The Gumbel-Softmax is a continuous distribution over the simplex that is
often used as a relaxation of discrete distributions. Because it can be readily
interpreted and easily reparameterized, it enjoys widespread use. We propose a
conceptually simpler and more flexible alternative family of reparameterizable
distributions where Gaussian noise is transformed into a one-hot approximation
through an invertible function. This invertible function is composed of a
modified softmax and can incorporate diverse transformations that serve
different specific purposes. For example, the stick-breaking procedure allows
us to extend the reparameterization trick to distributions with countably
infinite support, or normalizing flows let us increase the flexibility of the
distribution. Our construction enjoys theoretical advantages over the
Gumbel-Softmax, such as closed form KL, and significantly outperforms it in a
variety of experiments