Label Me! Zine Series

Culturally, we like putting people in boxes. Clearly designated. Intersectionality is a hard concept to wrap minds around, and furthermore the reality of the in between or the unlabeled can be overwhelming. This is most clearly represented in the everyday experience with the ingrained tendency to classify gender within the binary upon first impression. Woman or man, woman or man, the mind boggles if the gender identity or presentation of the person in front of them is unclear. This  is reinforced in every form of media created - there is a constant conditioning through our media spheres that gender is a binary. There is a lack of stories and representation of gender non conforming people and the constant assumption is that the world is solely man and woman.

"HELLO my name is" sticker label

Because of how deeply ingrained the gender binary is, people who live outside of the gender binary themselves often have frustrating relationships and experiences with their bodies, identities, and presentation as they struggle to unlearn years and year of social conditioning. In addition, the process of formally labeling one’s self as outside the gender binary (non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer, etc) can either be entirely euphoric or entirely uncomfortable. There are people who prefer to remain unlabeled and exist outside of any constricting labels. As well, there are many people who may identify as a woman or man but be gender-non-conforming, meaning that they do not exist as strictly feminine or masculine, respectively (1).

In my proposal, I sought to create a zine entirely on gender dysphoria and clothing. This topic proved to be too broad and also too painful for me to dig inside of myself to create a personal project. I instead turned to focus on the experience of labeling oneself – or not labeling oneself – and this need for the world to label each other within the binary. As someone who has struggled and continues to struggle with gender identity and presentation, this was a scary undertaking and something I had not yet tried to vocalize before this project. Audre Lorde wrote of transforming silence into language, which is what I would be doing with creating poetry and art to share my own experience. Lorde wrote "I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an action of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger" (2). Lorde goes on to say that we remain silent because we fear the visibility without which we cannot live authentically as ourselves. This truly can comment on the experience of living outside of the binary in a gender non conforming way. The way we express out gender and identity is visible, yet there are no visible markers for gender. Bodies are not gendered and yet the binary forces them to be. I wanted to create a zine for people who live outside of the gender conforming roles to contribute to and express themselves to display to the world how it feels to exist within a non-binarized existence. By creating this zine, I would be affecting our modern media spheres by working toward including representation of how truly varied gender identities and presentations can be.

I created the first zine in the series, where I wrote a poem about my own experience with struggling to be labeled and gender dysphoria when I am labeled by others, and then illustrated the poem. Gender dysphoria is when someone feels uncomfortable or doesn’t connect with their body mentally (3), yet this in and of itself can be experienced and realized in so many ways. I did not feel like I could create one single zine that fully encapsulates everyone’s experience with their own queer identities which is why the idea is for the zine series to grow in the future and why my sole zine that I am presenting today is of my own experience. A single story is a dangerous thing. Single stories are what lead to stereotypes and assumptions (4) and there are so many varied experiences with gender and presentation from people across the queer community – origin stories, every day experiences, etc. And while these experiences are so varied, similarities can also be found! It is beneficial for people of every gender and experience to broaden their mind as we create a world that can exist without a binary. 

While doing research about zines and the creation of the medium, I delved into the Queer Zine

Queer Zine Archive Project Homepage Screenshot

Archive Project (5). This archive truly inspired me, especially the handwritten and hand drawn zines from the 1990s. These zines were loud, bold, crude, messy, and real. As we continue to hurtle into the modern digital age, this form of expression and communication should be revived and continue and it is hopeful to see from this archive that these pieces of queer art are both being preserved and continued to be produced. My zine series “Label Me!,” of which my zine today is the first of, is a homage to the zines of the 1990s – loud, messy, and real. 

Screenshot of "Gender Fuck Me" by Jess T. Dugan
in Queer Zine Archive Project

I also found solace in combining poetry with art because of the words of artist Marjane Satrapi, who has written and drawn her own memoirs to comment upon the oppression of her people and country. She uses art and illustration to calm her rage and resist becoming too cynical, (6) channeling the critic and judgement through the ink. The power of imagery is something I wanted to explore in my own work with this zine. 

Below is the link to the PDF of the zine. I will also pass around a physical copy.

Queer Zine Archive Project

Google drive zine link

1. GenderSpectrum.org “Understanding Gender” https://www.genderspectrum.org/quick-links/understanding-gender

2. Lorde, Audre "Sister Outsiders: Transformation of Silence"

3. Man, Chella & MaryV Benoit “Being in a Relationship with Someone Who’s Transitioning” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVMC84T4mgc

4. Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi “The danger of a single story” https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=e

5. The Queer Zine Archive Project archive.qzap.org

6. Bahrampour, Tara (May 21, 2003) "Tempering Rage by Drawing Comics; A Memoir Sketches an Iranisn Childhood of Repression and Rebellion"

 Additional sources used in research:

7.     Bornstein, Kate & S. Bear Bergman. “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation”

8.     Butler, Judith “Gender  Trouble”

9.     Buzzfeed “We Asked People To Illustrate Their Gender Dysphoria” https://www.buzzfeed.com/skarlan/we-asked-people-to-illustrate-what-their-gender-dysphoria-fe