Gendertrash From Hell
Staff Rec
In the heady days of the '90s underground, zine culture was a lifeline for art and politics. And like so many other zines, Canada's Gendertrash, burned bright and quickly. Despite only producing 4 issues between 1993-1995, it remains shockingly powerful and prescient in it's exploration and framing of transgender issues. Steeped in the same Toronto zine culture that created J.D.s and the queercore movement, this collection (which includes material from un-published issues) brings together critical theory, personal reflections, journalism, arts commentary, folk healthcare, poetry, and so much more. It's equally exciting and maddening to see that many of the questions of trans/queer politics have not changed. 30 years on, not only does the writing itself still resonate, but the format itself - the zine - has become an incredible artifact to see how networks of information and community were once independently spread before everyone freely put themselves under the thumbs of social media and our Neo-Fascist Technological Overlords.
- Raphael
A long-lost zine reveals the secret history of contemporary transgender culture
"A breathtaking archive of our community ... An absolute vital work for a precipitous time." --Lilly Wachowski, co-director of The Matrix
"Searing, witty, critical and defiant ... It feels just as pressing now as it did in the early 1990s. ... The pages of Gendertrash are filled with poems, essays, rants, fictions, speeches, surveys,
interviews, resource lists and personal ads--largely for and by trans
people, against the straight establishment, as well as the cis gay and
lesbian movement, who were only too happy to throw trans people under
the bus in order to gain rights for themselves. Sound familiar?" --Xtra
In 1993, Mirha Soleil-Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, fed up with a gay scene that rejected trans people and a trans scene that saw no alternative to going "stealth," began to publish the zine Gendertrash From Hell. Over four issues, they interviewed sex workers and prisoners; they printed collages, soap operas and polemics; they ran regular sections with titles like "Trannies Speak Out" and "Hooker of the Month". They redefined transsexual culture forever, and their explosive ideas resonate deeply today.
Remastered from the original layouts, this foundational work is now available in book form for the first time, including previously-unseen drafts from the unfinished fifth issue and essays by Trish Salah and Leah Tigers. Irreverent, furious, reckless, sexy, hilarious and incisive, Gendertrash from Hell is here to set all your presuppositions on fire.