Bug Cru, April 2024. Here's a digital collage, the fruit of 13 hours of obsessing over archives of trans magazines and zines. Pease feel free to print and redistribute this for the purpose of transsexual joy!
My favourite part is in the bottom right corner, a photo from 'Camp Trans,' 1995. The lore is that a group of trans women went out to the Michigan Women's Music Festival and set up camp. Mich Fest is notoriously known for violent transmisogyny and transphobia with the phrase, "Womyn born Womyn," outlining their exclusionary politics. On the banner in this photo the girls and other trans peeps hold up their trans camp banner with the words "Humyn born Humyns." Does it get any more punk than that?! In the photo there are disabled trans people, fat trans people, qtbipoc, probably some gender diversity. They look like a queer collective house backyard dinner party and it makes my heart swell.
TransSisters: The Journal of Transexual Feminism is a 1990’s zine publication. They go into depth on going to Mich Fest and navigating violence and complexities they faced from their lesbian communities in multiple issues.
I also found a lot of these clippings in archived copies of FTM International/FTM Newsletter, Gender Trash From Hell zine, and Transgender Tapestry magazine, a magazine that ran from 1979 until 2008.
I will leave you with a documentary I found on Archive dot org called Transexual Menace on 1990s trans activism and people in general as well! Thanks for reading and if you'd like to support me you can check out my website and follow me on patreon!