I am a writer, activist, cultural critic, and academic and a co-founder, with Ryan Conrad, of the radical queer editorial collective Against Equality. I am also an editor at large at Current Affairs. This is an unpaid honorary and ceremonial position—much like that of the Queen Mum but without the fabulous, stolen jewels or the latent Nazi sympathies.
I received my PhD in English from Purdue in 2000, and I am a bastard child of deconstruction and queer theory. My work has appeared in publications like The Baffler, Current Affairs, In These Times, Vox, and Electronic Intifada as well as in several anthologies including Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Detention, Deportation, and Illegalization, and Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies. My work has also appeared under other people’s bylines in publications like the London Review of Books, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, Lux, Noema, The Guardian, and The New York Times.
I has been described by many on the left as “fucking evil” and an “ultra-leftist”: they are right on both counts. My work and my life are concerned with creating a left utopia: a world where everyone has what they need without having to beg for it. This website is an archive of my work over many years. I have written about everything, including queer politics, trauma (my most plagiarised work), feminism, pit bulls, New York City, the publishing industry, polyamory, shit, and immigration. I was the first to point out that polyamory is not about relationships, but economics (mine remains the only truly leftist analysis), and I was the only writer to have forcefully predicted that DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) would put people in danger, as it has. I don’t produce hot takes— I follow and lay out the truth, which is why I was the only one on the left to insist that Kamala Harris would lose when no one else felt brave enough to state this quite as boldly.
To search for particular topics, use the search box or sift through the categories section; contact me if you can’t find an older work or are curious to know if I’ve written on a subject. To understand my politics, start with “A Manifesto,” written for the storied Evergreen Review.
My current projects include a book titled Strange Love: How Social Justice Was Invented, and Why It Needs to Die, and Puzzling (about jigsaw puzzles) for Duke University. I am also working on a Young Adult novel about coming out. You can read more about those projects and my writing plans for the next few years here.
I can be found on Twitter (@NairYasmin) and Facebook (Yasmin.Nair), LinkedIn, and Instagram (Bekargyan). “Bekargyan” is Hindi/Urdu for “useless knowledge.” I am no longer accepting friend requests on FB, but you can always use the “follow” option there. If you would like to support my work, you can do so in several different ways, with or without money.
I am represented by Rebecca Friedman, of the Rebecca Friedman Literary Agency.
See also: “Forthcoming Work“
