Trans* Zines and the T Shelf
Trans* Zines and the T Shelf
By Jay Learn
Before social media, before blogs, before group chats and Discord servers, trans people found one another in the margins. In envelopes. In photocopied pages passed hand to hand, folded into pockets, mailed quietly across borders, trans folks shared lived experiences, knowledge, and support through zines. Zines weren’t just creative projects; they were lifelines.
A zine (pronounced “zeen”) is any non-commercial, self-published, DIY magazine, booklet, or online publication (Art Gallery of Ontario, 2008; Laura Arner, 2016). Although the scope of what constitutes a zine is broad, one thing is certain: zines were (and still are) often used as a form of activism in social movements (Baker & Cantillon, 2022).
Although early publications such as Transvestia may not have been identified as zines, scholars often group them in this category because of their foundational features: self-production, independent circulation, niche audiences, often countercultural, community-centric, and embedded in resistance to mainstream narratives that seek to exclude these voices (Baker & Cantillon, 2022).
For much of the twentieth century, mainstream publishers ignored, pathologized, or outright censored trans lives. Medical information was tightly controlled, community knowledge was fragmented, and many trans people lived in deep isolation. Zines offered something radical: trans people writing to each other, on their own terms. Today, archives like the Digital Transgender Archive preserve these publications, allowing us to trace how trans communities documented themselves long before digital platforms existed.
Early trans zines and newsletters often blended the deeply personal with the intensely practical. One issue might include a coming-out story, another a poem about dysphoria, followed by pages of advice on clothing, hormones, navigating doctors, or surviving family rejection. Letters from readers appeared frequently, creating slow but powerful conversations across cities, states, and even countries. Browsing collections now, including zines preserved through community-driven efforts like the Queer Zine Archive Project, it’s clear how urgently people were reaching for connection.
Some of the earliest long-running trans publications began appearing in the 1960s. Transvestia, published by Virginia Prince, is one of the most well-known examples. Issues of Transvestia, now held in multiple archives, documented everyday lives and served as a lifeline for readers, allowing subscribers to connect and create community. Contributors wrote about work, relationships, fears, humour, and identity, quietly pushing back against the idea that trans people were rare, isolated, or new.
As the decades went on, trans zines became increasingly intertwined with broader counter-cultural movements. In the 1970s and 80s, publications like Transgender Tapestry expanded the scope of what trans print culture could be, combining personal narratives with reporting on healthcare access, legal struggles, and community events. These magazines functioned as hubs, connecting people across vast distances in an era when finding another trans person could feel nearly impossible.
The TV-TS Tapestry Newsletter #7 (January 8, 1979); Transgender Tapestry Issue 114 (2008); Transgender Tapestry Issue 114 (2008)
By the late 1980s and 1990s, zines influenced by punk, queer, and feminist movements took on sharper, more radical forms. Handwritten layouts, collages, manifestos, and experimental art reflected a refusal to be sanitized or respectable. Many of these zines are now preserved in LGBTQ+ archives, including collections highlighted by The ArQuives, which emphasizes zines as tools of resistance as much as creativity.
Print mattered because it could travel where people couldn’t. A single zine could reach someone in a rural town, explain what transition might look like, offer reassurance that survival was possible, or say: you are not alone. For transmasculine people, newsletters like the FTM Newsletter became critical sources of information and solidarity. Lou Sullivan, the founder of the FTM newsletter, was a gay trans man who was instrumental in broadening the understanding of the interplay between gender identity and sexuality. Complete runs of these publications, now digitized and preserved, show how trans men built networks of care and shared transition knowledge long before it was widely available online.
Looking through these materials today, one thing is striking: how much care is embedded in them. Editors frequently included notes about safety, privacy, and discretion. Mailing out zines was considered a felony, so codes were often used in early publications to ensure anonymity (Stryker & Currah, 2015). Mailing lists were guarded. Readers were trusted. These weren’t mass-market publications; they were intimate networks built from paper, ink, and mutual responsibility.
The T Shelf
The T Shelf was created by TransLab as a space to highlight staff picks that center trans realities. Beginning with zines, the T Shelf was developed to challenge norms, spark real conversations, and share what inspires us. It is an ongoing feature of the TransLab social media pages and has centred zines, both past and present, that shape our understanding of trans* research, lived experience, culture, and identity.
That lineage is what makes spaces like the T-Shelf feel so important. While the internet has transformed how information circulates, print still offers something slower and more intentional. Holding a zine or small publication connects us to a long tradition of trans self-documentation. A zine is more than a piece of paper; it is a refusal to disappear, a belief that our stories matter enough to be printed, shelved, and shared.
The T-Shelf isn’t just about zines as objects. It’s about honouring the generations of trans people who taught themselves how to survive and then wrote it down for the next person. It’s about recognizing that knowledge doesn’t live only in institutions; it lives in communities, in handmade publications, in stories passed forward with care.
Every zine on a shelf is proof of someone choosing to speak, even when it was risky. And every time we read, share, or create one, we’re adding another page to that ongoing conversation.
References
Art Gallery of Ontario. What is a Zine? August 27, 2008. https://ago.ca/agoinsider/what-zine
Laura Arner; What’s in the archives? Zines! February 2016; https://arquives.ca/whats-archives-zines/
Sarah Baker, Zelmarie Cantillon; Zines as Community Archive. March 2022; 22, 539-561. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10502-022-09388-1
Susan Stryker, Paisley Currah; General Editors’ Introduction. TSQ 1 November 2015; 2 (4): 539–543. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3151466
Jay Learn (he/they) is the TransLab Knowledge Mobilization & Social Media Coordinator. He is currently completing his master’s degree in counselling at Athabasca University and will focus his thesis on resilience in the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Jay is passionate about centring the voices of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and disseminating knowledge in accessible ways beyond academia.