This collection is part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics, and on specific sorts of transgender identities. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book.
Genre: Nonfiction.
Length: About a ten minute read.
About: An anthology of illustrations and comics by nonbinary people about what it's like to be nonbinary for them. As described by the creator:
"The nonbinary experience is unique to each individual. No two people are going to experience gender in the exact same way, much like they won’t experience the world in the same way. That said, in a world literally built against recognizing and accommodating us, a lot of our experiences are going to overlap.
"Through this project I wanted to explore the (ironically named) duality of being nonbinary: that our struggles are often shared, but our identities and selves are entirely unique. I wanted to tackle themes of intersectionality, the use of labels and symbolism, self discovery, dysphoria and euphoria, education, and more."
Vibe: A variety of different feelings, each brief and vivid.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Book. Zine. Full color.
Genre: Nonfiction.
Length: Ten pages.
About: Advice for how to change your legal name and gender in the US.
Vibe: A cool friend brings a fun attitude to a no-nonsense path through bureaucracy.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Book. Zine. Available in two formats: PDF or epub.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
Length: About ten minutes.
About: "Wondering if you might be intersex? Unsure of how you're supposed to tell? This short (1700 words) zine aims to provide some help to figure out if you are intersex or not."
Vibe: Informative, practical, and to-the-point, while also expressing the difficult emotions involved.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A mini zine comic.
About the loss of words for transgender people and colors.
Vibe: Survival.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 31 pages.
About the artist's "experiences growing up as a trans kid with an unsupportive family, discovering myself and transitioning as an adult."
Content: Rated PG. Non-sexual nudity in art.
Medium: A mini zine that you can print and fold.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Art history. Mythology.
About: As described by the zinester,
"Nobody knows why Andromeda (of Greek mythology fame) is sometimes portrayed with a penis in medieval art. Here's a zine about that with an original black-and-white illustration."
Content: Rated G. Description of discriminatory attitudes against transgender people.
Medium: Zine. There is a version for reading on screen, and another for printing.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Perzine.
About: The zinester tells about his personal experiences as a trans man who had a bad time with getting outed, why he prefers being stealth (living as a man without others knowing that he is transgender). He explains some things that more people need to understand about how it is okay to be stealth.
Queer themes: Transgender men.
Adding to this reviewer's hand-curated collections: LGBTQIA printable zines; LGBTQIA - rated G; Transgender; Trans men and trans masculine people; LGBTQIA nonfiction.
Content: Rated PG-13. This talks about some physical conditions in a way similar to what one ought to hear in a high school health class, if only those classes talked about this.
Medium: Zine.
Length: 10 pages.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About: "a compilation of information on various intersex variations, meant to be used as a reference for writing purposes." This is focused on the physical conditions themselves.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Poetry in the form of an illustrated zine or comic book.
About: Celebrating the author's body a year after top surgery.
Vibe: Joyful, beautiful, earnest, loving, hopeful.
Content: Rated PG-13. Content warnings for artistic nudity, swear words, needles, fantasy body horror (for example, robot bodies), insects, and menstruation.
Medium: Zine. Full color.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Anthology. Poetry. Art. Comics.
About: An anthology of poems, comics, collages, paintings, illustrations, and other creative works by many transgender men and trans masculine nonbinary artists from around the world.
Queer themes: Transgender men. Trans masculine. Nonbinary. Drag. Name change. Hormone therapy (Testosterone). Dysphoria. Transition. Top surgery. Gay trans men.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About the cartoonist's day visiting a pride event.
Content: Rated PG-13. This talks about many sensitive issues, such as racism, poverty, homelessness, abortion, abuse, drugs, sex trafficking, suicide, and more. It doesn't go into graphic detail about them, and addresses these topics with taste, facts, and usually a non-inflammatory tone.
Medium: A 64 page long booklet. It is designed for reading on screen as well as printing, if you follow the included instructions for how to print it.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Religion. Politics in the USA.
About: In the Bible, Jesus said that everyone will know his followers because of how they love (John 13:34-35). This booklet asks evangelical Christians in the US to center these words of Jesus, and think about whether their attitudes are loving. Particularly, in whether their religious views shape their political choices in ways that are good for families and offer love to everyone, including the poor, African-Americans, and people who are LGBTQ.
Vibe: Painful, yet calm. Confrontational, yet collaborative with the reader.
Content: Warning for examples of hatred against LGBT people, and examples of problematic methods of telling teens to abstain from sex. None of these go into graphic detail.
Accessibility: For artistic reasons, some text is partly covered up and difficult to read.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: This shows some things that evangelical Christians in the US tell teens about sex and queerness, and how these messages are harmful.
Content: Rated G.
About: "a queer moment I had at a mosh recently, captured in a short 7-page comic"
Vibe: Fun!
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A tiny computer game created with Bitsy. This is a playable prototype. The author wants to expand on it in a later version with a combat system.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History. Combat. Crime. Romance.
About: Play as a queer person from history, Julie d'Aubigny (1673–1707), as she duels a suitor for a woman's hand, and reflects on how her life brought her to this point.
Representation: Gender nonconformity. A historical figure who had relationships with men and women, and so has been described in today's language as bisexual.
Vibe: Exciting, rebellious.
Content: Rated G. Noise: gentle instrumental background music begins to play when the game starts.
Medium: A computer game created with Bitsy. It can run in your web browser.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History.
About: Explore the tomb of Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. Look at the murals of these two men who lived in ancient Egypt. Decide for yourself whether you think they were lovers or best friends.
Content: Rated PG-13. Swear words. References to adult topics.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: In the sequel to Don't Assume I'm Cis, the cartoonist continues to tell the story of his transition.
Vibe: The struggle between discouragement and hope. Choosing to be unstoppable.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Perzine. There is a version for reading on screen, and another for printing.
About: "I was feeling super isolated during pride month, so I made a zine about it and cried. 16 pages, 1/8 size. #IsolatedQueerSolidarity in the comments."
Vibe: Lonely, vulnerable, but determined.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on screen. Full color.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About: "A motivational PDF file zine for transgender people struggling to engage in activism." In short, whenever it's too hard to fight your oppressors, keep on existing, connecting with community, and making art.
Vibe: Hurt/comfort. Reassuring.
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: Zine. Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 8 pages.
About the cartoonist's experience of being a Chinese-American lesbian, focusing on his feelings about the family he grew up in.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Zine.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About gender euphoria (feeling good about how others see you because it aligns with your sense of your real self), gender dysphoria (feeling a painful dissonance between your sense of your real self and how others see you), and sexism. Some of this zine is about these things in general, or how it's experienced by people of various genders, and some of it is about the personal experiences of the zinester, a transgender man.
Vibe: Informative.
Content: Rated PG-13. Warnings: needles; gender dysphoria; description of transphobic and sexist attitudes.
Medium: Personal zine. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Prose.
About: The zinester's personal history of being a trans man.
Vibe: Dysphoria and determination.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Zine. There is a version for reading on screen, as well as one for printing and folding, with instructions on how to do that.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About: The zinester explains what demisexuality is, in a way that would be easy to understand for someone new to the idea. She explains it in general, as well as how it was in her own personal experiences as a demisexual.
Vibe: Simple and friendly.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A zine created with Electric Zine Maker. Full color. Designed for reading on screen.
Length: A five minute read.
About: Reflecting on which ancestors you feel connected to, and who counts as an ancestor.
Queer themes: Queer history.
Vibe: Thoughtful, touching.
Content: Unrated.
Medium: Zine. Versions for reading on screen or for print.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History.
About "'sailor-loving-sailors' tattoos during the Age of Sail, is 16 quarter-pages long (including covers)."
Content: Rated PG-13.
Medium: Zine. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction.
About: An introduction to what it means to be femme. Femininity is a rigged game against women, so femmes create their own.
Vibe: Defiant. Empowering. Queer positive.
Content: Rated PG-13. About police violence and discrimination against LGBTQ people.
Medium: Zine. Full color. Designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. History.
About: The history of movements for LGBTQ rights, especially those connected with Stonewall, and the history of LGBTQ being seen as mentally disordered. Science is finding more and more that being queer is natural and healthy. Western society tends to see any difference as sickness. Oppressors use that as a weapon against anyone who doesn't conform.
Vibe: Queer positive.
Content: Rated R. Content warnings for: artistic nudity, transphobia, and description of feelings about various body parts and functions, both dysphoric and euphoric. Menstrual cycles. Breast milk. Facial hair. Cannabis. Dissociation. Toxic masculinity. Religious intolerance and shame.
Medium: Non-fiction book. A zine available in several formats: for printing in full color and folding, for reading on the computer, and audio read aloud by the author.
Duration: The audio version is almost 20 minutes long. The print version is 22 pages long, not counting covers or end papers.
About/relevance: The author is a plural trans girl and doe therianthrope. In this zine, she describes her experiences as she began gender-affirming hormone therapy, and her perspective on this as a doe.
Vibe: Sincere, vulnerable, tender, wistful, hopeful, joyful.
