To the End : Queer Writers on Divorce and Liberation

24 stories of queer divorce—a groundbreaking book of essays that unflinchingly explores love, loss, and liberation beyond the confines of cishet marriage

To the End, edited by Morty Diamond, is a raw and fearless book of essays that delves into the messy realities, impossible heartbreaks, and profound liberations inherent to queerly uncoupling in the 21st century.

Across 24 essays, queer, trans, nonbinary, and intersex writers share their firsthand accounts of divorce, separation, and transformation, giving readers an intimate look at the stories that are often elided in straight, mainstream narratives—or in basically every divorce book out there.

This collection uplifts each writer’s lived truth, pushing back against respectability power plays that say: But we fought so hard for this. Don’t give people the wrong idea. Think about the damage that speaking out could do. Instead, Diamond and contributors foreground real stories of what happens when love ends, through specific queer lenses: When your partner won’t accept your transition. When covert narcissistic abuse destabilizes your world. When your Daddy bails in an email after 20 years. When you trade “legitimacy” for a part of yourself. 

The essays highlight, too, the unexpected joys, profound liberations, and necessary transformations we discover when we find our way back to ourselves. Each richly textured, deeply evocative reclamation—whether through spiritual growth, euphoric embodiment, deepened connections, the right kind of sex, or community aftercare—affims that divorce can be devastating—but it can also be a catalyst for freedom.