Queer McGill's Summer 2020 Zine

QUEER

MCGILL

PRESENTS:

SUMMER 2020 ZINE!

A COLLECTION OF RESOURCES, ART, AND UPDATES FROM QUEER MCGILL #432/402 3600 Mc Tavish St, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E7 events.qm@ssmu.ca resource.qm@ssmu.ca

INTRODUCTION About Queer McGIll!

Queer McGill is a SSMU service dedicated to providing support to queer individuals at McGill and in the wider community through events, resourves, our office, and many other avenues. QM functions from a anti-oppressive and intersectional feminist orientation.

About this zine!

This zine contains a collection of art created by our members over the summer, as well as reading lists, our gender-affirming product descriptions, an event calendar for the Fall semester, and information on how to stay connected with QM.

Contact information!

Our office for the 2020/21 year is located in the SSMU Building, at the following address: #432/402 3600 Mc Tavish St, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E7 You can reach us by email at events.qm@ssmu.ca, resource.qm@ssmu.ca, on Facebook @Queer McGill, or on our website queermcgill.org.

CONTRIBUTORS Edited by Grey Cooper and Jordan Elbualy, QM Events Coordinators Resources compiled by Natan Shaviv, QM Resource Coordinator

Art by: Grey Cooper Cour Jordan Elbualy Fern Lou Wissam Mantash Felix O'Connor Deidre Potash Isabelle Prevost-Aubin Madison Santos

Deirdre Potash

Grey Cooper

Commissions available through cooper.d.grey@gmail.com Instagram: sunflowers_art__

Felix O'Connor

Commissions available through felix.chr.oconnor@gmail.com Instagram: @spiralingnotebook

Cour

Commissions available through denton.courtney@gmail.com

Wissam Mantash

Isabelle Prevost-Aubin

Commissions available through Instagram @the_blueberry_beading_company

Jordan Elbualy

Commissions available through Instagram @jrdnelb

Madison Santos

Commissions: madisonsrsantos@gmail.com @macabresque on instagram

Fern Lou

Commissions available through fernloufernandez@gmail.com

READING LIST About The List

Hi Hi I hope you enjoy this reading list, all of which can be found online at our QM ELibrary! A note about content warnings, I tried to add as many as I could but I have not read all of these books in their entirety and so they are by no means an exhaustive list. I compiled this reading list with an emphasis on anti-racism and social justice in mind and I am sure that many of these books will deal with uncomfortable or distressing material not covered by the content warnings provided. Take care of urselves <3 - Natan Shaviv , Resources Coord

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis

Academic and activist Angela Davis argues that prisons are unnecessary and harmful institutions, and lays out a radical program for change. Outlining the continuation of slavery through incarceration and pushing the vision of a decarcerated world, Are Prisons Obsolete? is an integral introduction to today’s most pressing abolition movement.

READING LIST â&#x20AC;&#x153;An attempt to create a new conceptual terrain for imagining alternatives to imprisonment involves the ideological work of questioning why "criminals" have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others.

Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category "lawbreakers" is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another.â&#x20AC;?

- Angela Davis

READING LIST Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory by Qwo-Li Driskill

"[T]he first full-length work of scholarship to develop a tribally specific Indigenous Queer or Two-Spirit critiqueâ&#x20AC;?, according to the publisher, University of Arizona Press, Asegi Stories re-tells the history of gender and sexuality in Cherokee culture and history. Told along the narrative form of basket weaving, Driskill combines many different threads of interdisciplinary fields of study to create a tapestry of Indigenous tradition, queer studies, intersectional feminism and decolonial politics.

Adrian and the Tree of Secrets by Marie Caillou

A gay, coming-of-age graphic novel paints the story of Adrian, an isolated high school student suffering under the dual authoritarian structures of catholic school and a strict mother. His unhappy life is interrupted by his popular classmate Jeremy, whose secret adventures with Adrian in a secret treehouse

CW for h o m o p h o b i c l a n g ua g e a n d d i s c u s s i on of s ui c id e . threaten to overturn their whole lives.

READING LIST The Black Unicorn: Poems by Audre Lorda

A collection of poems by acclaimed writer and activist Audre Lorde, concerning everything from Blackness to feminism to motherhood to queerness, all from an author whom Adrienne Rich names “an indispensable poet.””

COPING It has rained for five days running the world isa round puddle of sunless water where small islands are only beginningto cope a young boy in my garden is bailing out water from his flower patch when I ask him why he tells me young seeds that have not seen sun forget and drown easily.

READING LIST Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldue

A semi-autobiographical work, Anzaldúa blends prose and poetry to examine Latino and Chicano culture through the framework of gender, race and colonialism. Focusing on the ‘borderland’ existing between and around the U.S.-Mexico border and the residents who must live in multiple worlds, Anzaldúa writes about the borders between different groups and identities to create a groundbreaking work of Chicana literature.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

A Pulitzer Prize classic, illustrating the difficulties and dangers faced by AfricanAmerican women in the U.S. South in the early 1900’s. Sisters Celie and Nettie are separated, and face the hardships and injuries of a world arrayed against them while

C W f o r in t e n s e v io l e n c e , a b u s e , a n d s e x u a l a s s a u l t . being continents apart.

“A grown child is a dangerous thing.”

READING LIST decolonizing trans/gender 101 by b. binaohan

From the publisher’s website, “decolonizing trans/gender 101 is a short, accessible disruption of the hegemonic and imperial aspirations of white trans/gender theory. it seeks to remedy the reductive (and, thus, violent erasure) nature of trans/gender 101s that seek to explicate (but really construct) a white trans/gender discourse assumed to have universal legitimacy. a legitimacy that has widespread implications and consequences far

” ***Our pdf copy has a messed up table of contents that spreads over 30 pages, it’ll take some scrolling to get to the actual contents. Apologie s < 3

beyond the borders of whiteness.

Even This Page is White by Vivek Shraya

Even This Page is White is a collection of poetry centering race and the lived experience of racialized people in Canada, and the effects of growing up with brown skin while surrounded by whiteness. Beautiful language and visually pretty arrangements combine with stark and simplistic emotions, thoughts and displays to present issues of race head on to the reader.

READING LIST â&#x20AC;&#x153;How many books have to be written? two hundred thousand years of human life

fire flight language music wheel architecture vaccine electricity

one five ten fifteen twenty years from now another brown person

stares at white screen glare types the word race

five billion years until the sun dies.â&#x20AC;?

-Vivek Shraya

READING LIST George by Alex Gino

A children’s novel about a young trans girl struggling to show herself to the world, George follows a fourth-grader named Melissa and the parallel stories of her attempts at self-expression and her class production of Charlotte’s Web. With the help of her best friend, and some supportive allies, Melissa puts her soul on display and becomes more comfortable in her own skin.

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

A semi-autobiographical work following John Grimes, a Black teenager in Harlem during the 1930’s, Go Tell It on the Mountain is critically-acclaimed and ranked as one of the best English-language books of the 20th century. Examining the Pentecostal church and its history with Black Americans, Baldwin writes a passionate exploration of spirituality, sexuality, and race in America.

READING LIST Huntress by Malinda Lo

From the author’s website, “Nature is out of balance in the human world...[t]o solve the crisis, the oracle stones are cast, and Kaede and Taisin, two seventeen-year-old girls, are picked to go on a dangerous and unheard-of journey to Taninli, the city of the Fairy Queen. Taisin is a sage, thrumming with magic, and Kaede is of the earth, without a speck of the otherworldly. And yet the two girls’ destinies are drawn together during the mission. As members of their party succumb to unearthly attacks and fairy tricks, the two come to rely on each other and even begin to fall in love.

But the Kingdom needs only one huntress to save it, and what it takes could tear Kaede and Taisin apart forever.”

CW for death, animal death and self-harm.

If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

One of the first widely-distributed YA novels written by a trans woman, If I Was Your Girl tells the story of a high-school girl, Amanda, trying to live in deep stealth at a new town and school full of people whose attention she cannot seem to escape. A familiar story of moving schools and finding love, re-told through a trans lens and intended for a

CW for mental health, s ui c id e , a n d s e v e r e b u l l y i n g . trans/youth audience.

READING LIST If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho

by Anne Carson

If not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho is a collection of all of the known works and fragments of famous Greek poet Sappho, a prolific artist who lived sometime around the 6th century BC. Love and desire between women is a recurring theme in her work, so much so that the words sapphic and lesbian are derived from her name and the island on which she lived, respectively.

In Another Place, Not Here by Dionne Brand

In the middle of political upheaval, two Carribean women with different backgrounds find in each other love and familiarity. Poetic and beautiful, Brand tells the story of immigrant struggles, colonial ramifications and determined passion.

Israel/Palestine and the Queer International by Dionne Brand

Activist Sarah Schulman takes a deep dive into the intersection of queer and Palestinian liberation, taking us along on a journey through her time with the queer anti-occupation activists in Israel and Palestine, the occupation in the West Bank territories and her part in organizing an international speaking tour of the former two in the hopes of eliciting a ‘queer international.’

READING LIST "They thought that the time would come when they would live, they would get a chance to be what they saw, that was part of the hope that kept them. But ghostly, ghostly this hope, sucking their jaws into lemon seed, kiwi heart, skeletons of pawpaw, green banana stalk."

-Dionne Brand

â&#x20AC;&#x153;You may forget but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of usâ&#x20AC;?

-Sappho

READING LIST Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera

Having just come out to her family, Juliet Milagros Palante is leaving her hometown in the Bronx and moving across the country, all the way to Portland, Oregon. Once there she hopes to intern with her favorite gay author and figure out her intersection of identities and how to deal with all of the difficulties that come along with

***This one is the only non-pdf and will have to be downloaded to be viewed, sorry I tried converting it but it just ended up a blank page. Apologies <3 CW for racism, misogynoir. it.

The Motion of LIght in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village by Samuel Delany

An autobiography by sci-fi writer Samuel Delany accounts his growing up as a gay Black man in the 1950’s and 60’s, as well as his encounters with famous scientific, artistic, and political figures of the day from Albert Einstein to Stokely Carmichael.

CW for graphic sexual depiction.

READING LIST “Read everything you can push into your skull. Read your mother’s diary. Read Assata. Read everything Gloria Steinem and bell hooks write. Read all of the poems your friends leave in your locker.

Read books about your body written by people who have bodies like yours. Read everything that supports your growth as a vibrant, rebel girl human. Read because you’re tired of secrets.”

-Gabby Rivera

PRODUCT GUIDE About The Product Guide

Hello again lovelies! I am sorry to say that our gender-affirming gear services are on a pause while we figure out how best to distribute them. However, hopefully by the fall semester we will be able to provide you with our catalogue of resources INCLUDING:

Half and Full Tank Binders

In a wide selection of sizes (XS - 5XL) and three color options (white, grey, black), our binders come from gc2b, a well known and high-quality binder provider!

PRODUCT GUIDE Bikini and Lace Gaffs

Ranging from S - XL, with the bikini in black and beige and the lace in red, white, and black, these gaffs help with tight and secure tucking.

Packers and Packing Pouch

Small and Medium packers, along with a black packing pouch to wear it in. Unfortunately colors are limited to “vanilla” at the moment, hopefully we can find more soon!

The Small, 2.75” by 1.25” The Medium, 5.25” by 1.3”

PRODUCT GUIDE STPs

Stand-to-pees in four colors - “vanilla, caramel, chocolate, olive”

Mooncup

Medical-grade silicone menstrual cups, in two sizes.

See website for sizing https://www.mooncup.co.uk/buy-the-mooncup/

PRODUCT GUIDE Organic Pads

Small, Medium, Large, and Overnight organic cotton pads in a variety of colors. See website for sizing https://partypantspads.com/collections/pads.

Breast Forms

We havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t offered these before, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working on adding them to our stock! Breast forms can be worn in bras, and are made of silicone to better resemble the texture of skin.

THANK YOU! We hope you've enjoyed this zine! To stay connected with QM in the fall, come to one of our events and join our groups, linked below! To attend an event, you must be in the Social Distancing Group.

Games Night: S e p t . 2 5 , 6 : 3 0 E S T Weekly (alternating): Breakfast , 9 E S T M o n d a y s Movie Night , 6 : 3 0 E S T W e d n e s d a y s Art Share Group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2875189 79116455

Social Distancing Group : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2719879 811444676/?__tn__=HH-R