Living With Trans Despair

The liberal bumper sticker reads “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” We could equally substitute despair for outrage. Things only seem to get worse, especially for trans people, pregnant people, undocumented people, poor people, racialized people, the list goes on. Whereas outrage is supposed to spur you to canvas and vote, despair is seen as an obstacle to the traditional possibilities of transformation. Taking instead a radical approach to despair, writers Simon(e) van Saarloos and Shuli Branson are working on respective projects that integrate queer nihilism with the openness of transition, delinking hope and change to operate in the shadows of a progressive rainbow that demands assimilation, rationality, and maturity. This discussion will engage the meeting point between Simon(e)’s forthcoming book Trans Despair (AK Press) and Shuli’s Antidote to Despair (Pluto Press) through a look at the creative counterworlds of trans life.

This Conversation is hosted in conjunction with Phoebus Osborne's solo exhibition, Oh, it’s my ass and my anus, on view November 13, 2025 - January 10, 2026.

Simon(e) van Saarloos is 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. Their writing has appeared in co-edited volumes and academic journals and they also write fiction and theater. They are currently writing a new book for AK Press, titled Trans Despair: Staying Unrelated and Insecure. Van Saarloos also works as an independent curator of public programming and artistic collaborations.

Shuli Branson (she/they) is a queer/trans anarchist writer, translator, community organizer, and teacher. She is the author of Practical Anarchism: A Guide for Daily Life. Shuli has translated and edited multiple books and hosts the podcast The Breakup Theory. Recently, Shuli helped start writer-worker collective CAW, you can find their work at https://cawshinythings.com. Shuli is currently working on a new book, You Call That Living? An Antidote to Despair, for Pluto Press.

Sahar Khraibani is a writer and artist whose work has been presented with Montez Press, The Brooklyn Rail, the Poetry Foundation, and the Poetry Project among others. Sahar is a recipient of the Creative Capital / Arts Writers Grant, a fellowship at The Poetry Project, a MacDowell Fellowship, a 2024 residency at Mass MoCA, and is an alumni of the Whitney Independent Study Program. Sahar teaches at Pratt Institute and is the author of Anatomy of A Refusal (1080PRESS, 2025) and ONE THOUSAND GHOSTS IN THIS FEAST (Wendy's Subway, 2025).

Rebecca Teich is a writer, curator, and PhD student in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. Teich is the recipient of the 2023 Graduate Student Paper Award from the CLAGS and is a 2023 and 2024 archival research fellow through the Lost & Found Archival Research Grant. Teich's writing has been featured in The Kitchen Magazine; Peach Magazine's Invitation to Form: Epic Mix; BOMB Magazine, The LA Review of Books, The Poetry Project Newsletter, and elsewhere. Teich’s first chapbook, Caffeine Chronicles (2021), was published by Portable Press @ YoYo Labs and their collaborative pamphlet, "Shared Discernments," co-written with Kimberly Alidio, was published by 1080 Press in 2025.