSCIOUS
Chen Li and Eran Horowitz CURE AND CURATION
Music by serena biosferra
Call (339)-204-3086 if lost

091

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/03/2026

#5 (of 6): Tuesday 3/24, 6 PM, Ottawa, speaking on trans liberation, social reproduction, and utopianism. carleton.ca/socanth/even...

120

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/03/2026

#4 (of 6): Monday 3/23, 3 PM, Ottawa, Carleton University, with students. Discussing my paper on Delany's Trouble on Triton, communist dialectics, and Lacan's theories of sexuation. (It all connects!) carleton.ca/socanth/even...

140

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/03/2026

#2 (of 6): Tuesday 3/17, Online, Lecture on insurgent social reproduction and the commune for the Spanish translation of my book Family Abolition. 1 PM Eastern/1900 CET with @nocionescomunes.bsky.social and @traficantes-ed.bsky.social traficantes.net/actividad/de...

Image square for an online lecture in Spanish, with a stylized multi-colored image of M. E. O'Brien, with the text: "DE LA ABOLICION
DE LA FAMILIA
ALA REPRODUCCIÓN SOCIAL INSURGENTE
Con M. E. O'Brien
PRESENTACIÓN LIBRO
M17.
mar 19:00
ONLINE
PARA ENLACE ESCRÍBENOS A
NOCIONESCOMUNES@TRAFICANTES.NET"
See more info at: https://traficantes.net/actividad/de-la-abolición-de-la-familia-la-reproducción-social-insurgente

121

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/03/2026

#1 (of 6): NYC, Monday 3/16, evening, SVA, trans psychoanalysis and the family romance. bsky.app/profile/gend...

Stylized pastel image of Madonna with child, with announcement details for a lecture on Monday: M. E. O'Brien, Trans Childhoods and the Family Romance, Mar 16, 2026; 6:30 - 8:00pm, with various sponsoring orgs. See link for full details: https://sva.edu/events/m-e-o-brien-trans-childhoods-and-the-family-romance

210

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 24/01/2026

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing...

Photo of Alex Pretti, murdered today by ICE. It’s a formal VA portrait, with him smiling in a blue scrub nurse’s shirt, a beard and glasses.

0172

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 01/12/2025

This Tuesday I’ll be joining this online panel about trans futures and healing, possibly with an in-world interview about Everything for Everyone. forge-forward.org/event/healin...

Illustrated space scene in purple hues, with “Healing Trans-missions / messages from the past, present, and future / Tuesday Dec 2 a 6:30-8 PM EST / Forge”

031

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 29/11/2025

Lacan comments on Bluesky discourse, 15 February 1956

Cropped screenshot of text from Lacan, Seminar III, page 157: “whenever we spell something out, we always have this feeling of discordance, of never being completely up to what we want to say. This is the reality of discourse. We are nevertheless well aware that the signified is sufficiently captured by our discourse for everyday purposes. It's when we want to do a bit better, to get to the truth, that we are in total disarray, and rightly so. It is, moreover, why most of the time we give up the game.” The first sentence fragment and the penultimate sentence are highlighted.

090

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 18/11/2025

Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy Maybe not a meme but so my moral philosophy

New York Post cover from Mamdani’s mayoral election, incorporating Soviet constructivism. Totally over the top. “On your Marx, get set, Zo!” The Red Apple

0120

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/10/2025

stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happiness

Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred in costume as the 7th Doctor and Ace, with sweet mischievous smiles, circa 1988

0120

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/10/2025

I had the honor of once organizing a dialogue between Miss Major and Tourmaline for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, hosted by the NYPL. Major was a people’s hero, a tremendous force of revolutionary commitment and love.

@genderhorizon speaking at a podium in a New York Public Library event space, with the back of people’s heads in the audience

Tourmaline and Miss Manor on a stage at the New York Public Library, sitting in dialogue

08915

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 29/09/2025

Next weekend in Aarhus Denmark

M.E. O' BRIEN
INSURGENT CARE AND THE UTOPIAN HORIZON ROOM: STAKLADEN in Courier, excerpted screenshot from a conference program

1203

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 02/08/2025

I co-wrote an essay on how fleeting our experience of community is in a world based on commodity exchange. Our efforts to care for each other keep falling apart because our primary dependency is on our employers and landlords. www.pinko.online/analyzing-th...

Screenshot of text excerpt: “Community can rarely be adequate to our hopes under capitalism; it is simply not congruent with the actually existing web of human interdependency. This web, constituted by the domination of impersonal market forces, or instantiated directly within the dictatorship of the workplace, can never offer a community. This is not just because it is too cruel or too oppressive, it is also because it is always mystified, opaque, and alienated.
All other collectivities, insofar as they do not overlap with actually existing practices of material survival, are readily torn apart as each participant must seek a means of self-reproduction. Because a core activity of collective human life is so absorbed into market relations, non-market relations become hollow, shallow, and fragile. You may love your friends, but you still have to pay rent. Your community may provide housing for some months or years—through a rental party, friends offering you their couch, an independent autonomous squat, a generous roommate—but in a capitalist society, eventually you will do”

0203

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 28/07/2025

After Accountability book panel Wed, 8/6, 7 PM Eastern, online book event With @pinko.online editors Lou Cornum and myself and interviewees Kim Diehl, Emi Kane, hosted by @haymarketbooks.org. www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...

Reads "Pinko Pinko After Account-ability / a virtual roundtable / M. E. O'Brien / Emi Kane / Lou Cornum / Kim Diehl / Haymarket Books / August 6th, 7 PM ET" on a background of pink with grey horizontal lines, drawing from the cover of the book After Accountability

0104

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 02/07/2025

This poster, from the Wikipedia, illustrates its three-fold opposition well

Caption on Wikipedia: A widely publicized election poster of the Social Democratic Party of Germany from 1932, with the Three Arrows symbol representing resistance against monarchism, Nazism and communism, alongside the slogan "Against Papen, Hitler, Thälmann"

Displays three red hands clasping arrows like spears, nearly piercing symbols of the crown, swastika and hammer and sickle

1102

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 11/06/2025

I’m definitely not having these people

0200

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 06/06/2025

I’ll be speaking on this panel tomorrow in the Bronx! The old Critical Resistance crew I used to know may turn out. Should be killer. @pinko.online @realdiehl.bsky.social @estebanitos.bsky.social Sat, 6/7, 1-4 PM, Andrew Freedman House, 1125 Grand Concourse, Bronx pinko.online/after-accoun...

After Accountability Conversation and Reading // Join Pinko Magazine, Take Back the Bronx and Critical Resistance for an afternoon of conversation // Andrew Freedman House / 1125 Grand Concourse / The Bronx, New York // Saturday, June 7, 1-4 PM // Featuring Kim Diehl, Danny Gill, Esteban Kelly, Pilar Maschi, Trevor Nicholas, ME O’Brien, Lisa Ortega, Jaime Rivera, Sachs’s Thompson

0124

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 03/06/2025

For his podcast Speaking Out of Place, radical scholar @palumboliu.bsky.social interviewed @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social and me about Everything for Everyone, with unusually astute and inspiring commentary and questions. It was an honor. speakingoutofplace.com/2025/06/02/t...

1166

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 09/05/2025

In the bizarre world of rising organic composition of capital in manufacturing, my cheap medium sized office arm chair cost as much to transport in a Lyft from Manhattan to Brooklyn as it originally cost to buy new a year ago.

070

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 14/04/2025

I'm speaking tomorrow at McNally Jackson Books in the South Seaport about Malcolm Harris' extraordinary and inspiring book. I'm representing one of the three world-saving tendencies he skillfully lays out. Event is sold out but buy the book. www.mcnallyjackson.com/event/04152025

Author photo of Malcolm Harris and the cover of "What’s Left" in psychedelic colors, with some additional text: "APR 15 | 6:30pm at McNally Jackson Seaport
Malcolm Harris presents What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis"

091

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/03/2025

Best Star Trek crew, wrong answers only

A black and white photo depicting the cast in costume of Alien (1979), with the full seven initial crew members of the Nostromo: Captain Dallas, executive officer Kane, warrant officer Ripley, navigator Lambert, science officer Ash, and engineers Parker and Brett.

2316

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 10/03/2025

Palestinian solidarity student activists have been the leading force in radical anti-fascist struggle. This is an attack on all our movements. If we can’t stop it, they will deport our leaders, our organizers, our friends, our fiercest militants.

Screenshot of a Tweet from Secretary of State Marc Rubio stating “We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported” with photo of Mahmoud Khalil, negotiator for the Gaza solidarity encampment protests at Columbia university. APNews.com headline “ICE arrests Palestinian activist who helped lead Colombia University protests, his lawyer says”

25112

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 28/02/2025

Jadzia Dax! Brilliant, competent, wise, level-headed, hot, very very queer and trans, Jadzia Dax is the science officer above DS9. So skilled, so brilliant, so inspiring! (Art credit to @bajoran-orbison.bsky.social, link to purchase in alt text.) 3/9

Illustrated image of Jadzia Dax from Strek Trek DS9, with "Friend of DAX" under, and a trans flag in the background. Purchase as a vinyl sticker from artist https://willburrowsart.com/product/fod-sticker/

Star Trek DS9 characters Jadzia Dax and Lenara Khan kissing in episode Rejoined (S04E06). Two hot trill women making magic.

Classic meme of Jadzia Dax being greeted and hugged by Kor, a Klingon character from Star Trek DS9. 1st panel, "Curzon, my beloved friend" 2: "I'm Jadzia now." 3: "Jadzia, my beloved friend."

1251

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 28/02/2025

At long last! In celebration of reaching my max twitter follower count, I will now reveal my favorite Star Trek character! And say a few words about communist strategy! 1/9 bsky.app/profile/gend...

In BlueSky display font, reads "M. E. O'Brien / 5,693 followers"

1132

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/02/2025

the day is nearly at hand bsky.app/profile/gend...

Just reads, in the Blue Sky display font, "M. E. O'Brien 5,632 followers"

0141

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 04/02/2025

This Saturday, Rise Up for Trans Youth in NYC. 2/8, Union Sq, 1 PM “A space to uplift and empower trans youth and their families. Come listen to speakers and show your support.” ACT-UP, Gender Liberation Movement, Trans formative schools Pls share around

Text reads “Rise Up for Trans Youth Saturday February 8th Union Sq (NYC), 1 PM

A space to uplift and empower trans youth and their families. Come listen to speakers and show your support.

ACT-UP, Gender Liberation Movement, Trans formative schools”

Cartoon image of hands holding pro trans signs

07543

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 26/01/2025

Every time writing is so brutally hard. Almost impossible Today finished an essay on family abolition and psychoanalysis, the last third on Hortense Spillers. This quote from her “All the Things…” feels like the closest psychoanalytic theory gets to thinking the communist horizon.

In other words, the discontinuity that the abandoned son demarcates here must be carried out as a kind of new article of faith in the non-Traditional, in the discovery of the Law of the living, not the dead, and in the circulation of a new social energy that confronts the future, not the past….Carrying out that line of thinking, we might be able to see in an apposite psychoanalytic protocol for the subjects of ‘race,’ broken away from the point of origin, which rupture has left a hole that speech can only point to and circle around, an entirely new repertoire of inquiry into human relations.

(From Spillers, Hortense J. “’All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud's Wife Was Your Mother’: Psychoanalysis and Race." Critical Inquiry 22, no. 4 (1996): 710–734.)

2240

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 10/01/2025

Being old and isolated, I learn about books like Dorley Hall from near strangers on social media. The Goodreads description ends with a trigger warning which functions in exactly the way it is suppose to me, but obv not everyone else.

Content note: this story engages with some reasonably dark topics, including but not limited to torture, manipulation, dysphoria, nonconsensual surgery, and kidnapping. While it isn't intended to be a dark or dystopian story, the perspective characters are carrying a lot of baggage, and the exploration of the premise might be triggering for trans readers.
Genres
Queer
Transgender
Fiction
LGBT
Mystery
Horror
Thriller

...more

170

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 04/01/2025

Perhaps my favorite articulation of this distinction in Huey P. Newton's incredible 1970 letter to the Women's and Gay Liberation Movements. 5/16 www.blackpast.org/african-amer...

Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women’s liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.

27112

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 24/12/2024

Endnotes uses several variations of a diagram they call "the double mill" showing the simultaneous reproduction of capital and labor under capitalism. Has anyone ever written these up in an accessible way I could teach to undergrads? I've used it in lectures, with great benefit.

Diagram depicting the reproduction of capital (circle labeled K) and labor (circle labeled L) under capitalism, with surplus capital and labor coming off the diagram. From p. 21 from Endnotes 3.

Diagram of two overlapping circles, labeled Directly Market Mediated and Indirectly Market Mediated spheres, from p. 69 from Endnotes 3.

From p. 17 of Endnotes 2. "The term 'double moulinet' is the French translation of Marx's 'Zwickmuhle', a term which carries both the meaning of 'double bind' and, in its context in chapter 23 of Capital, of the grinding of two mill-stones representing the reproduction cycles of capital and labour-power:" followed with a labeled diagram of two intersecting circles, labeled "reproduction of capital" and "reproduction of labor power" with further labels in their overlap.

6423

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 23/12/2024

Not totally sure how to parse this. I guess, roughly in order, my dad who died 15 some years ago; my best friend @emanabdelhadi.bsky.social who moved to Chicago; and an ex who seems happy in another country and life

NGL “send anonymous messages!” Below: “who do you miss the most”

150

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

Why did I do this I do not know. But it was not hard and it was free because I already pay for the website

Screenshot of Bluesky page, zoomed in on @genderhorizon.com

1110

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

I loved Foucault in the late 90s. He is an immensely important intellectual and I think is quite helpful for institutional discourse analysis and other things. Viewpoint Magazine ran some great articles by Chris Chitty on the Foucault/Marx intersection.

Do you have any (strong) opinions on Foucault and his works or the in my opinion incomprehensible amount of hate he gets in primarily Marxist leninists spheres?

140

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

I don’t play many video games! I’m sad to say because there are so many great people game design these days. I do play Civilization, all the eras of it, with V and VI the last while. But most major games I’ve never played

NGL: “who do you pick as driver in mariokart? (love your work! 😁💖)”

020

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

Another psychoanalysis question! Parapraxis Magazine is probably a good place for you to start. Your question touches on many things, but most simply I would say there is little reason to think that medical/scientific authority is what is most helpful for people working with their suffering. 1/

NGL: “I'm a therapist and I don't really "get" psychoanalysis. Obviously there are some foundational insights (eg subconscious) but it doesn't resonate with me, and I struggle with the claims of medical/scientific authority. If it presented as philosophy or art it would make more sense! What am I missing?”

200

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

Two questions about psychoanalysis! I don’t say much about my clinical work bc I think it can be unhelpful to people considering analysis or in it. But I’ll say here if someone wants to work with me and I have space, I meet with them a few times in free consultations over a month. 1/

NGL: “Hi! I love your essays, but I'd love to hear more about your work as an analyst. How do analysts choose patients to work with? Do they have to be a reflective type of person already, is it about what you might learn in the process? Etc. Tx :)”

120

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

That’s horrible, and I’m deeply sorry. The isolation sounds like adds to the trauma. If at all possible, I’d say find people close to you to figure it out together. I know that isn’t much help. I’ve written about SA in left orgs, but never as giving individuals advice from afar. Much support!

NGL screenshot: above: “send me anonymous messages!”

Below: “The moment is so critical! A memeber of my local org and network sexually assaukted me. It is destroying my life and nobody else seems to care. Wtf do i do?”

120

M. E. O'Brien @genderhorizon.com · 21/12/2024

Enjoy the book! Vive la Révolution! I do hope 2025 brings something hopeful

NGL graphic: above “send me anonymous messages” below “Hi! Beginning your book just in time for the new year. Maybe French Revolution II in 2025? Best wishes :)”

030