Tag: zine of the gay

Menstruaciones No Binarias part 2: Interview with Rebeldia Menstrual and ErĆ³ticas Fluidas

Zine of the GayWhen I first came across Menstruaciones No Binarias, I was immediately struck by its depth, its urgency, and its commitment to dismantling the normative narratives surrounding menstruation. After writing about the zine in my last blog post, I knew I wanted to go furtherā€”to hear directly from the voices behind this work. In this post, I am honored to share an interview with Nachi of RebeldĆ­a Menstrual and Andre of ErĆ³ticas Fluidas, the brilliant minds who collaborated to create this transformative text. Their insights shed light on the importance of reclaiming menstruation as a political act, the challenges of crafting inclusive language, and the ongoing fight for trans and nonbinary menstrual justice. Because language and accessibility are central to our shared mission, I have translated our conversation from Spanish to English while keeping both versions in this post. I hope that, through their words, you feel the same sense of empowerment, resistance, and possibility that this zine so powerfully conveys.

Menstruaciones no binarias

Valeria: Which key moment or experience motivated the creation of a zine that questions the binaries surrounding menstruation?

Nachi & Andre: The key experience that motivated us to create the zine was finding ourselves in the dilemma that the majority of the available materials about menstruation are made, thought of, and directed by and from ciswomen towards ciswomen, leading to aside all menstruating living experiences of sexual and gender dissidents. Finding ourselves with that profoundly essentialist, biologically deterministic, and cisheteronormative reality made us unite our projects and create this zine together.

V: Sexual health and menstrual experience are also mentioned as political acts in the zine. How do you both see this position’s impact on the fight for rights for trans and nonbinary people?

N & A: We think that the most significant impact is amplifying the vision that we understand for the rights of trans people beyond identity, together with the visualization that there are many possible experiences when we talk about menstruation and ovum-menstrual cycles. We say it is a political act due to permitting us to amplify the imagination about the possibilities of menstruation, particularly concerning people of different sexualities and/or genders.

V: The zine stands out for its inclusive and accessible language. How did you both confront the defiance to create material that could resonate with many identities and diverse experiences?

N & A: This was one of the purposes of creating the zine, amplifying the forms of access to the knowledge from our situated experience. That is how it converted itself to grand defiance with the language used since the exact intention is to amplify the experiences, not reduce them. Besides, we wrote the zine from our own sexual dissident voices, and this reveals a specific sensibility in the hour of investigation on how to choose to explain it and address the topics.

V: You talk of the pathologization of menstruation in medical and social discourse. What changes do you think are necessary in the health system to address menstruating experiences in a more inclusive manner?

N & A: Firstly, we think that the whole health system should be transformed, and that would implicate reformulating the notion of health/illness. If we specifically speak about the topic of menstruation, the topic of gender identities would be urgent. As such, in the professional health practices and the community actions of sexual health approach, but also in public politics that should repair within the lives of sexual and/or gender dissident people. If we dream of changes, we could talk about generating a vision of a comprehensive reality, not just bio-deterministic about people.

V: How do you both perceive the impact of international distribution networks in the diffusion of projects such as this zine? And what challenges or benefits do you consider that bring forth these global links?

N & A: In the case of distribution networks found in Chile, Mexico, and Argentina, having an impact that, through our own efforts, we couldnā€™t have achieved. There lies the importance of international networks to diffuse projects and trespassing borders. Part of the benefits has been having a larger impact on international communities, amplifying to readers the material and receiving feedback on contexts that arenā€™t our own, and then enriching the prior reflections of the publication.

V: The zine mixes with theory, personal experience, and practice. How did you balance these perspectives, and what role does each have in the final narrative of the zine?

N & A: We both made common contributions; we wanted to share information in an accessible form, which is typically in a very medical and academic language, and at the same time, share reflections on our own terms. We did the whole process of investigating, writing, and creating the zine together. Each of us indeed has expertise due to our professional and biographical journeys. Rebeldia Menstrual approaches the hormonal processes, the ovum-menstrual cycle, menstrual hygiene, and others from this project. ErĆ³ticas Fluidas approached the critical vision and the political position around sexual and affective education that we want to construct.

V: What are the origins of “RebeldĆ­a Menstrual” and “ErĆ³ticas Fluidas”? From your experiences and perspectives, how did these personal projects surge? And what motivated you both to develop them?

eroticas fluidas rebeldia menstrualAndre: ErĆ³ticas Fluidas surged in 2020 as a self-managed project where I sold sex toys and articles for sexual pleasure. This is how the focus quickly shifted towards autonomous research, the publication of zines, participation in podcasts, and the creation of various workshops related to sexual and emotional education from a sexually dissident and critical perspective. The motivation for developing the project was and continues to be deeply rooted in a strong conviction that erotic and epistemic justice lies within ourselves, and that through these lived experiences, we can reduce the harm that most sexually and/or gender-dissident people are exposed to.

Nachi: RebeldĆ­a Menstrual has its origins in 2017, the same year I discovered the menstrual cup and was in my fourth year of studying Obstetrics. Reaching that point in my life and discovering how the menstrual cup was transforming my menstrual experience and the way I understood my vulva, vagina, uterus, and menstruation was a revelation. I thought, more people need to know about the menstrual cup and deserve to know themselves in this way. So, I created a page and started distributing menstrual cups. Through the internet and by participating in various fairs, I began selling cups. Over the years, I expanded to selling menstrual underwear, cloth pads, menstrual discs, and in recent years, even zines. From the very beginning, my goal was always to make information accessible to people. Selling products was just the excuse and a way to bring a bit of economic sustainability to the project.

V: Could you share more about the methodologies you use when creating your zines, from conceptualization to the final design, and how you integrate artistic creativity into the process?

N & A: Our methodology is quite artisanal and improvised; we donā€™t follow formal investigative design processes. Instead, we focused on making a critical compilation of the available material and developing our own ideas about what we wanted to express. This process took us about two years (and was carried out remotely due to the pandemic) to finalize the design virtually. During this time, the illustrator Alineandome joined the project to handle the layout and illustrations for the final zine. Artistic creativity is contributed by everyone involved in the project.

V: In addition to “Menstruaciones No Binarias”, what other projects have you been developing recently, and how do they relate to or expand on the topics covered in this zine?

N & A: We have dreamed of transforming the zine into a workshop, where we can engage in lived, experiential dialogue with people and share the information in other formats, not just through reading. This is a pending project that we hope to bring to life in the future.

V: Finally, what hopes do you have for this zine in the future? How do you envision its impact on international communities, especially in queer and non-binary spaces?

N & A: Our hopes for the zine are that it continues to travel through sexually and/or gender-dissident communities across the world wherever it can reach. This is why the material is open for distribution and available to be sold and shared by anyone who gets in touch with us.

āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”

Valeria: ĀæCuĆ”l fue el momento o experiencia clave que les motivĆ³ a crear un zine que cuestionara los binarismos en torno a la menstruaciĆ³n?

Nachi & Andre: La experiencia clave que nos motivĆ³ a crear el fanzine fue encontrarnos en la disyuntiva de que la mayoria de los materiales disponibles acerca de menstruaciĆ³n estĆ”n hechos, pensados y dirigidos por y desde mujeres cis a mujeres cis, dejĆ”ndo de lado toda la vivencia menstruante de las disidencias sexuales y de gĆ©nero. Encontrarnos con esta realidad profundamente esencialista, biologicista y heterocisnormada nos hizo unir nuestros proyectos y crear juntes este fanzine.

V: En el fanzine mencionan que la salud sexual y la experiencia menstruante son tambiĆ©n actos polĆ­ticos. ĀæCĆ³mo ven el impacto de este posicionamiento en la lucha por los derechos de personas trans y no binarias?

N & A: Creemos que el mayor impacto es ampliar la visiĆ³n de lo que entendemos por los derechos de las personas trans y no binarias mĆ”s allĆ” de la identidad, junto con visibilizar que hay muchas experiencias posibles cuando hablamos de menstruaciĆ³n y ciclos Ć³vulo-menstruales. Decimos que es un acto polĆ­tico ya que nos permite ampliar el imaginario acerca de las posibilidades de la menstruaciĆ³n, particularmente en relaciĆ³n a personas disidentes sexuales y/o de gĆ©nero.

V: El fanzine se destaca por su lenguaje inclusivo y accesible. ĀæCĆ³mo enfrentaron el desafĆ­o de crear un material que pudiera resonar con tantas identidades y experiencias diversas?

N & A: Este era uno de los propĆ³sitos al crear el fanzine, ampliar las formas de acceder al conocimiento desde nuestra experiencia situada. AsĆ­ fue como se convirtiĆ³ en un gran desafĆ­o lo del lenguaje usado, ya que justamente la intenciĆ³n es amplificar las experiencias, no reducirlas. AdemĆ”s, escribimos el fanzine desde nuestras propias voces disidentes sexuales y eso devela una sensibilidad especĆ­fica a la hora de investigar y elegir cĆ³mo se explican y abordan los temas.

V: Hablan de la patologizaciĆ³n de la menstruaciĆ³n en discursos mĆ©dicos y sociales. ĀæQuĆ© cambios creen que son necesarios en los sistemas de salud para abordar de manera mĆ”s inclusiva las experiencias menstruantes?

N & A: En principio creemos que todo el sistema de salud deberĆ­a transformarse y eso implicarĆ­a reformular la nociĆ³n de salud/enfermedad. Si hablamos especĆ­ficamente del tema de la menstruaciĆ³n, serĆ­an urgentes los cambios en temĆ”ticas de identidades de gĆ©nero. AsĆ­ como en las prĆ”cticas de los profesionales de salud, en las acciones comunitarias para el abordaje de la salud sexual, pero tambiĆ©n en polĆ­ticas pĆŗblicas que reparen en las vidas de las personas disidentes sexuales y/o de gĆ©nero. Si soƱamos con cambios, podrĆ­amos hablar de generar una visiĆ³n que realmente sea integral y no sĆ³lo biologicista acerca de las personas.

V: ĀæCĆ³mo perciben el impacto de las redes de distribuciĆ³n internacionales en la difusiĆ³n de proyectos como este zine, y quĆ© retos o beneficios consideran que trae consigo este alcance global?

N & A: En este caso las redes de distribuciĆ³n se encuentran en Chile, MĆ©xico y Argentina, teniendo un impacto que por nuestro propio esfuerzo no lograrĆ­amos. AllĆ­ es donde radica la importancia de las redes internacionales para difundir los proyectos y que traspasen fronteras por sĆ­ solos. Parte de los beneficios ha sido tener impacto en comunidades internacionales, ampliar a les lectores del material y recibir retroalimentaciones de contextos que no son el nuestro y eso enriquece muchĆ­simo las reflexiones posteriores a la publicaciĆ³n.

V: El zine mezcla teorĆ­a, experiencia personal y prĆ”ctica. ĀæCĆ³mo equilibraron estas perspectivas y quĆ© rol tuvo cada una en la narrativa final del fanzine?

N & A: Ambes hicimos aportaciones comunes, querĆ­amos compartir informaciĆ³n de una forma accesible, que normalmente estĆ” en un lenguaje muy mĆ©dico y academicista y al mismo tiempo compartir reflexiones en nuestros propios tĆ©rminos. Si bien todo el proceso de investigaciĆ³n, escritura y creaciĆ³n del fanzine fue en conjunto, es cierto que cada une tiene su expertiz por su recorrido profesional y biogrĆ”fico. Desde el proyecto RebeldĆ­a Menstrual se aportĆ³ sobre los procesos hormonales, el ciclo Ć³vulo-menstrual, la gestiĆ³n menstrual, entre otros. Y desde el proyecto ErĆ³ticas Fluidas se aportĆ³ sobre la visiĆ³n crĆ­tica y el posicionamiento polĆ­tico en torno a la educaciĆ³n sexual y afectiva que queremos construir.

V: ĀæCuĆ”les son los orĆ­genes de “RebeldĆ­a Menstrual” y “ErĆ³ticas Fluidas”? ĀæCĆ³mo surgieron estos proyectos personales y quĆ© los motivĆ³ a desarrollarlos desde sus experiencias y perspectivas?

Andre: ErĆ³ticas Fluidas surge en el 2020 como un proyecto autogestivo donde vendĆ­a juguetes sexuales y artĆ­culos para el placer sexual. AsĆ­ fue como rĆ”pidamente el eje girĆ³ hacia la investigaciĆ³n autonĆ³ma, la publicaciĆ³n de fanzines, la participaciĆ³n en podcasts y la creaciĆ³n de diversos talleres relacionados a la educaciĆ³n sexual y afectiva con perspectiva disidente sexual y crĆ­tica. La motivaciĆ³n de desarrollar el proyecto tuvo y tiene que ver con una fuerte convicciĆ³n de que la justicia erĆ³tica y epistĆ©mica estĆ” en nosotres mismes y que a travĆ©s de esas vivencias podemos reducir el daƱo al que nos vemos expuestes la mayorĆ­a de personas disidentes sexuales y/o de gĆ©nero.

Nachi: Rebeldia Menstrual tiene sus inicios en el 2017, el mismo aƱo en que descubrĆ­ la copa menstrual en mi vida y que estaba cursando 4 aƱo de la carrera de Obstetricia, llegar a ese punto de mi vida y descubrir como la copa menstrual estaba transformando mi experiencia menstrual y la forma que tenĆ­a de conocer mi vulva, vagina, Ćŗtero y menstruaciĆ³n fue una revelaciĆ³n, pensĆ© que mĆ”s personas tienen que conocer la copa y merecian conocerse asĆ­ mismas, asi cree una pĆ”gina y comencĆ© a distribuir copas menstruales, a travĆ©s de internet o participando en distintas ferias comencĆ© a vender copas, con los aƱos lleguĆ© a vender calzones menstruales, toallas de tela, discos menstruales y tambiĆ©n los fanzines estos Ćŗltimos aƱos. Mi objetivo desde un inicio siempre fue poder acercar la informaciĆ³n a las personas, el vender productos era la excusa y la forma de poder darle un poco de sustentabilidad econĆ³mica al proyecto.

V: ĀæPodrĆ­an compartir mĆ”s sobre las metodologĆ­as que emplean al crear sus fanzines, desde la conceptualizaciĆ³n hasta el diseƱo final, y cĆ³mo integran la creatividad artĆ­stica en el proceso?

N & A: Nuestra metodologĆ­a es bastante artesanal e improvisada, no nos guĆ­amos por diseƱos investigativos formales sino que fuimos mĆ”s bien haciendo una recopilaciĆ³n crĆ­tica del material disponible y una elaboraciĆ³n propia acerca de lo que querĆ­amos decir. AsĆ­ fue como nos tomamos aproximadamente dos aƱos (y a la distancia producto de la pandemia) en crear el diseƱo final de forma virtual y donde se sumĆ³ la ilustradora Alineandome para la diagramaciĆ³n e ilustraciones del fanzine final. La creatividad artĆ­stica es propuesta por todas las personas involucradas en el proyecto.

V: AdemĆ”s de “Menstruaciones No Binarias”, ĀæquĆ© otros proyectos han estado desarrollando recientemente, y cĆ³mo se relacionan o expanden los temas tratados en este fanzine?

N & A: Hemos soƱado en convertir el fanzine en un taller, donde podamos dialogar vivencialmente con las personas y abrir la informaciĆ³n en otros formatos, no sĆ³lo de lectura. Este es un proyecto pendiente que esperamos llevar a cabo en el futuro.

V: Finalmente, ĀæquĆ© esperanzas tienen para este fanzine en el futuro? ĀæCĆ³mo visualizan su impacto en las comunidades internacionales, especialmente en espacios queer y no binarios?

N & A: Las esperanzas ligadas al fanzine es que siga viajando por comunidades disidentes sexuales y/o de gĆ©nero de todas las partes del mundo al que pueda llegar, es por esto que el material estĆ” abierto para distribuciĆ³n y disponible para ser vendido y difundido por cualquier persona que se ponga en contacto con nosotres.

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

Menstruaciones No Binarias: Your Body is Not Your Enemy, the Dominant Narrative is

Zine of the Gay

The zine Menstruaciones No Binarias, published in collaboration by RebeldĆ­a Menstrual and ErĆ³ticas Fluidas, is a groundbreaking text that dismantles normative narratives about menstruation. This work redefines the experience of menstruating as a site of critical engagement, inclusivity, and autonomy.

Menstruaciones No Binarias front cover
(All photo credits: @eroticasfluidas and @rebeldiamenstrual on instagram)

With its visually striking design and theoretically rich content, this zine offers an alternative view to the biomedical and capitalist frameworks that often dominate the menstrual discourse.

The zine is originally in Spanish, so I went ahead and translated key quotes for this post. The English translations are included in the footnotes; in my translation practice I believe in adding the original text within the body of writing and the translation secondary rather than vice-versa to attempt to decenter Anglo-phone literary frameworks in comparative writing through the form of the text.

The authors of Menstruaciones No Binarias are RebeldĆ­a Menstrual, represented by Nachi (she/they), a nonbinary lesbian and sexual health worker from Mexico, and ErĆ³ticas Fluidas, a self-managed project led by Andre, a transfeminist lesbian psychologist and advocate for survivors of violence from Chile. The creators describe their work as ā€œuna larga y sentida investigaciĆ³nā€1 that questions the implicit binarisms of health and illness, advocating instead for a paradigm that recognizes the diversity of menstruating bodies. As stated in the zine, ā€œDesde ese lugar confluimos, ponemos nuestra energia para que esto se expanda y seguir dialogando con otras experiencias menstruantes. Confiamos en que otro mundo es posible a partir de las practicas de descubrimiento del cuerpo y con ello la rotura de mitos sobre la menstruaciĆ³n, considerando la singularidad de cada cuerpo.ā€2 (pg. 2).

hands holding open Menstruaciones No BinariasHistorically, menstruation has been shrouded in euphemisms and myths that reinforce heteronormative and cisnormative ideals. On page 5, the authors trace the linguistic roots of menstruation, noting its ties to cycles of the moon and seasonal rites: ā€œMenstruaciĆ³n: de la palabra mens o ā€˜mesā€™, del indoeuropeo mehens o ā€˜lunaā€™ y de la palabra rā€™tu o ā€˜estaciĆ³n, rito.ā€™ā€ā€‹3. These etymologies underline how menstruation has been spiritually and socially significant across cultures, yet systematically erased or sanitized in modern discourse.

One of the zineā€™s central interventions is to politicize menstrual pain. On page 6, the authors propose: ā€œProponemos comprender el dolor menstrual dentro de una realidad sociopolĆ­tica que no otorga oportunidades para habitar un contexto de cuidado y/o que nos permita el descanso.ā€ā€‹4 This reframing shifts responsibility from the individual to societal systems that fail to accommodate the cyclical needs of menstruating bodies.

A recurring theme is the deconstruction of cisnormative assumptions about menstruation. On page 6, the authors challenge the idea that menstruation is inherently tied to womanhood, asking:

Ā ā€œĀæQuĆ© pasarĆ­a si abolimos la idea de que por menstruar nos vamos a convertir en ā€˜mujeresā€™? ĀæEn cuĆ”les de esas ideas tenemos espacios otras identidades? ĀæEn cuĆ”les de esos mitos tienen cabida las personas que desean hacer terapia hormonal con testosterona? ĀæEn cuĆ”les de estas ideas tienen valor quienes deciden interrumpir sus menstruaciones por voluntad propia?ā€5

By foregrounding nonbinary and transgender perspectives, the zine opens a much-needed space for inclusive conversations.

hands holding open Menstruaciones No BinariasThe work goes further to interrogate the medicalization and commodification of menstruation. While it critiques pharmaceutical and capitalist interventions, the zine acknowledges the necessity of these tools for some. This nuanced position allows for diverse approaches to managing menstruation, from herbal remedies to hormonal therapies, while respecting personal autonomy.

One of the zineā€™s most compelling questions appears on page 35: ā€œĀæComo agenciarse colectivamente para vivir menstruaciones dignas?ā€6ā€‹. The authors emphasize the importance of collective care and self-determination in health practices. This micropolitical approach reframes menstruation as not only a personal experience but a communal and political act.

hands holding open Menstruaciones No BinariasThe authors provide a rich theoretical lens through which to view menstruation, connecting it to broader discourses of embodiment, autonomy, and resistance. On page 17, they explore how hormones are part of the ā€œredes de conexionā€7 that shape our bodies, highlighting how hormonal processes defy simplistic categorization: ā€œNuestros vasos sanguĆ­nos serĆ­an algo asĆ­ como redes de conexiĆ³n por donde fluyen las hormonas, que al llegar a diversos lugares pueden generar diversas TRANSFORMACIONES.ā€8 This view aligns with feminist and queer theories that prioritize fluidity over fixity.

On page 24, the creators assert, ā€œCada experiencia es un mundo para cada cuerpo, existen tantas formas de vivir estos ciclos, hay tantas experiencias menstruales como cuerpos y personal mesntruantes en el mundo.ā€9 This statement underscores the zine’s central philosophy: the individuality and diversity of menstruation defy monolithic narratives. Building from this premise, the text challenges the homogenizing tendencies of both medical and cultural discourses, advocating for the acknowledgment of menstruation as a deeply personal yet communal experience. The authors emphasize that no single framework can encompass all menstrual realities, from those shaped by hormone therapies to cultural rituals and individual preferences. This lens aligns with a broader transfeminist critique of binary and reductionist categorizations, inviting a reimagining of menstrual health that is as multifaceted as the bodies and identities that experience it.

hands holding open Menstruaciones No BinariasMy favorite section starts on page 27 titled ā€œEl registro menstrual en mis propios tĆ©rminosā€.10 The authors introduce a framework they term the ā€œmicropolitica menstrualā€11 emphasizing self-managed sexual health through practices that empower and demystify menstruation. As they note, ā€œEstos ejercicios son parte de una posible micropolitica menstrual orientada a la autogestiĆ³n de la salud sexual.ā€(pg. 28)12 . This approach challenges biomedical and capitalist norms, instead advocating for autonomy and collective care. The micropolitic encourages individuals to track their cycles through diverse meansā€”whether using lunar diagrams, digital apps, or traditional methodsā€”aiming to deepen personal understanding and reclaim agency over oneā€™s body. By prioritizing such personalized practices, the zine fosters an intimate resistance against systems that historically pathologize or control menstruating bodies, envisioning menstrual self-knowledge as a radical, empowering act.

The zine also addresses the experiences of trans and nonbinary individuals who undergo hormonal therapies, noting that the effects of such treatments vary widely. This attention to diverse experiences emphasizes the individuality of menstrual cycles and the necessity of rejecting one-size-fits-all solutions.

Menstruaciones No Binarias back coverMenstruaciones No Binarias is not just a zine; it is a manifesto for a new politics of menstruation. It invites readers to reimagine their relationships with their bodies and to question societal norms that marginalize and pathologize menstruation. By centering voices that have been historically excluded from menstrual discourse, it charts a path toward greater inclusivity and understanding.

The questions it raisesā€”about care, autonomy, and the intersections of identity and biologyā€”are as urgent as they are transformative. In the spirit of the zineā€™s call for collective action, this work reminds us that another world is indeed possible, one where all bodies are honored in their singularity and complexity.

  1. ā€œa felt and extensive investigationā€ā†©
  2. ā€œWe converge from this place, we put our energy so that this expands and continues a dialogue
    with other menstruating experiences. We trust that another world is possible from the practices of
    the discovery of the body and with it, a rupture of the myths about menstruation, considering the
    singularity of each body.ā€ā†©
  3. ā€œMenstruation: of the word mens o ā€˜mesā€™, from the Indoeuropean mehens or ā€˜moonā€™ and the work ā€˜rā€™itoā€™ or ā€˜station, ritual.ā€ā†©
  4. We propose a comprehension of menstrual pain inside a sociopolitical reality that does not grant opportunities to inhabit a context of care and/or that permits us rest.ā€ā†©
  5. ā€œWhat would happen if we abolished the idea that if we menstruate we will convert ourselves into ā€˜womenā€™? In which of these ideas do we have space for other identities? In which of those myths is there capacity for the people who wish to have hormone therapy with testosterone? In which of these ideas is there value for the people who decide to interrupt their menstruation out of their own volition?ā€ā†©
  6. ā€œHow do we create a collective agency to live our menstruations with dignity?ā€ā†©
  7. ā€œ…networks of connectionā€ā†©
  8. ā€œOur blood vessels would be something like networks of connection where hormones flow, that once it arrives in diverse locations it can generate diverse TRANSFORMATIONS.ā€ā†©
  9. ā€œEvery experience is a world for each body, there exist so many forms of living these cycles, there are as many menstrual experiences as there are bodies and personal menstruatees in the world.ā€ā†©
  10. ā€œā€œThe menstrual record in my own termsā€ā†©
  11. ā€œmenstrual micropoliticā€ā†©
  12. ā€œThese exercises are part of the possible menstrual micropolitic oriented towards autogestation about sexual health.ā€ā†©

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

Rebel Fux #7: (Post) Election Haze

Zine of the Gay

Rebel Fux #7 coverIn the words of Kate Huh in the issue I want to highlight, in Rebel Fux #7: ā€œWell, I guess this is the election issue.ā€ I am writing this pre-results but by the time this is up we will know who the next president of Amerikkka is. This is a highly political post, but in honor of the Queer Zine Archive Projectā€™s sheer existence, the personal is political. I am sure that many of us, including myself, are going through sociopolitical stress in response to the moment or more persistently in response to how this moment reflects the entirety of many of our lives. Pasts, presents, and possible futures. The cynicism and pessimism that rightfully occurs during these times should not be diminished. There is no space for celebration in the imperial core but we make do. I am not trying to tell anyone who to vote for, or whether to vote or not to vote. Alongside this issue of Rebel Fux, it paints the atmosphere of catastrophe and poison that we all feel as of right now.

In this issue, like the rest of the series, mixed media from a plethora of different sources form a kaleidoscope of eerie collages depicting the affective realities of an election cycle. Photos by Jacob Riis, aĀ  “muck-raking” journalist, and social documentary photographer; photos from the Brown Brothers. Words from Thorstein Bunde Veblen, an economist and sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known critic of capitalism. As well as words from the at-the-time votersā€™ guide and a ā€œweird gay survey.ā€ I picture the creator of this zine either finding these sources, piecing together what inspires this topic, or whether the pieces emerged first and then the connection between them all made itself evident in the set and setting of election season.

ā€œdonā€™t vote for assholes causeā€™ assholes hurt people!ā€

Under these political conditions that everyday person is cut up into individual pieces, reduced to nothingness but a number and statistic. Diminished to a singular action but an action that might feel as if the entire nation, but in the case of the American Imperial Core, the entire worldā€™s weight is upon the choice of your ballot. We still live under the guise of democracy, so these actions do mean something, but remember you are more than that something. Being poisoned by the reduction valve of this action, making all you are what the government proclaims you are, what the government and dominant ideology allow you to imagine yourself and your community to be is a death sentence. A slow but slithering tumor that grows through the entirety of your roots and it is infectious ways.

On page 2ā€¦ā€œThe principal manifestation of poisoning is central nervous system depression. Blurred or double vision, approaching stupo-ā€

ā€œThe principal manifestation of

 

poisoning is central nervous

system depression.

 

Blurred or double vision, approaching stupo-ā€

A person photographed by what I assume is Jacob Riis, injecting themselves. The dominant ideology might provide the tools, the substances, and the environments in which we exist for these poisons to thrive, but we are also the ones that place the injection into ourselves. The mental rejection is a tough action against an ever-present powerful tide of the landscape. To stay true to yourself and what you believe in with so much noise, silence has a purpose and that is to listen to the hum of your drum. Remember to honor it despite all the poisonous noise.

Present law obstructs the principles behind any and all human effort and human enjoyment of life and well-being on the whole.

Again, Rebel Fux uses Junji-Ito-esque two-pager spiralizations into horror scenes, but in comparison, this horror is our realities. Violent streets while the angel that watches is omnipresent and being carried by a foreign in emotion but local in its owner: the manifest destiny angel. Painted in ā€œpure femininityā€ and bringer of the front lines to the expansion of empire, the fate of conquest.

ā€œThis ballot proposal is a dose that produces anesthesiaā€ as said on page 10. The ballot is one of the variety of substances used for self-injection produced, serviced, and distributed by the market of the imperial core to its own citizens. This time, as told by Rebel Fux, is an anesthetic. We often connect the anesthetic to the removal and domestication of feeling, but we must also witness the effect of the anesthetic upon movement and action. A form of desensitizing bliss that does not actually provide much-needed rest but is just a muffler and distraction to a possible imagining of what could be done outside, in spite, regardless of, or more than what the ballot offers us. In the injection of the anesthetic, the submitting and entrance of the ballot into its box, we are enticed and given the chance to lay in the imperial bliss of mediocrity. Allow yourself to bear witness within your mind, yourself, your community, and the world, for more.

It is valid and right to mourn and grieve, but the next day utilize said emotions to sensitize your actions. Later on in the zine, this powerful page proclaims ā€œThe emphasis is kept on weaponsā€¦ā€ Although this zine was created more than 2 decades ago, it still rings true. ā€œ…by a passionate common sense,ā€ the landscape that we live in is not and was not created out of failure to its origins and logistical purposes. The ā€œcommon sense,ā€ the logic built into the system is working perfectly fine, actually working extremely perfectly. The way that it fails multiple groups within its borders and outside of them, is the method of the system. The common sense is very much alive and passionate as we witnessed last night. The structure of the system and its legalities was built to function in this way. All nations, like the human body, run through lifespans and cycles not unique to the present patterns we are experiencing. Although something might feel unique it does not mean it is, and this is not a failure, this feeling is the common sense that has been built into the minds of the everyday American citizen. The ā€œblurred or double visionā€ trusts the dominant structure. As if its omnipresence that dishonors the divine, is a warm blanket protecting us. In reality, as a frog in a boiling pot, we are being cooked and blissfully staying in vertigo of the water. This cognitive dissonance is essential to the blurring of vision, to leave all of us dizzy to each other, to solidarity.

We are not bound to what has been imposed upon us, just cemented in birth to the reduction valve of this country. Our instinct, although common sense would like us to believe, isnā€™t isolation and individualism. Discover ways to imagine and do more outside of the mediocre injection of the ballot. Remember and return to what matters.

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

Rebel Fux #4: Where Creations End Their Creators

Zine of the Gay

Rebel Fux is a series of mini-zines with a fragmented metaphysical soul. Created by Kate Huh, you can listen to their voice through the orchestration of images and words they unify for us. Each edition of Rebel Fux consists of a different theme and lies in a different node of abstraction depending on the chosen topic. Rebel Fux is a perfect name for the series as it encompasses the rebellion of the spirit through the way we perceive the world in our subjectivities. We f*ck what has been given and shown to us by f*cking the rebellious spirit itself. In disintegrating images of the topic through poetic collages, we feel the aftermath of the spiritā€™s intercourse as it passes through us.

Rebel Fux #4I will be focusing on Rebel Fux #4 for this post, on the violent creation of nature and the nature of violent creation. Some of the editions in the archive combine figures of the fragmentation and unification Kate uses. This time the words of Mary Shelley and J. Robert Oppenheimer danced about the page of Lynd Wardā€™s eerie woodcuts. The connection between the modern Prometheus myth and the creation of a weapon of death is the overarching thread here. A deep sense of questioning the ethics of the creatorā€™s intention, actions, and results of what their hands were involved in conducting. Either way, we immediately know the feelings of the creator of this zine about these questions, light-heartedly on the first page as 1931 Frankensteinā€™s Monster presents Kateā€™s formidable voice:

ā€œIn this issue it becomes clear; if you fux with Nature, Nature fux with youā€¦ā€

Nature is capitalized and fortified in a conscious way which I highly appreciate. An autonomous spirit of choice and marker of vengeance for any disrespectful alchemist efforts that do not withhold and honor the balance of our elements. Grounded by reality, this could not feel more poignant and demanding than today as according to new research, the vast majority (over 99%) of the 281,000 metric tonnes ofĀ  CO2 emissions estimated to have been generated in the first 60 days of Israelā€™s genocide on Palestine were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the worldā€™s most climate-vulnerable nations. In clear connections to our presents, pasts, and unfortunate futures, in Rebel Fux, we see the becoming and unbecoming of creator and creature as demise descends for the mortal price of fuxxing with Nature.

Quotes from Mary Shelleyā€™s Frankenstein spiral into the ultimate point of magnetization and explosion, such as the atom bomb itself, into his creatorā€™s words. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atom bomb, is a Prometheus-Frankenstein figure and we see in his creation and words how so.

shed countless tears; happy beyond hope thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destructio pause before the peace Again shall you raise the funeral wail, I received their cold answers, It is the kind of schizophrenia we physicists have been living with for several years now unfeeling reasoning died s on my lips.The fuxxed creatorā€™s journey vacuums alongside Lynd Wardā€™s woodcut prints. In an extreme black point contrast, the direct lines set a scene for the poetics. Ward illustrated a 1934 edition of Frankenstein, published in New York by Harrison Smith and Robert Haas. These are outstanding, not only for excellence and power of design but especially for insights into a disturbing and powerfully poetic solely in the visual plane. Makes me wonder about the process of these woodcuts, and the type of creation into natureā€™s skin, the wood of a tree. Which then this zine integrates back the words of Mary Shelley into the visuals for the nexus point of bearing witness to the birth of a creation that you know in prophetic unfolding will mass into death and destruction.

Cover of the 1934 edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Illustrated by Lynd Ward and Justine in Prison in ā€œFrankensteinā€ by Lynd Ward
Justine in Prison in ā€œFrankensteinā€ by Lynd Ward

The integration of such distinct acts of creation insights wonder into the possibilities of the animativity of the creation itself. Frankensteinā€™s monster while considered an abomination, was only through tragic self-undoing, was there actual violence in response. Oppenheimerā€™s atom bomb has no consciousness, in its inanimacy, the consciousness is of its creator and user. So therefore the consequences and material actions that come from such creations come from the intentionality and unintentionality of their creators.

 

Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than myself your anguish, is dear to me, a single bomb.ā€œI shall not be merely weaving a series of supernatural terrors.

The great discoveries of modern science have been put to horrible use.

Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than myself

your anguish,

is dear to me,

a single bomb.ā€

Oppenheimerā€™s pure curiosity is creation with the matters and physics held carelessly on the other side of its coin. As we create, the spaces left out in our creation are still real and will be held captive and used by successors. Oppenheimer was a seeker of creation, not death. Frankenstein was a seeker of transmutation, not monstrosity. Prometheus was a seeker and holder of intelligence not the horrors of mankind. Nevertheless, their hands lead to such events. They did not think of it. And in the divine humbling that the balance of nature does to all of us: what they did not pay attention to, what was left uncalculated, calculated itself into a haunting in the shadows. To be the effect of the cause they created. As for me, I am not sure I blame the creator for the destruction creations caused and keep on causing, but I sure do blame their lack of care. Being lost in the fullness of the thirst, a wonder of wonder is intoxicating, but remembering where you stand is integral. The earth that gives you the materials off her back for the projects. The atoms, the organs, the fire.

When I saw that ball of fire, two passages in the Bhagavad-Gita came to my mind. One was: And the other: "The radiance of a thousand suns which suddenly illuminate the beavens all in one moment-thus the splendor of the Lord." "And I am Death, who taketh all, who shatters worlds.

The climax of the zine is Oppenheimerā€™s words bearing witness to the destruction of his own creation. The mass blinding event of witnessing shot him towards the future of the scale of what he had done. These pages in full depiction of this moment as it shows us Frankesteinā€™s monster, Lynd Wardā€™s woodcut, and an indistinct man in pain, is reminiscent of Junji Itoā€™s methods of somber horror. In his manga, he circulates the reader with images of dizziness into a trap of a double panel of your own turning. The spiralization into the concise moment of inescapability for what you have been led into, and this momentā€¦ for the creator of pain: they lead themselves and everyone down such a spiral.

Throughout this post, I have been using the word ā€œcreatorā€ instead ofĀ  ā€œscientistā€ even though throughout the zine it focuses on scientists and their creation fuxxing with nature. However, I think any form of creation can fall victim and perpetrator to this violence, in different forms. Technologies and their consumer, politics in societal structures, art in culture, and more. Not all creation is of this sort. When we go outside of the bounds of the bounty that nature gives us. When we do not honor the flow of intuitive creation in balance with our place within it.

But am I not alone, miserably alone? if You, my creator, abhor me

In the end, Rebel Fux gives the voice back to the creation. A being or unbeing that is condemned, because of the carelessness and oversight of their poisonous curious creator, to the undoing of the ethics of their future and present users. The dysautonomia of their free will results in this inescapability.

As humanity seems to be in a dizzying repetitive violence of history, genocide on top of genocides, are we not Frankesteinā€™s monster? Have we been removed from our autonomy because of the conditions of our creation? When the alchemist that melded our clay into our human bodies and granted us life, did they too exclaim ā€œAnd I am Death, who taketh all, who shatters worldsā€¦ā€?

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

Queer History Making / Making Queer History

Zine of the GayFirst things first: Happy Queer History Month! History is built upon the reality we have all agreed upon to pass down. The stories that are decided to be honored and remembered. The markers of history and how we learn about it are integral to the fabric of communities and cultures. How we commune with the tangibility of our ancestors and have a stepping stone in our lineage. It is no surprise that a key element of suppression is a historical one, that is why this month is so important.

Out of the Closets and Into the Libraries
The version at archive.qzap.org is intended to be downloaded, printed and distributed.

Out of the Closets and Into the Libraries by the Bang-A-Rang Collective is a zine of radical queer moments navigating us through historyā€¦

As a young queer that grew up in spaces where non-heteronormativity didnā€™t exist, the idea of queer elders was a fantasy that I thought would be real once I came out the closet. Unfortunately, this wasnā€™t the case because of such history unmaking. Specially for queer poc. One has to go searching for history when it has been erased for you. Such a search and thirst to learn more about the history of you and your people, the truths that cement the foundation you stand on is an act of care for the legacies they made.

The creator was answered the same questions all young queer people have with such a thirst: where is our history? Where are our elders?

ā€œWhen I confronted my few older queer friends, they smiled apologetically and remarked, “you don’t know these histories because a lot of people that could tell these stories were either murdered by homophobes or murdered by AIDS. The rest of us, the survivors, either don’t know our own histories or are petrified to have any sort of relationships with the younger generations, fearing the label predator and child molester.ā€

Remembering is an act of honoring and resistance. It is an act of learning and of loving yourself and your lineage. In all its splendid ugly and beauty. I have found that although such remembering does not come easy to history riddled with erasure, the effort that one has to learn to braid into the attempt almost makes it all the more sweet. All histories that are hidden have pressurized into a diamond in the mine of your lineage.

Queer to the Leftā€¦ Queer Holocaustā€¦ Lesbian Avengersā€¦ QueerNationā€¦ QueerLiberation Armyā€¦ White Night Riotsā€¦ Pink Panthersā€¦ STARā€¦ QueerFist.. Combahee River Collectiveā€¦ Stonewallā€¦ Gay Shameā€¦ George Jackson Brigadeā€¦ Homocoreā€¦ Gay Liberation Frontā€¦ ACT UPā€¦ Compton Cafeteria Riotā€¦ Out of Controlā€¦ Gay Activist Allianceā€¦

If you donā€™t recognize one or some of these moments, this zine is for you.

* these moments in queer history are not subject to chronological order. The decision not to arrange things in such an order is intentional. Chronology suggests things have come and gone where we believe many things continue to be very much present and important. Chronological order also often suggests progress, and I do not believe moving forward when the world is so fucking backwards is a step in the right direction...

Something that I deeply appreciate is the nonlinearity of the zine. Time itself is subjective and its affective realities in our minds are anything but one dimensional. When one remembers one doesnā€™t go through every second from the moment you are to the moment you were. Our lives and our ancestors are not neatly winded into a coil of cassette tape to rewind through. Rather time is in a perpetual vomiting and unwinding of such cassettes, our times being in constant undoing through doing. This zine reflects the act of remembering such radical moments. In such entanglements oneā€™s memories form new connections.

To attempt chronology is to go through the structure that was the one that attempted the erasure of our history. Queering such chronology is necessary to the understanding that the future isnā€™t ahead of us. We cannot see the future but we can attempt to bear witness to the past to inform the cradle of our necks that nurture a possible futurity.

ā–²ā–¼ā–²ā–¼ā–²

I will not be going through the entire zine for a summary for you. I urge you to read the zine yourself, to envelope yourself in history making in such resistance work. The work that has allowed me to be semi-okay on campus with a shirt that says ā€œI ā¤ ļø Pussyā€. How much queerness is synonymous to political resistance.

I do want to shout out our very own and its part to such history-making. Homocore! Zinesters! I call upon you to be history in your history:

As with punk, queercore culture existed outside of the mainstream so zines were crucial to its development. Hundreds of zines formed an intercontinental network that enabled queercore to spread and allow those in smaller, more repressive communities to participate. The DIY attitude of punk was integral to queercore as well. In the 1990s, as the availability of the internet increased, many queercore zines, such as Noise Queen could be found online as well as in print. The queercore zine label Xerox Revolutionaries run by Hank Revolt, was available online and distributed zines from 2000 to 2005. Queercore forums and chatrooms, such as QueerPunks started up. The Queer Zine Archive Project is an internet database of scanned queer zines that continues to grow.

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

The Lesbian Avengers: Have We Always Had the Same Issues?

Zine of the GayIn my personal experiences in queer ā€œactivistā€ spaces, I have often felt a dissonant feeling about the uncommitment for action. This ā€œactivismā€ with no action! The ā€œactivistsā€ becoming more ā€œactorsā€ at a performance of progress rather than tangible change. In my objective mind and what I will always tell people first, the mentality I go into these activist spaces is something along the lines ofā€¦

ā€¦ that all effort is worthwhile, all efforts towards progress should not be halted just because they are not radical enough. We need to eat to enact the revolution. We need to make sure we survive today to protest tomorrow. The effort of the improvement of current living conditions should never be considered obsolete. Mental and physical health is super important, take care of yourself above anything. How could we honor the martyrs all around the world if we do not continue doing anything we can? How can we say that all the effort up until now is worth nothing? Isnā€™t the most revolutionary thing to have radical hope and to enact it in any way possible?

Lesbian Avengers DYKE MANIFESTO Perhaps it is because of my young self in these times of grand disillusionment with the world, but in my heart and people that know me deeply know I want to scream and bite peopleā€™s heads off for the incompetence and inaction that occurs. The anger that lights my eardrums on fire for the way that people cannot see how it is a waste of time to put energy on discourse on trivial matters is when peopleā€™s lives are on the line! How selfish it is to put your own feelings and ideologies first above the group! What happened to coalition-building?! How selfish and elitist it is to feud and then refuse to work together on the common goal because of your conceptions and perspectives on how you understood the theory that you read (or didn’t read)! Why is everyone just sitting around and talking about how they canā€™t do anything? What do you mean you are so angry you do nothing? How are you not so angry and do something? How could we honor the martyrs all around the world if we do not continue doing anything we can?

I believe both of these things at the same time but it does make me feel dizzy when in discourse I am told they are opposition. In contrast, I see them in innate relation. Doing everything we can, rest and action, despite it all is radical hope. To be a revolutionary you must be so angry at the world for its current state and its capacity to be better. Being impatient because it can be better and it isnā€™t. Imagining always ends up with me being on the street. Being an activist is having the radical hope that the revolution isn’t raining down on a random day like the rapture but you are going to be part of it.

Consciously I am aware that rarely have none of us gone through a truly unique experience. However, considering how every mind is an island, sometimes we forget the sea. Our antecedents and shoulders in which we stand upon to look out into the sea. As I was scavenging a zine to write about I stumbled upon the fabulous and extremely validating manifesto zine for the Lesbian Avengers. A hilarious and extremely dykey call to action, impatience, and mobilization effort. What a comfortā€¦

Founded in 1992, the Lesbian Avengers were a direct action group focused on lesbian visibilityĀ  and survival. According to their telling of their history: ā€œToo impatient for lobbying or letter-writing, these fire-eating secretaries, students, cab drivers, journalists, artists and teachers joined together to create fabulous street actions that inserted lesbians into public life, forced political change, and redefined dykes as the coolest, most ferocious, girls on the block.ā€

The Lesbian Avengers' Civil Rights Organizing Project (LACROP)
Via: The Lesbian Avengers

The Lesbian Avengers’ Civil Rights Organizing Project (LACROP) went further, taking a group of lesbians where they’d never been before ā€” into the heart of heartland politics. LACROP transformed grassroots organizing by putting local activists front and center, pushing them to be fully out, and eschewing mainstream campaign tactics that relied on people remaining in the closet. In Maine, it organized door-to-door canvassing and led community forums where people came out publiclyā€”including teachers and small business owners. Where mainstream efforts in Idaho tended to do one thing, LACROP did almost the opposite: putting local queer people at the front of, and in charge of, goal setting, public events such as speak-outs and kiss-ins, and door-to-door outings sharing personal stories. By empowering queer people to come out and to engage directly with their communities, LACROP defeated an homophobic initiative in rural Idaho and laid long-term infrastructure for social change.

ā€œMedia was often keyā€¦The Lesbian Avengers shaped their actions for visual impact, and had media committees dedicated to outreach and ā€˜propaganda.ā€™ā€

In the zine we have archived, the manifesto shows us this in the dykiest way possible. Bright pink and in all caps, I am truly being showered in lesbian rage. Calling out all lesbians from all corners and crevices they may be hiding inā€¦

ā€œIT’S TIME TO GET OUT OF THE BEDS, OUT OF THE BARS AND INTO THE STREETS TIME TO SEIZE THE POWER OF DYKE LOVE, DYKE VISION, DYKE ANGER DYKE INTELLIGENCE, DYKE STRATEGY. TIME TO ORGANIZE AND IGNITE. TIME TO GET TOGETHER AND FIGHT WE’RE INVISIBLE AND IT’S NOT SAFE- NOT AT HOME, ON THE JOB, IN THE STREETS OR IN THE COURTS WHERE ARE OUR LESBIAN LEADERS?ā€

The first page of this zine is a punch in the face but you like it. A punch that tells you to get your lesbo s*** together while having a good laugh. Truly enveloping yourself into the evil dyke archetype that gets matters mobile. There is an ever present sense of that impatience and exasperated feeling that any person, including myself, is overcome with one point or another that fuels a certain kind of anger:

ā€œWEā€™RE NOT WAITING FOR THE RAPTURE. WE ARE THE APOCALYPSE. WEā€™LL BE YOUR DREAM AND THEIR NIGHTMARE.ā€Ā 

The Lesbian Avengers queer political language and ā€œpropaganda.ā€ Using catchy short sentences of action and purpose such as the ones we have been too heavily familiarized with in campaign cycles. This time around in the most queer way possible of such language: instead of performative words to gain votes, its real promises. Instead of comforting and digestible slogans, we have ā€œpredatoryā€ lesbianistic and often sexual threats to enact fear and recruit!

On the following page of the zine we are introduced more formally to the main aims and goals of the Lesbian Avengers: Who are the Lesbian Avengers? What is direct action? And why no abstract theoretical discussion?

Welcome AvengerThey define direct action as ā€œa public intervention ranging in creative form from marches to street theater to speak outs to cathartic spray painting of anti-hate slogans.ā€

Such creative interventions are what should be at the core of mobilization efforts to make the public uncomfortable, aware, and inconvenienced. Reminding that lesbians are here.

WHY NO ABSTRACT THEORETICAL DISCUSSION? How many of us have sat in meetings arguing political theory to the point of mental and physical exhaustion, to the point where we run screaming to the nearest dance floor for release from the frustration?! To keep our work pro-active and fulfilling and successful, we focus our political discussions on the creation and purpose of an action. We agree to disagree on political ideology--it is too easy to create false polarities. We also encourage women to take responsibility for their own suggestions--be willing to make them happen. Instead of saying "Someone should..." try saying "I will." or "Who will do this with me?" In our meetings, if you disagree with a proposal on the floor, instead of tearing it apart, propose another way of realizing the goal. The Avengers is a place where ideas are realized, where lesbians can have an impact. A crucial part of that is learning how to propose alternatives instead of just offering critiques. Be willing to put your body where your brain is--matter over mind!In the section on abstract theoretical discussion they ask ā€œHow many of us have sat in meetings arguing political theory to the point of mental and physical exhaustion, to the point where we run screaming to the nearest dance floor for release from the frustration?!ā€ ME! ME! ME!

I will not make the case against abstract theoretical discussion, if anything I am all for it. I want to surround my life with abstractism, art, and theory. In the overdetermination of understanding and defining, we have lost the sauce. What the western mindset has failed to realize is that abstractism and theory is not the thing itself but the action of forming meaning and nomenclature for aspects of experience, humanity, and existence, that are based in reality. Simply that our language doesnā€™t not have tangible tools to describe such elements. What we are describing is very real and the action that must be connected to it must be very real as well. One drives the other and vice versa. Theory and abstractism exist because of reality. Discussions around theory that donā€™t leave you stimulated and itchy with the capacity and fuel to do somethingā€¦ going out to the street, creating something, forming a connectionā€¦ babe. Discussions on political theory that lead to inaction because of political polarityā€¦ isnā€™t that the antithesis of why we are here? You forgot to touch the grass that you have been reading so much about! Itā€™s right there!

Their communiquĆ©-style newsletters gave activism the duality of action and being cool. ā€œLook how much we’re getting done, and how much fun we’re having while we do it.ā€ Using camp design, being loud and threatening about their lesbian activism, and putting their money where their mouth is, the Lesbian Avengers reminded me of my frustrations are not alone and to drown in my anger so it turns into passive resentment. There is always the fuel for itā€¦ like vandalism to a Navy billboard:

Valeria is interning at QZAP this semester. She is in her senior year at University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Gender & Womenā€™s Studies. She was born and raised in Valencia, Venezuela and now lives in Teejop land (Madison, WI).

Queer City, Pt 2: Rachel Pepper – “Life in the early 1990ā€™s was about living in the moment”

Zine of the Gay

QUEER CITY. EDITORS RACHEL 3 The female editor of QUEER CITY is Rachel Pepper. By day she's a high-powered book clerk at A Different Light, San Francisco's queer bookstore, by night she splits a dual personna of club-girl extraordinaire and house bound recluse. She writes a bi-weekly column for the Bay Area Reporter called "The Outer Limit," is a San Francisco correspondant for OUTWEEK mag, and loves to undertake time consuming, low profit projects like this one. Check out her first solo 'zine effort, CUNT, a hot hip dyke publication she knocked out in three days of frenzied creative hysteria. Rachel's a self-described "ACI UP Type" who participates in activist politics, dyes her hair blonde, is pondering getting a tattoo, and is a strong-willed Taurean. You can sometimes find her on the stage of Club 0 dancing nasty and cruising the scene with her friend Daula, or soaking in Osento's hot tub with her master gal Deborah. Se loves cute women in black leather jackets who are bold enough to approach her in bars and ask for her phone number. Snap to it, girls. TOP PHOTO BY ELIZABETH MANGELSDORF BOTTOM PHOTO ALEX
From Queer City

After I spoke with Alexander Chee about Queer City, he connected me with his coauthor, Rachel Pepper.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Queer City distinguished itself from other queer zines and cultural efforts of its time in having two co-authors of different genders, attempting to bridge the gap between the cityā€™s dyke and fag scenes as well as to the document queer, trans, leather, and/or SM scenes that existed outside of or in more complex relationship to those boundaries.

In her sections of the zine, Rachel writes about good spots for women amidst the male-centric world of the Castro (“And if you’re feeling particularly raunchy, consider getting your labia pierced. After all, if Susie Bright could do it, so can you!”), “the truth about girl bars” (“When the dance floor is too packed, slam dance everyone out of your way or create your own dance floor somewhere else”), and the city’s top attractions for out-of-town lesbian visitors (“And you must take your bod to Osento, our women’s bath house, where you can join women of all sizes and colors sitting around the hottub or in the saunas. Rather than any bar, Osento, whose business is spread primarily through word of mouth, is the true heart of San Francisco’s women’s community.”)

Rachel kindly provided the following recollections by email:

āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”

Life in the early 1990ā€™s was about living in the moment. There were few distractions: no internet, no cell phones. We lived intently every day, in part because we were young and passionate and queer and in love with it all and each other, and also in part because so many of us were dying. We only had each other, and we lived for each day we had alive. It was the most incredible time of my life. I worked in the epicenter of it all, A Different Light Bookstore in San Francisco. Part bookstore, part community center, part waystation for disenfranchised queers. We were the pulse, and I reveled in it.

“10 Things That Are The Same Anywhere You Go In Queer Nation,” from Queer City
“New In Town? Read This,” from Queer City

Queer City was born from our restless quest for meaning, for love, for leaving our mark, and to say: we were here, we do actually feel blessed to live here, and maybe you can get here too. We also liked the union of young dykes and gay men- a newer concept in 1990. We wanted to represent unity as young queer people. Making the zine was fun. It was all done by hand, low tech, then photocopied down the street at Copy Central. I think I assembled it by hand too. Then we sold it in the bookstore, and it was very popular. No doubt it traveled around the world. We made a limited run of T shirts too, which sold out. I think Iā€™ve still got one around somewhere!

 

I wasnā€™t really influenced by other zines, I think we just had our own vision and went for it, but other classic zines I loved at the time included Hothead Paisan. I even ended up getting a tattoo from Diane DiMassa to celebrate turning 30, then flew to London afterwards. Ah, youth!

Lee P, interning at QZAP in summer 2024, is a long-time zine maker whose current project is Sheer Spite Press, a small press and zine distro. Originally from unceded Algonquin land, Lee calls TiohtiĆ :ke // Mooniyang // Montreal home. Lee is also a member of the organizing collective for Dickā€™s Lending Library, a community-run, local library of books by trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors.

Queer City, Pt 1: Alexander Chee on the DIY spirit of early-90s San Francisco

Zine of the Gay

ā€œQueer City is a dream. Queer City is when you were 10 or 12 or 18 or 24 and you thought that you were the only freak in the entire world like yourself and that you were trapped forever. You wanted to die rather than lie, wanted to flee and be free. Then you moved away or ran away or hitched and when you told them you were in SF they went ā€˜Oh, I see,ā€™ as if everything made sense, and though you wanted to say more it evaporated in the face of that tone in their voice. You wanted to say more but you werenā€™t read to burn bridges, or anything else. Yet.

Here you are. Weā€™ll tell you where you can go, how to get there, but the rest is up to you. Have fun, be safe, watch our for your brothers and sisters. Welcome to Queer City.ā€

Queer City zine, printed on blue-gray paper, with blocky lettering and a central oval image of rows and rows of tract homes. In the bottom right, it reads, Volume 1, $4.50Queer City is a charming, bitchy, opinionated guide to the San Francisco of 1991: where to eat, how and where to cruise, which nights to go to which clubs, and the kind of gossipy, hand-on-your shoulder kind of advice that makes you feel like you have a cool older friend showing you around. (ā€œif you think noone is watching you make out with that girl at Club Q, youā€™re wrong, but do it anywayā€)

Itā€™s a version of San Francisco that I never had the pleasure of seeing, having only visited the city for the first time in 2015, but one that looms large in my mental landscape since Iā€™ve read about it many times across the work of many writers.

I was surprised and delighted to get to the final page of the zine and see the name of one of those authors who had made the San Francisco of that era come alive for me. Alexander Cheeā€™s 2018 essay collection How To Write an Autobiographical Novel includes recollections of organizing with ACT UP and Queer Nation, of Halloweā€™en in the Castro, and of running from police who wore latex gloves as they beat gay protestors with batons.

Page from Queer City reading "Alex Chee", with a collage of photos.Along with Rachel Pepper, who Iā€™ll be interviewing next week, he was one of the zineā€™s two coauthors: Queer City aimed to bridge the gap between the cityā€™s dyke and fag scenes, as well as to document queer, trans, leather, and/or SM scenes that existed outside of or in more complex relationship to those boundaries.

When I sent a message through Alexander Cheeā€™s website contact form to ask him about the zine, he replied immediately. We spoke on Zoom, and I had the pleasure of reintroducing him to Queer City, which surprised him in being both ā€œcuter than I rememberedā€ and, at $4.50 in 1991 money, which is over $10 now, costlier. (ā€œI’m a little shocked to see the price tag, to be honest. Fucking expensive zine.ā€) The following is a version of our conversation that has been edited for clarity and length.

 

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Former location of A Different Light San Francisco, which closed in 2011. Photo from Wikimedia Commons user InSapphoWeTrust.

Lee: So you mentioned that you were working at A Different Light Books and lots of folks you knew were making zines, and that was how Queer City came about.

Alexander: Yeah. I don’t know if people know this about independent bookstores, but they function as, or functioned back then as, or maybe our bookstore specifically functioned as, a kind of community center, an information booth.

A Different Light had the first shelf of books, for example, devoted specifically to information for people living with HIV and AIDS, and people would call all the time for various information-related questions.

All of this was before the internet of course. And we were also selling city guides by these very corporate gay places. We would look at them and think, ā€œNot in a million years. I wouldn’t go to any of these places.ā€ And people were moving to the area all the time, basically to be queer and to explore their sense of identity and sexuality, and their desire for adventure. So it was a desire to respond to that as well.

I think itā€™s important for everybody to try making a zine at least once if they want to be a writer, partly because you get over this sense of waiting for permission to communicate your message.

Lee: What were some of the other zines that you people in your life were making or that you were reading or aware of at that time?

Issue #5 of Diseased Pariah News, via the Internet Archive

Alexander: My friend Choire Sicha and I would sometimes make zines just to communicate with each other. I mean, we talked a lot too. But I seem to remember he made me a birthday zine once.

Our friend D-L Alvarez, the artist, had a really cute and sexy zine called Brains that I liked. I think the tagline was like, ā€œfor guys who wear glasses who like guys who wear glassesā€ or something. It was basically for nerdy queers.

Andrea Lawlor and I go way back to Iowa City in 1992, I’m trying to remember when their Judith Butler zine came out, if it was before or after I met them.

Diseased Pariah News. Hothead Paisan was amazing and hilarious.

We both wanted [Queer City] to [help] people have a sense of what was going on outside of their respective gender and sexual orientational preferences.

Lee: I was wondering about that. It seemed like there was a strong point being put on having editors of different genders. Was the scene pretty balkanized by gender at that time?

QUEER ISListening to Sinead O'Connor, Girls in the Nose, Fifth Column, Revolting Cocks, but probably not gay men's choral tapes or super zappy women's music. Except "Turning it Over" on rainy Sunday afternoons. the BOX Club Uranus Knowing queer cinema isn't Longtime Companion but is Barbara Hammer, Bruce LaBruce & GB Jones, and Azian Murudin. Being present but not necessarily admitted. Getting off on the work of Pat Califia, no matter if you're male or female. Queer means never having to apologize for your opinions when you've offended someone--especially when you've purposefully tried to. Putting a Rubberman poster up in your bathroom and a Jessica Tanzer print up over your bed. If you're a woman you find gay male porn films more stimulating than lesbian-produced ones, and that if you're a gay man, you sneak into your dyke pal's room to look at her Ca Our Backs. Men and women both wearing day glo stickers, labryses, and cockrings. Piercings and tattoos Considering Interview, Homocore and MS. all integral parts of your regular reading. Knowing who Holly Hughes, Karen Finley, and Tim Miller were before their NEA grants were denied. Queer is a melding of lifestyle and identity. Cocteau Twins This Mortal Coil Dead Can Dance Going into Queer Nation with your male roomie and knowing that he will be greeted more warmly by the lesbians, and you by the gay men. nice & queer LIBERATION NOT ASSIMILATION POSITIVELY QUEER
From Queer City zine

Alexander: I mean, I remember doing a go-go act at a lesbian sex club, which was one of the weirder gigs that I’ve ever had. I did it with a friend who I won’t name here. I don’t know what they want people to know that they were there.

But yeah, I think the activism was bringing us all together. I had come out there with a bunch of friends, predominantly a lesbian crowd. There’s a picture of me in college that’s like me and 10 women friends that I like to call ā€œAlex and the Lesbiansā€. And they were the people who were around me as I moved out to San Francisco.

At Wesleyan, we were a very mixed group, partly because we had to be. It was a small school, so we didn’t have the luxury of the kinds of balkanization that were happening in the scene that we arrived in. So we were sort of like, ā€œwhy is it so weird?ā€

I understand gender exclusive spaces in certain ways, certainly everyone is tired of us having people descending on a gay bar for a hen party.

Another part of this that I think is not visible, is that Warren, who’s listed here [in Queer City], was a housemate of ours. It’s basically our apartment. We had an apartment above the Itā€™s Tops Diner, directly across from the sex club 1808 Market, which I think has since closed. It was so cheap. We each had two rooms. So Queer City is very much a product of our household, as well as A Different Light Books.

Lee: Was this the only zine that you made that was for public consumption, rather than as a friend thing?

Boy With Arms Akimbo poster, via University of Rochester AIDS Education Collection

Alexander:Ā  Yeah, I think so. I was a part of a few different zines at the time, a few different cultural efforts.

There was something called Boy With Arms Akimbo. It was a queer art activism group. A lot of the people I knew at the time were exploring different ways of thinking about media and how we were going to communicate with each other, and how we were going to organize community and organize politically.

Lee: I was thinking about how you’ve written about feeling very ambivalent about doing an MFA as someone who was coming out of the more DIY, punk-y, activist-y background. I was curious how zines fit into that for you, in the different ways youā€™ve engaged with writing and putting writing into the world over time.

Alexander: I think it’s important for everybody to try making a zine at least once if they want to be a writer, partly because you get over this sense of waiting for permission to communicate your message.

I’m thinking of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah who has a great story about zines. He and his friends made [a zine] shortly after Trayvon’s death. He was so sure that it was going to change everything. And then of course, it didn’t really. But I think when I think back to his story, what I would add [is that] it changed him. I think it was a big part of him becoming the writer that he is.

Lee: I felt so grateful that zines have been the way that I came into the world of making things, and that the perspective of people who are waiting for institutional permission to make something is really alien to me.

Alexander: Yeah, I think that’s right. I think the liberatory sense of it is something that stays with you, whatever else you end up doing.

Lee: Yeah, absolutely. It can be applied to so many things in life: that you can just do if you give yourself permission to.

Alexander: Right. And I’m not surprised at all that, for example, Choire has gone on to have the career that he does, given the way that he was applying himself to making zines.

Lee: San Francisco at the end of the eighties and the beginning of the nineties sounds like it was such a particular and pivotal time and place. What are some things that stand out to you about that time, or that people might not understand who weren’t there?

Alexander: I guess it felt apocalyptic. It turns out that was premature. I mean, it was apocalyptic in a way. A prelude.

I wrote about this era recently for my newsletter, about how to orient yourself in relationship to writing and publishing, whether or not you get an MFA. Itā€™s something my students ask me about a lot.

Part of what I was trying to say is, if you don’t have a scene where you are, here are some ways you can think about making them. If there’s no reading series where you live, what if you tried to create one? A writer’s group: what if you tried to create that?

And I think that [in the time Queer City came out] there was a sort of DIY, activist, ā€œif you thought of it, you gave yourself a jobā€ approach to culture, and I feel like a lot of people are very much waiting for somebody else to do it, and wondering, and almost angry, about why no one [is doing it], when actually that’s the clearest sign that they should do it. So that’s what I was trying to get people to get past.

"OutWrite - a literary force of the '90s" judged Lambda Book Report. "Literally overwhelming" reported the Seattle Gay News about OutWrite90. "An event that symbolizes the excellence of gay and lesbian literature" proclaimed The Advocate on OutWrite91. OutWrite90 and 91 were the largest gatherings of lesbian and gay writers in history. You are cordially invited to the event that will surpass both. Out Write 92號 The 3rd National Lesbian & Gay Writers Conference
OutWrite ’92 promo materials, via Northeastern University

I think back to all these experiences that I was having back then, and how often they were the first of their kind. Working on the first OutWrite conference, which was the first national American LGBT literary conference. Working on the startup of Out magazine, when I moved to New York in 1991, which was the first magazine of its kind.

I felt, ā€œWell, of course, this is what we have to do because it’s needed.ā€ I wasn’t getting too caught up in like, ā€œhow cool that it’s historicā€ until later, maybe decades later. Because at the time, it was like, well, we’re trying this and it might not work out.

Because of this, I had this very, very gay resume, at a time when a lot of people would not, but if I didn’t have it, I looked like I hadnā€™t done anything. I hadn’t published anywhere. I hadn’t worked anywhere. Literally, all of my experience was gay. So in a way, I had to make it work. I had to be a part of it because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

I remember in 2004, 2005, a former student who had gotten a job at a major men’s magazine in New York was at an editorial meeting where my name came up, well, he looks a little too gay for us. He was really surprised to hear the editors talk about me that way. And I was like, oh, OK. I had imagined that they talk about me that way, and that is how they talk about me.

Lee: Not even subtext, huh? Just right out there.

Alexander: Right there.

Lee P, interning at QZAP in summer 2024, is a long-time zine maker whose current project is Sheer Spite Press, a small press and zine distro. Originally from unceded Algonquin land, Lee calls TiohtiĆ :ke // Mooniyang // Montreal home. Lee is also a member of the organizing collective for Dickā€™s Lending Library, a community-run, local library of books by trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors.

On Zine Production ValuesĀ 

Inciting Desire #2: The Safe Gender Issue. "Crying out in pleasure and pain not caring who or what hears"If youā€™re in any zine space long enough, you will eventually end up drawn into a conversation about what is and isnā€™t a zine. Personally, Iā€™m pretty firmly on team ā€œthe diversity of zines is something I love about them, and trying to draw firm boxes around concepts is not a great use of my one wild and precious life.ā€ I think itā€™s cool that zines can be something you make with a sharpie and a single sheet of paper, or something with much higher production value.

Itā€™s also really interesting to see what a high-production-value zine from decades past looks like: what the layout software of the era (or pre-compuer technologies) allowed for, and what the marks of sophistication and current style were.

Inciting Desire, from 1992, is one of those less-handmade-looking zines, probably laid out in Quark XPress, and with a lot of of-its-time highly condensed, hard-to-read fonts:

When I daydreaming of sex. Lately I've taken up with my hand, his body to watch my hand. I work full his limp cock. With my favorite big adrenaline rush into his shorts. This is the vagina & the elastic leg-hole of a novice, he circles my game. He gives all hand on her crotch, his tongue circling her nodding off. Sam does not seem pleased with the thrill of tongue. But it's just straight up and brazenly do the same, slurping with the rocking rhythm on the living room floor. Inside my body, my face becomes passive. Throwing caution to the wind, I unbuckle my tongue from his head. Slowly I rock my face of me, putting one come-slippery hand down to the feel of lips on my long thick stream. His jaw open wide sucking back up to my face. Green eyes that shine tension. Sam is down to her fussy easing in & out of awareness I begin again Quickly (well, quickly for people who are always covered with pink] under the light my hard cock rubs over her handful breasts. Black lacy bra over the purple-rimmed head, working the shaft with forefinger around the base at once into his mouth. I bend juices of his cock, which is her that evening. How Chris crosses the way in with a slow jerk. I move the focus of my sucking and cool between my ass. In other words, suburban, surprisingly cute nipples. She seems to abandon this & shine with intelligence even when he's me. He looks me in the eye while doing. Despite her jealousy of me. Sensing what's about to come: her. So she springs up. pulling Chris' lips. It looks like

Itā€™s on the higher-concept end of things too, opening with quotations from bell hooks and Judith Butler. A past QZAP post mentioned Inciting Desire in the context of distinguishing between porn and erotic, with Inciting Desire pretty firmly on the erotica end of the spectrum.Ā Iā€™m not trying to insult it or damn it with faint praise, either. Thereā€™s some pretty hot stuff in here!

In a call for submissions in this issue, they call for:

ā€œsubmissions depicting people from the whole range of ethnicities, sizes, genders + ages; all practices you or someone might consider erotic; works explicit or cryptic; sensual, confessional or theoretical; political, hedonistic, or both; and feminist (you decide what that means). Peoples’ pleasures take many different forms; we want to show/describe/deconstruct/reconstruct/celebrate them. Send us your best, your baddest + your wettestā€

Safe Gender editorial, from Inciting Desire #2ā€œTittie City Sandwichā€, an excerpt from the novel Trashed, by Connie Mulqueen, is about a threesome in the bathroom of a dyke club where, ā€œbecause there were so many girls packing the floor around them, they were close enough to cunt-fuck each other over the clothes so that it wasnā€™t obvious, though in that place they couldā€™ve stripped and done it, and nobody wouldā€™ve cared.ā€

ā€œBlack Ravineā€, by Wilton Woods, is a beautifully-written and troubling story about two boys, one prepubescent, one seemingly in his young teens, experimenting sexually in a forest. Inspiringly, there is even a piece of different-gender erotica, Ben Cheslukā€™s ā€œMadridā€.

Aside from fiction, thereā€™s also a moving memorial for Walter Blumoff, a radical faerie and photographer also known as Butterfly. As the zine notes, he died on April 26, 1991, and left over twenty thousand slides and negatives to the GLBT Historical Society.

Inciting Desire memorializes him as:

ā€œan adoptee left in hospital isolation for two weeks after his birth while they “processed” his adoption papers; a Jew; a boy-lover; a computer geek. He survived cancer in his early twenties. He was hard of hearing, had bad breath, bad teeth, bad credit, depression and low self-esteem. He did therapy all his life to try to heal himself. Where he couldn’t solve his problems internally, he unleashed a stream of litigation upon the world as a way of getting even. He didn’t pay his taxes for the same reason.ā€

The Photographs of Butterfly, from Inciting Desire #2The zine presents a number of his photos from that collection, with commentary situating them lovingly in his life and work.

At the back, thereā€™s a zine review section that includes some familiar titles like Anything that Moves, Cometbus (then at Issue #26, now at #59), Diseased Pariah News, Holy Titclamps, and Three Dollar Bill.

I havenā€™t been able to find out much else about Inciting Desire or its authors. We do know that Dennis Cooper once owned an issue of its first issue, which is held at NYU with the rest of his zine collection, which seems like a pretty solid badge of honour!

As someone who has made zines both with scissors and glue, and with up-to-date desktop publishing software, itā€™s cool to see how both of those techniques show marks of their era as the years pass. It makes me curious what will scream 2020s to the zine archivists of the future!

Lee P, interning at QZAP in summer 2024, is a long-time zine maker whose current project is Sheer Spite Press, a small press and zine distro. Originally from unceded Algonquin land, Lee calls TiohtiĆ :ke // Mooniyang // Montreal home. Lee is also a member of the organizing collective for Dickā€™s Lending Library, a community-run, local library of books by trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors.

Someone please tell me how to feel about sexual liberation

Zine of the Gay

LESBIAN & GAY FREEDOM MOVEMENTIllustration of a woman having sex with a dolphin LGFM SUPPORTS DOLPHINS WHO WANT TO HAVE SEX WITH HUMANS LGFM, BM BOX 207, LONDON, WCIN 3XX. 40p
LGFM newsletter, issue #5

This week, Iā€™m looking at four issues of the newsletter for the UK group ā€œLesbian And Gay Freedom Movementā€, which is unfortunately very difficult to find more information on due to their pretty generic name. The content of the newsletters, however, isā€¦ definitely not generic!

QZAP holds four issues of the Lesbian And Gay Freedom Movement newsletter: #5 (Summer 1991), #6 (Summer 1992), #8 (Winter 1993), and #10 (Spring 1995). The newsletters came to QZAP via the Emma Centre, a Minneapolis infoshop that I wrote more about last week.

LGFM described themselves as ā€œa movement to bring anarchist ideas and ideals to lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and to make sexuality and the overthrow of patriarchy major campaigning issues for all anarchists.ā€

The newsletter fought the respectability politics that had crept into lesbian and gay movements, criticizing a focus on legal rights rather than liberation.

In the early 90s, when these zines came out, the age of consent in England was 16 for heterosexual sex, and 21 for homosexual sex. The age of consent for gay sex was lowered to 18 in 1994, between issues #8 and #10 of this newsletter. The age of consent was only equalized across all combinations of genders in 2000. These newsletters reflect a time when debate was raging in the UK more broadly, and also within queer communities, about the role of the state in sexual ethics. As these newsletters show, queer sexual mores were a wide-open question, and some of the positions staked were pretty far outside of the current mainstream.

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HOW YOU CAN HELP END OPPRESSION OF FAT DYKES1) Stop assuming that being fat is a matter of choice for most fat wonyn. 2) Stop assuming I should lose weight one of the oppressive assumptions that thin womyn make is that all fat womyn want to lose weight. - 3) Stop assuming or believing that I'm killing myself by being fat uppression kills! 4) I have lots of feelings when I eat. So do thin people. Don't attribute pain, despair, low self-esteem, or other mental symptons to we just because I'm fat. 5) Don't always assume that fat people are jolly and funny. 6) Don't ignore fat people. Fat people are easily ignored because we often try hard to be inconspicuous. 7) Don't point to the exceptional weight loser. Weight loss is statistically atypical. 8) Don't expect Fat Liberation to become a major political movement before YOU start to change. 9) Remember, 1 am me. I am not your dictatorial fat father, I am not your nurturing Aunt Clara, I am not your seductive fat mother. 10)Get rid of your terror of being fat. Get rid of your fear of fat people. It is hurting all of us. II)Don't leave it to Eat dykes/womyn to do all your consciousness raising for you. 12) Don't treat fat people like we're uncool. Just because we are not allowed to wear the latest styles doesn't mean we don't know what's going on. 13) Let yourself be attracted to a fat dyke/womyn. It's not an accident if you've 'never' been attracted to a fat lesbian. 14) ilave sex fantasies about fat womyn/lesbians without turning us into earth mothers and comforters. 15) Whenever you fantasise, draw or otherwise image lasbians/womyn, see us as we really are. all shapes and sizes and colours. It is the responsibility of artists and graphics womyn, etc to show fat images in a positive way. 16)Invite us to go swimming or to the sports club. Take our pictures when you have your camera out (unless we ask you not to). Don't put your sheme of fat upon us. 17) Don't drink diet pop or in any other way support the diet industry. The patriarchy makes huge amounts of money though the diet industry by playing on womyn's fears of being fat of getting fatter. 18) Remember that fat oppression is a fat person's problem too. We are all taught to be afraid of being fat, or fatter. 19) Remember what Vivian Mayer says: "Fat is not a feminist issue, Fat LIBERATION is!!". 20)Stop dieting yourself! In summary, support me as a fat dyke by:...understanding my oppression...exposing fatophobia where you see and hear it (eg don't let your agency or organisation post netices about diets or groups that assume we need to lose weight)...letting and helping me love my body FAT without any overt or covert assumptions of having to lose it. Encourage fat lesbians and womyn you know to...stop dieting...join a support group or talk with other fat dykes about being fat...come out of our closets...build pride and rid ourselves of our self-hatred. HELP US THROW OUR WEIGHT AROUND! (10)
“HOW YOU CAN HELP END OPPRESSION OF FAT DYKES”, from LGFM #5

In Issue #8 of the newsletter, LGFM listed the groups they supported as:

  • ā€œOppressed sexualities including transexuals, girl/girl & boy/boy lovers, girl/woman & boy/man lovers, transvestites, S&Mers…
  • Children in their fight for liberation and freedom to choose their own sexuality.
  • Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in prison, ‘care’, and psychiatric institutions.
  • Isolated and lonely lesbians, gays and bisexuals, and those just ‘coming out’.ā€

In Issue #5, this list also includes ā€œpeople with mental and physical disabilities, also those who are non-monogamous, like cottaging [cruising] or picking people up in public places, […] those of us who enjoy sex toys and pornography […] and sex with animals.ā€ Issue #10 also includes fat people and ā€œthose who donā€™t define or identify themselves as anythingā€ in the list of those whose sexual liberation they seek.

This makes me very very very very very uncomfortable! It is pretty intense to see some of your most deeply-held views (police abolition, bodily autonomy for sex between consenting adults, including people with disabilities, and including sex that includes power exchange) being placed alongside and in equivalence withā€¦ other stuff.

FUZZY BOXES!QUEER, DICK SUCKING, ARSE FUCKING, PISS LOVING, TONGUE KISSING, NIPPLE CHEWING, CUDDLE SNUGGLING SLUT. THE LIBERATION AND ENJOYMENT OF SEX AND SEXUALITY IS A PERSONAL STRUGGLE OF EACH PERSON. THE UPBRINGING AND SUPPRESSION OF OUR CHILDHOOD SEXUALITY CAN TAKE YEARS TO OVERCOME ALONG WITH THE SUFFOCATING DEFINITIONS AND BOXES WHICH WE ARE OBLIGED TO PICK UP IN TEEN AND LATER YEARS FROM SOCIETY. THOUGH HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE MERGING AND FUZZING OF THE EDGES OF THESE BOXES WE'RE PLACED IN? ARE DEFINITIONS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF OPPRESSION SET TO CONTROL US AND STOP US FROM RELEASING OUR TRUE POTENTIAL AND TRUE CAPACITY TO LOVE AND ENJOY OURSELVES? HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE FACT THAT I'M QUEER, ENJOY ALL KINDS OF SEX WITH ALL KINDS OF MEN, FALL IN LOVE WITH GUYS, HAVE AND WANT RELATIONSHIPS WITH GUYS, BUT EVERY NOW AND THEN WANT TO PUCK WITH A WOMAN. I'VE ENJOYED THE FEELING OF SLIPPING INTO A SOFT WARM VAGINA UNTIL I CUM. YET CONSIDER MYSELF QUEER AND COULD NEVER GO BEYOND FRIENDSHIP WITH A WOMAN.
From LGFM #8

Letā€™s look more closely at whatā€™s in these newsletters:

Issue #5 takes up the cause of Ben Wilson, who was incarcerated for ā€œhaving sex with boyfriends under 16ā€, sentenced to life in prison, and chemically castrated with estrogen. Thereā€™s also a letter from ā€œan inmate in [the] New York State Prison System who has run afoul of the age of consentā€, defending ā€œconsensual intergenerational sexual relationship[s]ā€.

Issue #6 shares several stories of people prosecuted for sex with animals, arguing that itā€™s inconsistent for factory farming to be permitted and bestiality not. Thereā€™s also an interesting essay where a writer talks about their experiences coming into BDSM as someone who had never been able to orgasm before having experiences as a bondage bottom. It also argues that gays and lesbians should, instead of fighting for inclusion in institutions like police and the military, instead look towards their abolition.

Issue #8 focuses on SM, including a report from an SM pride march in London, but also includes an essay by a queer teenager opposing age of consent laws, arguing that ā€œabuse canā€™t be stopped by the law, neither can protection be given; but control, guilt, and fear can and will occur.ā€

From issue #6
From issue #10

In Issue #10, thereā€™s an article about the role of anarchist women in the Spanish Civil War, a report on the raid on a London fetish club, Whiplash, from someone who was present, remarks on Irish liberation, and a report from a squat in Ljubljana. This issue also reports critically on the age of consent for sex between men in the UK being lowered from 21 to 18, and on the decriminalization of sex in the military, arguing that there should be no legal age of consent, and no military. Thereā€™s also a cool story encouraging people not to let ableism inform their assumptions around who has sex, and with whom:

ā€œI was at a feminist event with a woman and she was with someone in a wheelchair who couldn’t speak (except after orgasm) and couldn’t lift their arms. Communication was by use of a board with printed letters and words on it which was pointed to with tongue or nose.

Two feminists I knew who were giving the lecture at the event came up to us. I introduced them to my friend and the person with disabilities. The feminists ignored the wheelchair user and addressed my friend. They asked if she was the facilitator for the day for the user. She replied, “No! This is my lover”.

The feminists had immediately assumed that an ‘attractive’ woman with a physically challenged person must be a carer – not a friend or lover. I think we have a long way to go….before the disabled are thought of as equal and as sexual people.ā€

āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”āˆ‡Ī”

In a choice between a politics of liberation and of respectability, I would align myself strongly with liberation. I do not believe the world is made safer by policing and incarceration, including with regards to situations where someone harms another person in a way that involves sex.

Illustration of three horses, with text reading "Freedom is not a COMMODITY""Liberation is not a sports bra" "Resistance is not a grapefruit diet"
From LGFM #5

As someone who reads and talks and thinks a lot about queer history, this is not my first time running into these questions. Patrick Califiaā€™s essay collection Public Sex is a fascinating collection of essays on sex, BDSM, leather culture, and censorship, from a writer who was at the centre of the 1970s-80s “lesbian sex wars”. Califia comes out swinging in favour of porn, weird sex, free expression, bi and trans inclusion, and an expansive big tent of queerness that refuses to exclude people based on the transgressiveness of their sexual interests, including sexual relationships between adults and minors. Itā€™s a book I really recommend, both as a historical document and as a source of insight into the ongoing conflict between purity culture and freakiness that are still dividing queers to this day.

I feel like Iā€™ve been ending each of these posts by saying, ā€œWell, one thing I can say for certain is that I am grateful for archives.ā€ But itā€™s always true. Iā€™m not really sure what compels me to seek out the material in QZAPā€™s archive that most challenges me, but I really canā€™t seem to help it. I am sure they have many delightful light-hearted zines of which I agree with every word. But the ones that most draw me in are the ones that also most trouble me.

A comic book illustration of two people talking, with the captions replaced by:"My pleasure is nameless: those all too rare moments when I act for myself afford no handholds for the constraints of power!" and the other person replying, "But do we have pleasure sufficiently powerful to act) as a practical weapon?" In the background, a third person looks on sadly, thinking, "Everyone's a revolutionary sexual dissident- except me."
From LGFM #8

And one thing I am sure of in the case of every one of these zines, is that I am glad itā€™s archived. I want these materials to be available for people to struggle with. I donā€™t want archives to only be a home for work that I and nobody else object to. I want us to stay with the thorniest topics and the messiest and most troubling parts of our shared history.

Lee P, interning at QZAP in summer 2024, is a long-time zine maker whose current project is Sheer Spite Press, a small press and zine distro. Originally from unceded Algonquin land, Lee calls TiohtiĆ :ke // Mooniyang // Montreal home. Lee is also a member of the organizing collective for Dickā€™s Lending Library, a community-run, local library of books by trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit authors.

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