Trigger Warning for mentions of suicide attempts
Some Boys Bleed is a zine written by Samb about his experience with dysphoria and how he eventually overcame it. The zine seeks to help other trans people who may be experiencing similar feelings of distress that he once did.
The first two pages of text give a striking description of the dysphoria that Samb had been feeling while performing for classical music, feeling that these performances were something that was inseparable from his identity. He described how his gender identity and singing countered each other, being forced to carry the burden of dysphoria while acting out gender roles that no longer fit him.
What was once something he felt he could walk…
Trigger Warning for mentions of suicide attempts
Some Boys Bleed is a zine written by Samb about his experience with dysphoria and how he eventually overcame it. The zine seeks to help other trans people who may be experiencing similar feelings of distress that he once did.
The first two pages of text give a striking description of the dysphoria that Samb had been feeling while performing for classical music, feeling that these performances were something that was inseparable from his identity. He described how his gender identity and singing countered each other, being forced to carry the burden of dysphoria while acting out gender roles that no longer fit him.
What was once something he felt he could walk away from was now rearing its ugly head towards him. Suddenly, he feels stiff and his voice falters as he walks into the studio. It gets to a point where he has to leave it because he was using his performance to hide from his problems. As he writes:
“I have used having a singing voice as an excuse to not explore what transitioning might look like for me”
Leaving with the full support of his teacher, he had time to reflect. Soon, he realized that the reason he’d been stricken with years of mental health issues and suicide attempts was because of his dysphoria. By going out and acting as someone he knew he never was had hurt him. He found immediate support from his mom, noting that sometimes it’s the people who know the least that offer the most comforting support. He finishes off by asserting that he will go through with his transition for himself. The silent recognition that comes with it is all he needs.
The zine included several block print illustrations, all drawn by Samb.
The first shows a trans man binding his chest, all in red and engulfed in scratch-like flames. The illustration feels like a visual representation of the physical pain that can come with binding one’s chest, and the mental anguish that comes with dysphoria.
The next features several pairs of underwear, likely a way for Samb to parse his identity. The one following features two trans people passionately making out, with not a care for anything else but each other. After that is a much simpler illustration featuring a person in front of a gender-neutral bathroom as onlookers appear to judge them for their decision.
The final illustration is the most striking one to me. It depicts a trans man, like the one form the first illustration. Here he is posing in underwear with top surgery scars on his chest. The illustration *oozes *with confidence, as if it’s screaming “This is me, and I love myself for that.”
The zine also includes a section titled *Some Ways to be an Ally, *a list of ways the reader can help their trans peers out. It includes topics such as practicing names and pronouns, not commenting on if someone passes or not, reading books or websites that focus on trans topics and talking about them with cis people, but one of them stood out to me in particular:
“Medical information is none of your business. Some trans folks take hormones, get surgery, (change names), some don’t – and it’s not a hierarchy of being “more trans”
To me, this may be the single most important part of the entire section, let alone the entire zine. If cis people get break conventional gender norms without being questioned, then trans people should also get this freedom. Hormone therapy and surgery is not the “goal” that trans people should be expected to reach, but rather an option for those who know it will help them feel fulfilled. No amount of ‘transness’ is owed to anyone at all.
I think back to my time in middle school. In the wake of gay marriage being legalized and queer topics being discussed on a wider scale, I felt like I was caught in the middle of crossfire. I’ve had thoughts like these pass through my mind before. Romance by logic shouldn’t always be between a man and woman, and things being tied to gender was weird. But for all the positive conversation that was going on around these things, there was also a load of negative content being shared online. Much of it was towards trans people, and I was being exposed to both at the same time. I had no idea how I was supposed to feel about it.
And then one day one, during a group counseling session, one of my friends would approach me, and come out as trans. In that moment I realized that trans people were real, and not just something that existed on my phone. Since he was too young at the time to get any form of hormone therapy, I naïvely told him that exercise could produce extra testosterone, (although true, it is not a replacement for HRT) as, in my mind, it would help him on his journey through transitioning. Even then, I never questioned his mannerisms or looks, since to me all I needed to know is that he was what he asserted himself to be – a trans guy.
He even supported me as much as I did to him when I came out as bisexual, supplementing the support I didn’t get from my mother at the time (though thankfully she would turn this around). He made me a lacquer-coated wooden charm with the colors of the pride flag. It has become one of my most cherished possessions.
Time passed, and eventually we saw each other less until he and his family moved down to Florida. Since then, I have learned more about myself, like how my gender and sexuality feel mold-able, like putty. I haven’t heard or seen him since, but I’ll always remember the mutual support we shared for each other.
Erica (she/they) is a QZAP intern working virtually for the blog. She is in her fourth year of school and second year at SUNY Purchase, studying New Media. They are queer in gender and sexuality. She enjoys photography, playing video games and working on her website.
This is a quick little post to note that last week we were the recipient of a $500 grant from the San Francisco-based Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The Sisters are an amazing organization that works tirelessly for the queer community, not just in the Bay Area, but around the world. They use humor and glamor to provide services, financial aid, spiritual guidance and tons of joy to raise marginalized voices and fight bigotry. So this is us saying loudly and proudly THANK YOU to the best nuns ever! Also, we want to publicly say thank you to Devin, who worked incredibly hard with us for the past four months to research grants and opportunities for fundraising for us. For a whole host of reasons QZAP is NOT a designated 501(c)x tax-exempt organization, and that sometimes makes fundraising challenging.
As for this grant, the money will eventually be going toward new filing cabinets in our physical archive space. For the past 18 months we’ve been wrestling with the fact that we’ve literally run out of space to store all of the queer zines we’ve collected or that have been generously donated to us. It seems silly, but our collection, which began with about 350 zines in 2003, has grown to over 4,000 as we just passed our 22nd anniversary. It’s a good problem to have, to be sure, but still a problem nonetheless. Our ultimate goal is to replace a bank of 5 2-drawer vertical files with a bank of 5 4-drawer or 5-drawer ones. This will allow us to better organize our general collection, provide space for growth, and make accessing the zines easier. While $500 doesn’t seem like a lot, for this project it covers about 1/3 of the total projected costs, which ain’t nothing, and we’re very thankful that The Sisters saw fit to kickstart the financial side of the project.
As always, if you want to support us financially, you can make a donation or purchase some zines, buttons, stickers or a t-shirt through our swag shop. If you can’t support us with funds, please check our wishist for in-kind material that we’re looking for, like hanging file folders, a map file, and paper or toner to make more zines.
I spent a lot of time this past weekend wrestling with what I wanted to write for this year’s World AIDS Day. See, the thing is that while we and most of the world acknowledge December 1st and mourn the 44 million people around the globe who have died from AIDS or AIDS-related causes, the reality is that for us here at QZAP, and for the 40 million people globally who are currently living with HIV, it’s always World AIDS Day.
Here at QZAP, regardless of the serostatus of the folks in our collective, AIDS and HIV/AIDS education and activism is coded into the DNA of the archive. I started making zines in the early 1990s because of my work with my local ACT UP chapter. 18 year-old me wanted to share safer sex info with folks my own age, and one of the ways to do that was to include that information about how to put on condoms, how to use latex dams, and where to go for sexual health services even if you were a minor in the zines that we made. And we did. And I continued to do so into the early 2000s in both the zines I made and the other queer art I was creating in that period.
When I think about my own work, I draw a direct line from 1960s pop art to the work of Keith Haring and then to Gran Fury and the Silence=Death collective. Douglas Crimp’s amazing book AIDS Demo Graphics is a visual starting place. The work of those designers and activists recently got explored in depth in Jack Lowery’s comprehensive It Was Vulgar & It Was Beautiful – How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic.
We can see these visuals, and the culture of HIV/AIDS activism showing up as a through-line in the work of many zinesters of the era. In 2022 we talked a little about Sex Panic!, which employs that graphic style on the cover. Slightly further back in time (2016) we looked at YELL, the Youth Education Life Line, though at the time we didn’t delve closely into the The Foster Kids Guide to HIV Testing, which was illustrated by Anonymous Boy. His work over the years appeared in a number of queer zines, and while it was often very sexual in nature, he was also spreading the messages of safer sex and AIDS activism along with amplifying the queercore and homo punk scenes in general.
Within queercore, probably one of the best known and most accessible bands is Pansy Division. Their work in the early 90s also made mention of the AIDS pandemic in songs like Denny and with the release of collectable trading cards that included a condom and instructions.
Part of my mental meanderings as I was trying to foment this piece was how to connect all of this together. See, this material, whether it’s zines, or ephemera, or other media, including music and film, it’s all made by us humans. Humans who have been affected by AIDS in some way or another for the past 45+ years. In this current era of indifference and assholery, it’s our love and anger, our compassion, our creativity, storytelling and ultimately our humanity, that will eventually make this day a point of historical interest that we can learn from, but that isn’t killing us anymore.
Milo Miller is a former AIDS activist and member of ACT UP/Milwaukee, a currently active zinester and the co-founder of QZAP, the Queer Zine Archive Project.
We know, we know… there’s still a couple more weeks of Summer, at least here in the Northern Hemisphere. And also, in the immortal words of Daria Morgendorffer… Is It Fall Yet?? Autumn is our favorite season, when the air starts to get crisp, the academic year begins, and we can start to think about making soup for QZAP work nights.
This autumn we’re extra excited to be hitting a bunch of new-to-us events, both here in Milwaukee and in a couple of other cities as well. We’ll be spending some time with some of our besties who we don’t get to see very often, selling our zines and buttons and stuff, and acquiring new queer zines for the archive.
Kicking it off is the Denver Zine Fest on September 14th! Organized by our buds at the Denver Zine Library, and held at the Central Library, we’ve been trying to get to this for years, and are super stoked to be able to participate.
Following that up, on October 4th we’ll be tabling at Beet Street here in Milwaukee. This street festival is being put on by our friends at Cactus Club. It will be the first time we’ve tabled at a street fest, and the lineup looks incredible! We’re really looking forward to it.
The very next weekend on National Coming Out Day we’ll be out at the New York Queer Zine Fair at The Center, 208 W. 13th in NYC. Another on our list of zine events hosted by friends of QZAP that we’re finally able to attend, and we can’t wait.
SO, if you’re in or near Denver, Milwaukee or New York in the next 6 weeks, put a mask on an come visit us! Now here’s Wonderwall…
Lauren (they/them) is a summer 2025 QZAP intern. They are an undergraduate student at Emory University studying creative writing and gender studies. They are Haitian-American, queer, and from rural Maryland. In their free time, Lauren writes various things, reads, does crossword puzzles, and cooks.
Trigger warning: police, mentions of domestic violence
*
Bar Dykes *is a one-act play by Merril Mushroom written in the 1980s, made into a zine format by Faythe Levine and Caroline Paquita in 2016. The play itself is based on an article that Mushroom wrote called “How to Engage in Courting Rituals 1950s Butch Style in the Bar,” which is exactly what it sounds like (you can read the article here) The inside cover of the zine includes a list of all seven steps of courting [see below]. These courting rituals provide necessary context for how the characters interact with each other.
The zine starts with a note from Faythe and Caroline, discussing how the zine version of *Bar Dykes *came to be. When Merril lost her home and archives in a fire, community members helped rebuild her collection by sending copies of her work, including Bar Dykes. Faythe first suggested the idea of turning the play into a zine over a lunch discussion about dyke bars. Part of the note is excerpted below:
With this publication, we hope to preserve not only the cultural legacy of Merril’s work but to share her herstory with a larger audience. Contemporary conversations surrounding queerness and gender nonconformity have made massive strides towards breaking down ignorance, intolerance, and hate. These advancements have been wrought with persecution, police brutality, and death. By publishing Bar Dykes and the accompanying interview, we not only celebrate the life and work of Merril Mushroom but also honor those who have fought to live freely, love whom they want, and make the world a safer, more accepting, and interesting place. We recognize there is still a long way to go–Bar Dykes offers new perspectives on our past, acting as a catalyst for progression into the future.
I, personally, agree. Not only is this such an eloquent way of putting it, but I’ve learned a lot from this zine. I read it for the first time in one sitting, and I knew I had to write about it. And I’ve thought about it for weeks afterwards, and have told all my friends to read it, too. Butch and Femme history hasn’t been discussed in any queer space I’ve been part of, and that includes my gender studies classes. When Butch/Femme is talked in online, mainstream queer circles, people are incorrectly assuming that it’s heteronormative. It’s annoying. I want more people to see the rich history of Butch/Femme culture.
How to Engage in Courting Rituals 1950’s Butch Style in the Bar:
Ritual #1: Cruising Ritual#2: The Buying of the Drink Ritual #3: The Playing of the Jukebox Ritual #4: The Approach Ritual #5: The Lighting of the Cigarette Ritual #6: The Asking to Dance Ritual #7: The Dancing
Bar Dykes describes a night at an unnamed bar in an undisclosed U.S. city in the 1950s. With the exception of the three characters who are new to the city (Sherry, Elaine, and Trick) and the mysterious newcomer (Lorraine), everyone knows each other in some way. And the bartender, Bo, knows them too. Mixed in with 1950s slang and complexities of romance and lesbian social dynamics are pockets of humor and critiques of state violence. I think it’s such a cool concept, to walk into a bar/restaurant/place that isn’t home or work and have the regulars there know you. To be a regular yourself. It’s not something I’ve had a chance to experience, especially with other lesbians.
The play starts with some small talk between Bo, the bartender, and Rusty, a regular at this bar. Bo is the character in this play that talks sense. She’s got the lowdown. She’s very cool and wise. The latter asks about Jo Ellen, who seems to be a regular, but makes no appearances on the page. According to Bo, Jo Ellen is a gay girl who was broken up with by another off-page character and decided to go back to exclusively dating men. Rusty and Bo both make their own comments. Part of it is social commentary, and part of it is them goofing around (I loved it though):
Rusty: [shaking her head] It’ll never work. Jo Ellen’s gay. And once a woman’s been with a woman, she’ll never be satisfied with a man.
Bo: I’m hip. I wish her all the luck in the world getting out of “the life”, but she’ll never be satisfied without a woman now.
Rusty: I’m hip. But some have to learn the hard way — if you’re queer, you’ll never be straight.
Bo: [striking an orator’s pose] Playing the game don’t make you a member of the team.
Rusty: [striking the same pose] Sitting on eggs don’t make you a chicken.
This story is very familiar to me. There’s a silent expectation from some of my straight friends and family members to either be straight, or to return to straightness after coming out as queer. Letting myself love women has been extremely freeing–especially when I don’t desire romance or sex with men. While this particular quote doesn’t take into account the existence of bisexuality, it makes an important point that straightness and being closeted can be painful and disappointing once someone has experienced being queer. It still happens today, but I would guess that it was more common in the 195os, when this is set.
Another important point is how Bo refers to queerness and being out as a gay person as “The Life.” This phrasing nods toward the sacrifices someone has to make to live as an out queer person in this era, as well as the sense of community and solidarity that comes with it. As I read the list of characters and looked at their experiences throughout this play, I noticed how different they all are. Every character doesn’t belong the same racial group, isn’t the same body size, and doesn’t present their gender in the same way. They’re brought together by their need for community, and held together in solidarity while navigating a hetero-patriarchal society. Even when characters make small talk, it is underscored by familiarity and intimacy. Cynthia and Rusty both make a point of asking Bo about Carol (an off-page character with some kind of relationship to Bo) within moments of entering the bar. And even with the quote above, Rusty and Bo striking identical poses and joking was endearing, radiant, and revolutionary. I really love to see it!
Similar to how Bo uses the phrase “The Life”, “Found Out” is a written as a proper noun, even though it’s a pretty common combination of words. It’s used when Joyce first comes into the bar, distraught and looking to get drunk. It’s later revealed that Joyce is upset because her mother “Found Out” she was gay. Linda, who’s also in the bar, asks “Was it bad?” and Cynthia replies “It’s always bad.” And it makes sense. Like I mentioned earlier, openly refusing straightness can be dangerous–you risk losing everything. I’ve lost friends almost every time I’ve come out, whether as not straight, or not cisgender.
Bette and Andy, a femme-presenting couple, come into the bar dressed alike. Halfway through the play, Andy makes a comment about Cynthia, who is dancing with Elaine, being promiscuous. Bette then suggests that Andy is jealous of Elaine, and wants to be the one dancing with Cynthia, who she was once romantically involved with. And from Andy’s reaction, it’s clear that Bette struck a nerve–and a very accurate one at that.
Bette: [grabs her by the arm] You whore! You do! [shouts] You wish you were still with Cynthia and not with me, don’t you? [everyone else in the bar stops and looks at Bette, then back to what they were doing. Cynthia shakes her head and rolls her eyes, then engages Elaine in “serious conversation” to distract her from what seems to be a fight over Cynthia.]
Andy: [pulls away from Bette] You keep your fucking hands off me…
Bette: [grabs her again] I’ll do whatever the fuck I please with you. You’re my girl [shakes her.]
Andy: [swings back and smacks Bette, shrieks] I said keep your fucking hands off me!
In this scene, Bette is verbally and physically abusive towards Andy, grabbing her arm and calling her a whore. The fact that Bette treats Andy like property in this moment is concerning and jarring. Nobody intervenes in Bette and Andy’s argument, but everybody looks their way. But this scenario is very concerning, and somebody should’ve intervened and protected Andy. There’s the pervasive idea that a couple fighting in public (even when one is very clearly being verbally, emotionally, or physically abusive) is “their business,” and no one else’s. for example, Bo says to them when things get more intense/physical: “if you wanna fight, go on home and do it.” Furthermore, Bo seems to be equating the way Bette acted towards her partner with the fact that Andy felt the need to smack her partner away in self defense. It seems like everyone is allowing it because Bette is a woman. If a man was acting this way, everyone would have immediately clocked it as domestic violence. During this scene, I kept thinking, *what kind of community is this? Why is nobody concerned? *
Cynthia is the only character in this play described as “ki-ki,” which refers to someone who is neither butch nor femme, or moves between both. In response to Cynthia’s question about whether anyone has tried “flipping” Rusty (meaning she would become femme), Bo makes a comment about Rusty being a “real stone butch,” in comparison to what she calls “wishy-washy ki-ki girls.” This comment is very clearly directed toward Cynthia, and even though Bo attempts to indicate that she’s joking with a playful punch on Cynthia’s arm, Cynthia is bothered by it.
But there’s some truth in jest, as illustrated by how the scene plays out:
Cynthia: [defensively] Listen, sometimes I like to be the butch, and sometimes I like to be the femme. Depends on who I’m interested in. Wishy-washy has nothing to do with it.
Bo: [seriously] Well, a girl has to be one or the other; other-wise, how would she know who she could go with?
Cynthia: [offended] I’m hip that some of you tough butches don’t have a very high opinion of us ki-ki girls, but I think we have it best of all, because we can go with whoever we want to. I mean, look at poor Irish and Kathy — they both really dig the hell out of each other; but they won’t get it on because they’re both too butch, and neither one wants to catch shit for going femme. But anyone can tell that they’re really crazy about each other.
The way Bo speaks about the categories of butch and femme and their roles in the lesbian community leaves minimal room for those who don’t fit cleanly into one category, as well as butch4butch and femme4femme relationships. The existence of categories should be accompanied by space to exist outside, between, and around them. Cynthia’s example about Irish and Kathy applies to the earlier conversation about what would happen to Rusty if Lorraine turned out to be butch as well. Rusty wouldn’t have to become femme, and neither would Lorraine. They could be butch, and date each other. This part of the play stuck out to me because I see myself in Cynthia more than anyone else.
Around the same time I read Bar Dykes, I read a few issues of Brat Attack. There was this article in *Brat Attack #5 *called “Butch: An Evolving Identity,” written by Lori Hartmann. Like my past self, Hartmann had internalized a ton of incorrect, butchphobic, and femmephobic ideas about butch and femme identities, and they confessed to associating butch with “looking or acting like a male, and that it was shameful and bad.” It reminds me of how so many lesbians (including myself) have thought that their attraction to women was gross or predatory. That gender-nonconformity meant being more like a predatory, misogynistic man (it doesn’t). People assume so often that butch/femme is trying to mimic heterosexuality, and it sucks to see that rhetoric resurfacing in the queer community.
Hartmann ends this essay with a list of questions that they asked themself while unpacking beliefs and biases about both butches and femmes. I bring this up because I felt that almost all the characters in the play would benefit from asking themselves these questions, as most lesbians would.
How do you identify–butch, femme, butch queen, glamor femme, dandy, tomboy femme, femmy-butch, butchy-femme, sissyboy, princess, scruffy punk femme, androgyne, fagdyke, other?
Who are you attracted to? Is there a connection between who you’re attracted to and how you identify yourself? E.g., do you call yourself a femme because you are attracted to butches?
How do you define butch or femme or whatever term you choose to identify yourself?
What are some of the beliefs you have about butches/femmes? E.g., butches don’t have feelings, femmes are histrionic.
If you’re butch, do you resent femmes for their access to heterosexual privilege because they can be mistaken for straight women? If you’re femme, do you resent butches for their ability to pass for men or their being easily recognized as dykes?
Do you feel that FTMs are more butch than butch women? What value do you attach to “degree of butchness”? Is there such a thing?
In your personal experience, what is the relationship between maleness and butchness? (mas-culinity and butchulinity?) Between femaleness/ femininity and femmeness?
Write about your experiences of being neither or both genders. Describe any characters you might use during role play.
In the last pages of the play, the bar is raided by the police. It’s drawing close to the bar’s closing time, and several characters have left, either alone or with someone. There are seven characters still in the bar when the police arrive: Bo, Rusty, Lorraine, Linda, Sherry, Andy, and Trick. The police officers ask each person for ID, and everyone obliges. Then, several characters are arrested:
- Linda and Sherry – perversion
- Trick – Suspicion
- Rusty – impersonating
These charges are pretty bogus. The cops are manipulating legal language to fit their homophobic and transphobic biases. In the case of Linda and Sherry, the policeman cannot even name a reason to arrest them. Instead, he comes up with the following:
Policeman #1: Who cares? Perversion. I’ll thing of something. I saw what you goddam bulldykes were doing. Makes me sick. [he spits on the floor.] Now, let’s go, or I’ll charge you with resisting arrest.
It’s clear that the police officer is abusing his power, justifying it with bigotry. Trick and Rusty are masculine presenting, and this is clear to both police officers. Once again, they make up reasons to arrest them. It mimics the way black men are stopped on the street or in their cars for “fitting the description” or for a “routine traffic stop.”
Andy is one of the more femme-presenting people in this bar. Instead of facing discrimination for being gender nonconforming, she faces a strange combination of sexual harassment and assumed victimhood at the hands of the lesbians at this bar:
Policeman #2: …[He looks at Andy] Hm, I’ve seen you around, too. Don’t you know you can get into trouble hanging around with these bulldaggers?
Andy: Fuck off, you bastard.
Policeman #2: [laughs] You’re a real sweetheart, aintcha? [His eyes narrow] You can just come along with me too. I’ll give you something to take the sass out of you when we get to the station.
In this situation, Andy is viewed as an object that can be “fixed” by a man. This is heavily implied in the last line of the above dialogue. Also, the police officer’s words rely on the belief that masculine lesbians will “corrupt” feminine straight women. Not only is this not close to what’s happening, but it also reinforces stereotypes of what a lesbian is supposed to look like.
Lorraine, however, does not interact with the police once. She is, in a way, invisible during this scene–an observer. Bo also has limited interaction, but because she’s the bartender, she takes the responsibility of trying to get the girls out of police custody. In the last lines, she is described making a phone call explaining to another person (named Eddie) what went down. Then, she returns to what she was doing when the play started: polishing glasses, with Lorraine at a table in the corner. The final descriptions don’t show any interaction between them, as the early exposition did; Lorraine was described as “watching her [Bo] hungrily,” putting new meaning to the note in Bo’s character description where she is called “the type every young bar dyke falls in love with.” Lorraine is the young bar dyke in question (which I totally didn’t realize until I reread the play for the third time)
The police’s and behavior points the audience back to the roots of queer liberation movements, which fought against police control and violence enacted on queer, especially gender non-conforming, people. And it’s a sour note to leave the play off on, but maybe Merril Mushroom wanted it to be that way.
Lauren (they/them) is a summer 2025 QZAP intern. They are an undergraduate student at Emory University studying creative writing and gender studies. They are Haitian-American, queer, and from rural Maryland. In their free time, Lauren writes various things, reads, does crossword puzzles, and cooks.
Will St. Leger dubbed Butcher Queers #4, released in Winter 2010 and based in Dublin, “The People Issue.” From my first read-through, I could see this theme come through in the candidness of the photos and the clear writing from the contributors that encourage the reader of this zine to think beyond the status quo, and what is upheld ‘normal.’ And, as St Leger declared in the editor’s note, there are no advertisements for “clubs, bars, events and products.”
The zine itself is visually striking. Most images are printed in black and white, and the red of the text is the only element that breaks that.
Even images that don’t fit this pattern pull the viewer in, either in the way it’s edited, the way color is used as an overlay or as a balance to the black and white.
In “Get A Room…”, David Babby points out how public displays of affection between two gay lovers is seen as radical, and examines several reasons why. He states: “PDA’s are blatant reminders of said ‘wrong’ sex, therefore gay sex is fetishized and shoved to the margins.” Using this logic, it becomes clear why homophobes become so hostile towards gay couples expressing love for each other in public spaces. Babby adds another layer of consideration by suggesting a coexistence between curiosity and disgust in the mind of a passive homophobe:
Those who believe that being gay is immoral, ie. the religious, tend to have an unhealthy, if not rather understandable obsession with the exciting sex life of the homosexual. It wouldn’t matter whether or not they were walloped between the eyes with a Parisian erection or subjected to the sight of two men locking lips — they would be equally affronted (and curious).
This observation from Babby is a sort of sibling-concept to spectacle erasure, which refers to how marginalized groups are fetishized and looked upon with a sort of invasive curiosity, while the true, lived experience of marginalized groups are erased.
Babby ends his piece by suggesting that we move towards viewing PDA as what it is (a public display of affection) rather than an act of civil disobedience. While this won’t happen any time soon, the possibility of that future has been articulated, and the reader has absorbed it. The final line of this essay goes: “Now form an orderly queue. Who’s going to get his head kicked in to make things easier for the rest of us?”
“Super Nature” is an interview with a drag king called Pan-Demonium (also known as Sadie) and their mate, Sean, who is a queer trans man. I loved reading Sean’s interview because he articulates what it means to be trans beyond the gender binary. Sean’s identity as a trans boy doesn’t place him into this ultra-masculine box. He describes himself as “a mixture as masculine and feminine and either side of me would never let the other down.” Sean also had poignant advice for trans people who are transitioning or thinking about transitioning, saying that “No-one knows you better than you.” There’s a deep sense of knowing within a lot of us, and it’s often tampered by the notion that someone else (doctors, psychiatrists, other trans people, etc.) has to ‘approve’ your transness, which does little to help the trans community.
My favorite part Sadie’s drag king alter-ego is its animalistic nature, which is something I have not seen before. While drag queens have become extremely popular in both the queer and straight worlds, drag kings have remained somewhat underground, thus limiting the public imagination of what a drag king can look like. Sadie describes the origin of the name Pan-Demonium:
He comes from ‘Pan’ (half man, half goat), the Greek God of shepherds and flocks, mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of nymphs. He’s famed for his sexual prowess and seduction of the Goddesses.
Sadie is not only creating a drag identity that extends beyond the gender binary, but also beyond the lines of human and animal. For Pan-Demonium, the ambiguity — from being mistaken as a guy to inhabiting an alter-ego that isn’t fully human or animal — is the point.
Emily Aoibheann’s essay “I performed and no one tried to take photographs” was relevant when this zine was first released, and it remains relevant as I write about it in 2025. Aoibheann examines the power of being able to perform for an audience of humans, rather than an audience of cellphones. She describes it as “different, more friendly, more communicative, safer.”
Aoibheann calls into question the idea that social media fosters deeper connection, because she feels more isolated from her audience when they seek to upload aspects of her performances online, calling a certain social networking site “seemingly necessary but highly questionable.” It’s also fascinating that she frames the constant presence of cameras and recording devices as a breach of consent. Toward the end of her essay, Aoibheann says that “voyeurism has been brought beyond the indulgence of watching, to that of an abuse of bodily integrity via technology.” Her claims are bold, providing readers of Butcher Queers with food for thought regarding the relationship between performers, social media, and the physical audience.
Aoibheann creates spectacular new meaning out of the story of Narcissus—and this is something that I can always appreciate, no matter what kind of media I’m looking at. She reframes Narcissus’s selfishness as self-recognition, and names it as “a necessary stage in our burgeoning ability to love others,” while contrasting it with the photographers who “seem only to think of themselves.”
Toward the end of her essay, Aoibheann says, “So obsessed are we with documentation that the impact of the live moment has largely become secondary to the retrospective life it accumulates online.” She made me realize why some art galleries and performance venues do not allow photographs to be taken.
Lauren (they/them) is a summer 2025 QZAP intern. They are an undergraduate student at Emory University studying creative writing and gender studies. They are Haitian-American, queer, and from rural Maryland. In their free time, Lauren writes various things, reads, does crossword puzzles, and cooks.
Mala Leche Vol. 1, curated and edited by Eduardo Aparicio and Herculito Tropical, published February 1992 is zine from Chicago dripping in excess of satire and authentic latine queer play. In this fully Spanish resvista antiestica, “antiaesthetic magazine,” unfolds a collection of writings that enraptured me in nostalgia and warmth of the kind of queer exchange that occurs in latine kinship. A mixture of confessionals, stories, cultural analysis, an avant-garde interview, lesbianfied reworked novels, and your monthly horoscope. I could walk you through the marvels of these slaps in the face that leave you grinning with a red mark on your face or I could simply translate for you. We have the opening statement:
“What does “BAD MILK” mean? MALA LECHE* is a discursive violence. It is that discourse reduced to a monologue that wants to be made heard. It’s what comes out of us because if it doesn’t, we explode. Our mission is to express our vision of actuality with a squirt of MALA LECHE. Signed: Eduardo Aparicio and Herculito Tropical.”
*Leche (milk) is a common slang for semen, cum, and various sexual secretions. So this leche? Has gone baddddd…
The first story is titled *Mi primero experencia, *“My first experience,” by Erudito Alavio Leta. Details snapshots of first queer experiences and moments from when they were a young boy and “multiplying experiences.” Small windows of his experiences as a young gay man, moments that seem that have stuck to him like glue. One as young as 8 years old: “I still remember the sensation leaving with slippery cheeks.” Sincere in tone, these stories amounted to the specific experience of working at a clothing store in the luxury women’s clothing section. A male client who he was familiar with came in one day to shop “for” his wife and asked to try on the dresses himself in front of Erudito.
El cogio un vestido, se fue al cuarto de pruebas y salía sin zapatos, con las patasas todas pelúas, caminando como si tuviera tacones bien altos, paseandose por delante de los espejos, mirándose por delante y por detrás, que ni Bette Davis le hacía la competencia.
“He grabbed a dress, and went to the dressing room and left without shoes, with totally hairy steps, walking as if with very high heels, strolling in front of the mirrors, looking at himself from the front and from behind, not even Bette Davis could compete.”
Ultimately we are left in a cliffhanger:* ¿Qué influencia tuvo esto en mi? En la próxima les contaré. *“What influence did this have on me? In the next one, I will tell you all.” We are left wondering if this exchange continued, if not then how does Erudito walk away after this?
The following story titled *COMIENDO MIERDA DESDE TEMPRANO, *“EATING SHIT SINCE EARLY” by Mochito Cienfuegos, also leaves us an accidental cliffhanger. The story is missing its final page, but we are left at the beginning of a raunchy detailing of a night out at “AN ULTIMATE LEATHER BAR.” Mochito addresses the shiteaters directly, that may be the reader: you, me, us; or someone else entirely. The aggressive warm, from the heat of the branding iron they have as teeth, welcome they give us in the dedication tells us all:
Estos versos escotológicos y comemierda se los dedico o los que en un momento u otro se me han cagado en la madre. Con sentimiento y sabor caguense en lo suyo.
“I dedicate to you all these scotological and shit-eating verses or to those that in one moment or the other have shat on their mother. With sentiment and taste, shit on yourselves.”
The teeth of this tone leaves you with (skid?)marks all over your body, slightly infectious too since it is definitely not sanitary, but you leave with a smile of laughter because you liked it.
The following section told me how truly this zine was made by Latines for Latines. Because if it was by and for anyone else it would make me question how the hell they got this niche information from! And what is that information? That circumcision is an unheard-of practice in Latinoamerica… which leads to this highly specific investigation on classifieds. ¿Quién es esa persona que te busca? “Who is that person that searches for you?” by Cheito Chupaman is an uncovering of advertisements and announcements that have been received by Mala Leche to distribute to the community classified style. This “report” starts with a “personal classified” that was sent to Mala Leche specifically about a white American in search of a “serious and affectionate Hispanic man.”
This leads to a question of these types of classifieds. Chupamán searches and finds examples of these types of classifieds in various magazines.
Se me ocurre preguntarme si los gays estadounidenses que leen es tas publicaciones consideran que estas tienen lectores latinos que encontraran esos anuncios. A continuación te informo dónde fue que encontre anuncios de hombres que buscan latinos y te doy algunos ejemplos, para que tengas una idea.
“It occured me to ask myself if American gays that read these publications consider that they have latino readers that finds these announcements. Following I inform you where did I find these announcements of men looking for latinos and give you examples, so you have an idea.”
To much of my amusement, the conclusion to this incessant search for latino men by american gays is that latino gays are not circumcised so: *Muchos de estos hombres sienten una fascinación por hombres que no sufrieron esta operación al nacer. *“Many of these men feel a fascination for men that did not suffer this operation at birth.”
Following this, we have a switch-up to an anti-academic visual culture essay analyzing the convergence and queer dialectic exchange between a billboard advertisement and graffiti surrounding it. Los languages de violencia, “The Languages of Violences” by una chica de Puerto Rico que ama a otra chica, “a girl from Puerto Rico that loves another girl” is an extremely intelligent and riveting queer theoreti