Would you love trans if trans spread around the world like wildfires today? Would you love trans if LGBT characters in books make your kids gay? Would you love trans if there is no cure, no protection against catching trans, no residue of assigned genders at birth, no leftovers of heterosexual familiarity? Call me high maintenance – but that is the love I want. I do not want to be accepted for who I am and for that to be it. To be clear: my problem is not with our existence, but with the idea that proof itself is needed. Ultimately—and perhaps idealistically—I'm drawn to the possibility of writing, speaking, and existing as trans, all without the need for defense.
Simon(e) van Saarloos is a writer, artistic collaborator, and curator. They are the author of Against Ageism. A Queer Manifesto (2023); Take ‘Em Down. Scattered Monuments and Queer Forgetting (2021) and Playing Monogamy (2019) as well as several books in Dutch: Herdenken herdacht (2019); Enz. Het Wildersproces (2018); the novel De vrouw die (2016); the collection of columns Ik deug / deug niet ( 2015) and Het monogame drama (2015). Their writing has appeared in multiple co-edited volumes and academic journals such as Performance Philosophy Journal, Postmodern Culture, Porn Studies Journal and Trans Studies Quarterly. Van Saarloos works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations. Recent projects include the installation of Cruising Gezi Park (Amsterdam Museum) with Kubra Uzun; The Asterisk Conversations podcast (Writers Unlimited); the short film “Apologies For Breaking In” at the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival 2021; International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam’s 2022 and 2023 queer programming Not Yet Yes and Contagious & Queer; the 2023 lecture and performance series Juicy Refuge at the Rietveld Academy; The Non-Monogamy Letters with Kim TallBear at ArtsEverywhere.ca; a conversation on commemoration with Pamela Sneed and Claudia Rankine at UC Berkeley; an artist book contribution at DAAD Gallery Berlin exhibition For Real, For Real, curated by Claudia Rankine and The Racial Imaginary Institute; the ABUNDANCE exhibition at Het HEM; a forthcoming exhibition on ageism at MU Hybrid House Eindhoven and the multi-year transnational queer community, nightlife and art project Through the Window. Van Saarloos taught theory and writing at AKV|St. Joost, the University of the Underground; KABK Den Haag; Theatre School Amsterdam; ArtEZ; University of Amsterdam, Utrecht University College, Erasmus School of Philosophy; ETH Zurich. A current PhD candidate in Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, they are interested in Black feminist engagements with quantum physics and focused on the rhetorical (im)possibility of existence without defense. Van Saarloos is currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure.
