Cis white lesbians do not own dyke or queer women’s culture. This is about rejecting transphobic pseudo-radical feminist discourse. Let’s imagine what a truly radical inclusive queer dyke culture could look like. Submissions can take any form. Rants, raves, poems, personal anecdotes, essays, song lyrics, drawings, collages etc. are all welcome.

Some topic ideas:

- What is queer? What is dyke? Are you one, both or neither? Transmisogyny, how have you experienced or witnessed it, how can we fight it and stand in solidarity against it?

- Racism in queer/dyke spaces, tokenization of women of color

- Bi/queerphobia in dyke communities, busted ideas about lesbian “purity” and “gold star” status, how can we change or resist them

- Words like womyn, grrrl and persyn; are they necessary any more?

- Butch/femme, how CAFAB masculinity is privileged, queer femme invisibility, passing

- Desires. How do you fuck? How do your sexuality and gender intersect?

- Violence and rape in queer/dyke communities, survivor experiences

- Queer/trans-positive anarcha-feminism; state or police violence

- How economic inequality, reproductive injustice, health care and employment discrimination, street harassment etc. affects queers, dykes, trans and cis women all together

- Women’s space in general: useful or irrelevant? can they exist without erasing non-binary folx, intersex folx, women of color or non-lesbians? Punk culture and/or riot grrrl?

- Best practices for allies – listening, honoring anger, taking responsibility

- Open letters: what do you need from queers, dykes and/or women?

Why is this zine called Stitches?: To stitch is to mend. Think about stitching up a wound. It requires the painful puncture of a needle, reunion and gradual healing of torn flesh. This is an analogy for a process that queer/dyke communities need to go through. We need tough conversations. We need to abandon inaccurate ideas.

Who can submit: Open to all! I strive to center POC, trans women, non-binary people, intersex people, and people with disabilities.

Why am I doing this: I’m a genderqueer butch dyke grrrl who has been told that I can’t be dyke because I’m fat, non-binary, queer-not-lesbian, engaged to a CAMAB person and kinky. I’m also sick of queers dumping on trans women. I don’t think that it is always their job to fight transmisogyny. Cis women and CAFAB people need to call each other’s bullshit and listen to trans women if we are ever going to get anywhere.

Format: 8 ½ x 7” (recycled legal paper folded in half), b&w pages with color cover, staple bound. I’m aiming for 12-16 pages for the first issue.

Deadline: November 6, 2011.

Contact or send submissions to: punktreerecord@gmail.com

[posted by Arsenic Alyss on We Make Zines]