Queer Zine Resistance – A Reading List

Activism Through Zines 1We’ve been struggling for the past couple of days to come up with something to say about the election.  It’s super hard not to be swallowed by a feeling of absolute doom and horror for things to come.  We’re threatened. ALL our communities are being threatened. We’re unsure what the next 6 months will bring for us all.

And, really, we don’t know what in our collection will bring comfort…  Some folks will want to get active right away, some will want humor, or anger, or a little sadness to be reflected back at them.

As an/archivists here at QZAP we’ve taken it upon ourselves to not only collect and present or preserve queers zines, but also to act as guides through our collection.  The driving force behind this is that our queer lives are important.  And our queer stories are important.  And we will be heard, and we will publish, on our own terms, regardless of who is wearing the bent tin crown.  So here’s a list available to read at archive.qzap.org.  It’s a place to start, but not at all a place to end.

  1. Queers Read This.  Originally published in 1990 for the NYC Pride march, and republished in 2009, this is a call to arms.
  2. Auto Defensa Para Mujaras.  solo en español/only in Spanish.  It’s about women’s self defense and assault prevention.
  3. Borderlands: Tales from Disputed Territories between Races and Cultures by Nia King. Interviews and stories from QTPOC folks about their experiences.
  4. Queer Action Figures.  These are collections of queer graphics/flyers/posters from Charlie, Audra, and Tom from the mid-1990s.  They’re fun and angry and exemplify resistance.QAF1 19
  5. Nothing About Us Without Us. A zine about abelism and disability organizing and activism within and outside of queer communities.
  6. Activism Through Zines.  Chella talks to a bunch of activists who use zines in their work.

We hope that this is an OK start.  We’d like to do another one of these type of posts in coming days.  If you come across something in the collection that moves you, please let us know what and why, and we’ll include it in the next one.

Finally, we’re in the midst of our MoFemmeBer fundraiser.  We’d be thrilled if you are able to sponsor a reader or make a donation, but also encourage you to support orginizations like Planned Parenthood, The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Black Lives Matter, The ACLU, and The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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