S1E9: Victoria, Wielder of the Pen at Cherry City Zines

Today we chat with Victoria!  She's an artist who loves to make zines, write poetry, tell stories and doodle. She is a member and organizer of the Cherry City Zine Collective. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Ahoy, Gems and Jules.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And non-binary ghouls. I'm Talo. I'm Nyx. And you're listening to The Treasures of Queer Salem. Where two of your favorite troublemaking pirates discover the riches of the queer sea while aboard the Salamander. Today we're talking to Victoria.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

She her, who is a 27-year-old transgender woman who is a proud resident of Salem. She's an artist who loves art to make scenes, write poetry, tell stories, and do all. She's a member and organizer of the Cherry City Zine Club.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Well, hey Victoria. Hi. Thanks for being here. I gotta ask you, what are you in here for?

SPEAKER_03 0:55

In the brig? Well, I'm here because I replaced the the captain's razor with a rusty razor, and he did not like that. Ow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Painful. Well, I mean, thanks for being here again. Um, and I will we'll usually start off with our first question. Um, how do you identify and how did you get to identity you identify with today?

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Okay. I this is an identity, like I have two identities. I have one for straight people that ask, and I have one for the queer people. My straight identity is I'm a transgender woman, which is accurate. But the one I say for the queer folks is girl cupcake with non-binary sprinkles.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

I love that. I'd love that. Great.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Yeah, because I I am non-binary, and sometimes I'll often joke that I'm non-binary on my grandmother's side, you know, or I'm just a little hint of non-binary into it. And like I I'm I'm also a lesbian of sorts, and I've been kind of leaning into like the more butchy mesque aspects of it, which as a transgender woman in a straight world, man, that that just leads to people thinking you're a boy. But say love me.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Yeah, that's how they see that.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Oh, yeah, but um how I got to this identity is um like any queer person, I think has been uh a bit of a journey. I don't think anybody comes out of the womb as a girl cupcake with non-binary sprinkles.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I wish. Well, it takes time in the oven to get there. Yeah, but it needs to rise. Preach.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

But um, yeah, so I I think this is all a pretty common story for a lot of trans femmes like me. But I remember being a kid, and I remember just being very interested in woman's clothing, and like um that was something that was just like forbidden because like if you're raised a woman, you can obviously s wear boys' clothing, that's more socially acceptable. Lots of women do it, but if you're raised a boy, that's like something that's just like such a taboo in our culture and everywhere. It's like made fun of, it's considered, you know, a risque. And so, um, when I was younger, I was just like I'd be in the I'd be like walking through the woman's department or like something in in the in the store, and I'd be like, but I want to try on all the pretty dresses, or things like that, and I I honestly must apologize to my step siblings, but I did like I would like go through their closet and be like, oh my god, I want to try on this dress and things like that, and um I don't think they're listening, but I really am sorry.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So so you you uh you started with this identity pretty yaw.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

Yaw. Well, uh it's complicated because I didn't really have the words. I didn't really do it publicly. It's not like I was this was all in secret and it was all a shame. You know, I was very scared. That's and so um Yeah. This is something I did from when I was younger though. But um yeah, I um then um it was something I'd always repressed, and I remember being a 20 early in my early in my twenties, and I was like, I'm an adult, I live alone, this is really scary, but maybe I could embrace this out of myself. Maybe after all this time I'm just a cross dresser. Let's try that. And uh so I used my money and I bought a bunch of uh women's clothing and I uh really went about it in town, like really femmed it up, and it took some bravery, but I was like, if I can handle being out presenting femme in public, then you know, maybe all these bad feelings that I have, because I was experiencing dysphoria at the time, which I didn't know really. Um, I was like, well, maybe all these bad feelings will go away. And so I experimented with that, and it was fantastic. I loved the feeling, it was awesome femming it up. And it it didn't last forever though. The bad feelings can came back, and I realized that like it wasn't just the femme clothing, it wasn't just these clothes that I was that I wanted, and I had to really stop and think my entire life. I was like, if I could just present feminine, that would be my uh that would be the answer, and it wasn't. That was very scary, and so I had to stop, I had to think about it, and um I came to the realization that I was probably a transgender woman, and so I um at the time my friends and my family weren't very surprised because I was already cross-dressing, and like they'd already kind of knew they were like, all right, she's probably a trans, she's probably transgender, but me, and like, you know, and I was just like, no, no, that couldn't be me. I just like presenting feminine and all the time. I'm a cross dresser, like but um so when I nervous laugh. Yeah, exactly. When I when I came out to my best friend Jesse, because we were living together, you know, um, I went across the hallway to his room and he he responded with a hug after coming out, and then he said, I was waiting. And um, yeah, it was um it was very interesting. But the uh the non-binary part of my girl cupcake, see I didn't have I didn't have the sprinkles yet. Yeah, you know I uh how that came around is um I had come out of the closet, I had joined the queer community, I was doing hormones, I started transitioning and when I was about 22, 23, um and I was really enjoying things, but I still had a little bit of that negative feeling, that dysphoria, and I was trying to figure out what it was, and I was in vocal therapy trying to do um trying to like feminize my voice, and uh I was like paying money seeing a therapist, and I remember I she was like teaching me how to really femme it up, and I felt really uncomfortable, and I was like, why do I feel uncomfortable? And I was just like kind of having a mild moment of panic, and she didn't she was a cis person who didn't really know what I was talking about, and I had to stop and think, or I'm like, why am I uncomfortable? And I realized that I liked a lot of aspects of femininity, but I didn't like all of it. I didn't want to play into this idea of what a woman has to be. That's why I kept my lower voice. You know, I know this is just an audio program, so figured I'd mention, but um so then I had to really stop and think about, and I was like, oh, I guess I'm a little bit non-binary, and so it's a beautiful part of gender identities. It can be whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

He sprinkled on the purple and yellow. Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. I think your voice is not that low. No, I think it sounds great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Well, you know, that's local therapy for you.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah. I uh I feel like me, Nyx, I feel very like your narrative is very similar to mine. I I I remember going to like Target and and going into the men's sections and be like, okay, what options are there now? It's like, oh, it's a t-shirt and blue or black pants. And then I would pass by the women's section and be like, man, I love that dress. I love that jacket, I love this. That sounds really awesome to wear, and it's so exciting. And then it's just like, no, but I'm not trans. I just think it's cool. I just wish I just wish I just wish that fashion was available for men, you know, like you just wish, yeah, like I'm I'm straight.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I just need a girlfriend, I can dress, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

It's always that question of like, I'm I'm I'm sis, I don't know what you're saying, but if somebody had a magical wand, still it goes, still it goes.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

I I remember this one time. I went on a I went on I went on a date with uh my sibling's best friend, and she was she was uh into me at the time and I was just like really out of my depth. And she brought me in to Target, and this was pre-transition, and I don't know why she did this, but it gave me such a panic. We went through the woman's department and she like poked at all, pointed at all of these clothes. She's like, Would you want to wear that? Would you want to wear that? I was just like sweating bullets, and I was like, No, I don't want to wear any of them.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

What are you talking about? Yeah, I was like, so your family had you pegged early. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

I suppose so. Um well, maybe that side of my family. My my my own dad was like super shocked when I came out of the closet, and then everyone else was like, Yeah, but there were signs. What are you talking about? Yeah, denial isn't just a river in Egypt, you know?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So your family is fairly supportive. Ups and downs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Um, my dad wasn't supportive, and um it was a it was a tough time. But um the vast majority of my family was, but even if your family is supportive, it's still there's that bridge they have to gap, you know. If they're not queer, they don't understand it, and there's still that fear. My whole life I was still I was so afraid of what they would think and things like that, that it didn't really matter and the in to I had built up the fear so much in my head that toward whatever the reaction was couldn't have been as bad as what I had made it up to be. I remember when I called my dad on the phone to tell him because I had to get it out of the way because that was I was coming out of the closet and I did all the hard stuff, but I couldn't tell him. And I had to, otherwise I couldn't be out of the closet because he would find out eventually. And so uh I didn't want to do that to him. And I remember I was on the phone with him, and it was a f one of the few times in my life that I fully dissociated where I was looking down on myself in a third person perspective, like one might see in a video game or a drone shot in a movie. And I was just seeing myself from the outside, just having this conversation with my dad while he had the same reaction that he had to figuring out that my mom died when I told him the happiest moment of my life. It was such an odd juxtaposition, and I don't think I've ever I don't think I've ever forgiven him for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, that's rough. Um I definitely uh relate to that one too. Um I think you in your narrative, um you know, and and in what you've mentioned so far, you've mentioned dysphoria being sort of present in your experience. And I know a lot of people who are trans, some people experience it, not anybody not everybody does, and not everybody needs to, right? Sure. Um but I I'm I'm curious, like how did it manifest in in your life and how did it feel?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Well, uh Okay. This I don't know if this will make any sense, but there's this little anecdote that I've heard before where a um an older fish is like going through a river and he sees some younger fishes and he says, Hey guys, how's the water? And the other fishes look at each other and they're like, Water? What is he talking about? And the reason why I bring that up is because I was surrounded in it so much that it was such a big part of my life that I couldn't even I didn't even know what it was. It was invisible. Yeah you know, and it's sort of like it's like the air around you, you know, it's not something you think about, it's just just is. Yeah. And so my dysphoria, I wouldn't say often, was like a super painful thing. It was just a fact of life, and it and I didn't realize until I started experiencing euphoria, until I took off those weights. I didn't realize how much it didn't weighing on me. I had gotten used to it. Yeah. I um when I first started transitioning, it was actually there were some aspects that were kind of painful because I started to actually experience you know, this joy and had to stop and realize and actually start to feel these pain this pain. It was no longer numb, it was something that was sharp, it was something that was there. And that involved waiting through hormones, getting surgery, and you know, changing my name and standing up for myself and lots and lots of little things and mostly these days I'm pretty I'm doing pretty good dysphoria-wise. I don't experience much or any except for the social stuff I can't always control. People can be um uh impolite towards trans people. Yeah. Yeah. To say the least. Yeah. Yeah. But uh, you know, I um I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah, I mean it's kinda like, you know, that they use this example all the time, but it's very much like the truth. It's like the allegory of the cave, you know, that like Play-Doo you you walk out and you you feel like the sun, you feel the breeze and everything, and then you have to go back in, and you're like every minute you're waiting for that chance to step outside again. And it no matter how much you're outside, you never it's never enough. It's never enough.

SPEAKER_03 14:17

You know, that actually reminds me. I used to when I first came out of the closet, I was working at this uh restaurant, and I'm not gonna name any names because it's in town, but I was um I was working at this restaurant and I came out quote unquote as a cross dresser. I was like, hey guys, I'm a cross dresser, and um which you know, soft. It was my soft launching of my transition. And I remember I was this entire weekend, I wasn't working, and I was just presenting femme, and it felt super great. And I and then I had to go to work and I wasn't gonna present femme at my job. And so I had to put on this masked clothes, and that's when I really noticed the dysphoria because I was wearing something that a week ago I had been wearing every single day, and that was like normal clothes, and the moment I put it on, it felt like a prisoner's uniform. And I just was like I was like, this is completely normal. Why why does it hurt so bad, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

And uh no, I mean exactly yeah. I uh I really think you know, when we when we kind of step away from these moments, when we step into ourselves more, uh, I think that's when the to me that's how dysphoria got worse. It was that moment of like, oh, but I really want to be perceived as such. And what hurts is you know, people who are listening and don't understand the whole idea of misgendering. Oh man. It it's it's I don't know. Well, how do you describe it? How how does it feel to be misgendered?

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Well, it feels like the most disrespectful thing. It feels like somebody just insulted your mother or something like oh, really personal to you. Yeah, but and then it feels like a burning, it feels almost like a f emotional stabbing sometimes. If it's somebody you care about and it's intentional, it feels like a big betrayal. You know, I've had I've had people that I thought were allies, and then I've been told by people who were genuine allies that when I wasn't there, they misgendered me behind my back. Or I, you know, I've had people slip up and not correct themselves, and nobody's human, but then or everybody's human, so it's nobody's human. Not us. We're we're fa you know, everybody you know, everybody's human and like you can make mistakes, but then for them to be like, oh, this is such a big deal, why do you even care? And it's just that entitlement, you know, and like it builds up. It's a lot of it's a lot of little things. It feels sometimes like you know, like a little glass of water, it's slowly filling up drip by drip by drip, and then you know, every drip is just a little thing. And then one day the water cup overfills and everybody's like, Oh, it was just one little thing. I just misgendered you, or I just used your previous name, and it's like it's everything. You know, it's the lack of respect from an entire culture when it gets to you.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

You've mentioned, I know we we mentioned earlier the narrative, um, you kind of came out and went through all this process. I'm I'm curious how the these emotions, these thoughts kind of tied into what you're doing now.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Oh, okay. Well, you know, I think one beautiful thing about pain, and I feel like this is a weird thing, but pain is universally terrible. Nobody wants to experience pain. Everybody wants to go out of their way.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Well, that that is evolutionary what what pain is, it's your body telling, don't do that. Don't feel this, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:40

Yeah, it's true. Um you know, so it's like you you don't want to experience pain. But you know, I have found what's very interesting about pain is it can be a very big motivator, it can be a positive thing for you to be like, I don't want to I experience this pain, so I never want anybody to experience this again. And it can inform your life, it can inform your art, it can inform, you know, your relationships with people, and like I've uh I've tried not to um let my pain hobble me, you know, prevent me from moving forward. I've tried to let it be a source of inspiration. Let it let it let me empathize more with people, let me really understand um other people's other people's experiences, and that's one universal pain. It doesn't matter if it's dysphoria, it doesn't matter what it is, we all experience the negative stuff and we don't want to experience it. And um so I think it's made me more empathetic. And um it's I'm not perfect, but I I can relate more to people, I can, you know, do my best to make the world a little bit of a better place and the with the skills I have. And um that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

Does that answer your question? It does, and it also kind of gets helps me transition to the next point because when we asked for a bio, your bio was very succinct, which means that you are you have uh an ability to write. And so my question is where did that came come from? And sure, you know, what is a resources resource that you're trying to do or share today? Wink wink. All right, real subtle, real subtle, smooth, Danny.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

Like butter. Okay. So uh I'll start with uh where writing comes from. Yeah. Um, I remember, you know, when you're when you're younger, you you can kind of see natural abilities. When you're if you have a fostering environment as a kid, you know, people can kind of see what you gravitate towards and what you and what you're good at. And I remember being in um fourth and fifth grade. I had uh I had the same teacher for that, and I hope she's listening. She's probably not, but her name was uh Martin, Mrs. Martindale, Bobby Martindale. And And I had her uh for fourth year, and then she moved on to her uh fifth grade and she took all of her students and so had her for two years. And I remember that it was in such a fostering and nurturing environment um that like you could start to see like these little students, these children, start to bloom in their different directions. And my writing came from uh we had a little bit of a poetry thing, and she was inviting all of our teacher invited all of our parents over. And um, you know, we'd all wrote a poem, and I I wrote this poem for my mom, and I I just had these feelings, and I never told her this, and I was a f I felt I had a complex relationship with my mom, and uh it wasn't just like a poem about how much I love her, it was like a poem about like how I felt like sometimes I let her down. And so I don't know, I tried to hide my feelings uh because I didn't want her to know. I tried to hide hide it in flowerly flowery language. And um so we read this poem and she came in and I got so nervous because I was like, everyone will be able to see what I've actually written in this in this message, and that like, you know, she'll get upset at me or something like that. So I got super bashful and the teacher read it aloud. But then while I was watching the teacher read my poem, I heard some of the parents whisper and some of the teach and some of the students be like, Wow, this is really good, or oh my god, she can really write, things like that. And um then after that, I um I went to high school and uh middle school, and I was a very bad student, just could not get okay. There's I saw a meme about this the other day where it's like you you have students who like organize everything in binders, and you have the students who just shove everything into their backpack, and they were like, What are you guys doing nowadays? The students that shove everything into your backpack. Well, I'm on a radio show right now, a podcast show.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I mean, I was one of those those kids. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I did I did get a PhD eventually.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

There you go. Um, so I did very bad in high school, but the one thing I could still do was um was writing, but I never thought much. Uh I never thought much about it. It was just it was just something I was naturally good at, so I didn't really care. I was more interested in the things that I wasn't naturally good at. The things that I was like, well, I want to challenge. I'm like, I can write. Like anybody can write.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

That's what they teach in school.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

But um, you know, I um so I didn't want to do that. But uh I remember I was so I started going to community college, and I had the I had this friend named Mary. Mary had joined the student newspaper, and um Mary was like, Oh my god, you gotta join the student newspaper. It's like this is really rad. And I was just like, those, you know, that broadside that you see around that nobody ever reads. Forget it. No, I'm not doing that. And she was like, please. I was like, no, no, and then she eventually, I forget how she coaxed me. I think I needed like one credit or something, and I was like, it's one credit, fine, and things like that. And I joined this newspaper, and I was so resentful. I was like a little donkey or something. They were like, okay, like let's do some writing. And I was like, I'm not doing that. And so I was just in this, I was in this paper and I wasn't doing anything, and the teacher was so disappointed in me. And he was just like, We had to uh we had to choose a topic to write on, and I didn't do any of that work or anything. And he was like, What do you mean you haven't uh what do you mean you haven't like figured out a topic? We need to write about this, and I was like, whatever. And he was like, just go find something. And I was like, okay. So I found somebody to interview and I wrote up this thing, and the teacher who like did not think much of me was reading this, and he was like, Wait, you can write? I was like, Yeah. He was like, wait, what? And he's his tune completely changed. And he figured out that I um he figured out what I was capable of and actually started giving me something that felt like a challenge. And then um, so I I was known on the paper as somebody who could really crank out something really quickly. So whenever they needed something that was long and quick and hopefully good, they were like, Victoria, we need you. Like go go go write about go write about something you're interested in. Because I had found out, they had found out that if it was something I was interested in, I could write about non-stop. But if it was something they were making me do, I would just drag my heels and I wouldn't get anything done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

So they found this doesn't sound like ADHD. Not at all.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

No, thankfully, I um yeah, I'm I I'm actually diagnosed, yeah. But um, so they they found a way to nurture me and found a way to uh work up my chops, and then um yeah, so I um yeah, I um as I got older, I um started writing, got back to poetry, I got back to that elementary school thing. I started transitioning and I had all these feelings, and it finally felt like um this this weight came off of me, and out of the weight was all these emotions and all these words, and entire poems would come formed in my head. It was like uh it was like a bountiful harvest of words, and I just needed to get them out. And so for a couple of years, all I did was write poetry, and I just was like a I was like Lord Byron or something, just like romantically walking through, looking at like the falling leaves, and being like, I'm thinking of gloom, thinking of death, thinking of rebirth. And so for um when my in my early transition, all I could do was write and write and write. And so I had a bunch of poetry, posted it online, and some of it was good, some of it was bad, some of it was mid. That's life, right? And I shared it all. It is poetry, yeah, exactly. Yeah, and my sister, uh my sister Chandra, I love her. I hope she's listening. Um, she was like, Hey, I'm making these things called zines. I need I need an idea, so I took your poetry and I published it into a zine.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And so You're published now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

So I had never heard of uh of a zine. I know my sister made art because she'd always been the artistic one. I never considered myself um I she was six years older than me, you know. Um I never considered myself like uh like artistic because I would always see her as a kid with like a paintbrush and an easel, like a stereotype, you know. And I was just like, well, she's the artistic one, you know. I'm I guess I'm the the funny one, I guess. Yeah. But um I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Did she have the little cap?

SPEAKER_03 26:46

She did, it was orange, yeah. Oh my god. I I I used to call her a Dixie Kong from Donkey Kong because like Dixie Kong used to wear that hat in those video games. Oh yeah. I was obsessed with those as a kid.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Of course you were obsessed with the female characters in all those games.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Yeah, yeah, you know, guilty as charged. Guilty. But uh Yeah, there were no signs, thankfully. But um, so my sister publishes my my um my poetry into a zine, and being being somebody who's very humble, no ego whatsoever, I was like, hey, can you give me a copy of those zines? I want to print and like distribute them around town. Because I was like, I wrote all this poetry, I had all these feelings, it'd be nice to share it. My sister had put some lovely art on it. And so she gives me the master copy and she teaches me how to fold zines, and I start putting them all around and sharing my poetry, and I was just like, Yes, this is great, oh my god. And something called to me, something unlocked. And um I decided to start making my own zines, but I was nervous. I uh was like, you know, mu there's this idea, uh like this kind of imposter idea, that whenever you're starting something new, you're not really doing it.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

You're not like yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

And so I felt that like because artis artistic stuff wasn't my territory, I told myself ever since I was a kid, um, I was like, I need an art artist friend to like make this legitimate.

SPEAKER_01 28:17

So remember so I do have to sure wonder. Like you you identified as like the funny one growing up. Did you ever do stand-up or yeah?

SPEAKER_03 28:28

I did. Um yeah, this is a bit of a tangent, but um rest in peace. But there was a comedy club here in town called Capital City Theatre. Oh yeah. And uh me and Chandra, my sister, we were a um we were regular patrons. We'd always go to the open mics weekly, because it was um for a while it was three dollar covers. Or you would pay for two drinks, and they added that a little bit later. But my sister loved stand-up comedy, and uh, we lived together, and so I was like, cool, let's go. And eventually she, you know, she'd only make it to some of them, and I religiously would go. And I wasn't a comic per se, but one time Chandra was like, Oh, I want to do comedy, you know, I want I want to do stand-up, you should you should do it, and I was like, Why, why, why me?

SPEAKER_00 29:19

I want to do comedy, you should do it.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

Yeah, I was like, I was like, Chandra, that sounds like you want to do it, and she's like, No, no, you'd be great. I was like, what are you talking about? And so um I was like, all right, sister, if I do comedy, will you do it? And she's like, Well, I don't know. I'm like, uh okay, whatever. And so I go the next day, I go to the open mic and I, you know, just perform some comedy. It wasn't very good. We have a recording of it, but I I do some comedy and then I call Chandra and I'm like, Hey Chandra, I did comedy, you have to do it. And she's like, You didn't tell me? I could have been there for you, and I was just like, I don't know, I just wanted you to do it. And she's like, now I have to perform comedy. That was like it's like you know, that was the agreement, and I wasn't there for her performance, and she wasn't there for mine. But her boyfriend at the time, um, Rocky Sanchez, great guy, uh, he showed up to my uh performance, and he has the most maniacal laughter. And so I'm not doing that good, but the you there's laughter the entire time because he just won't stop chuckling, and he has such a distinctive laugh that if you were to watch this recording, I feel like it sounds like I'm doing a great job, but it's just Rocky. Thanks, Rocky. I know he's great. I I love hanging out, it's a bit of a tangent, you're probably gonna hit this out, but I love hanging out with Rocky because I'm like, even when my jokes don't land, he still laughs, and I'm like, what a great audience! Lie to me, baby, lie. But um, to get back to my story though, yeah, yeah. I um so I start publishing these zines, and I want I want to make my first scene, but I'm nervous and I'm not allowing myself to, you know, have that. And so I call up my artistic friend, uh Andromeda, and I'm like, hey, hey, hey Andro, uh, do you want to make like a collab zine with me? We can we can publish our poetry because I know they had written some lines when they were younger, and I had like a plethora of stuff. And so we made our very first scene, and it was called Guts. Half of it was mine, half of it was theirs, and uh I really learned the the art of um of like publishing and stuff like that, and it was um it the zine wasn't as bad as it could have been because Andro really knew what they were doing, and and I'm really glad I actually asked my friend for help with my first one because like all zines are beautiful and it would have been lovely no matter what, but like I would I didn't feel ashamed sharing it with people because I'm like look at this pretty cover, you know, or things like that. But there was there's a couple things where I don't like to print print that one too much because I cringe a little where I'm like, oh, it's my first time.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

But um how the one one thing I'd like to plug is um, and I was I was kind of pushed into doing this, but uh I would like to plug my own collective. I'd like to plug the Cherry City Zing collective. Yeah, absolutely. And um I don't I guess we're technically a resource, so we have stands all over uh downtown Salem and in Kaiser with uh Becca uh Becca Makes Buttons. Um we have we have stands at Blast Off Vintage, Bookbin, the bookstore, uh Best Goose, the bar, uh the art department, and we have one at the um this new youth center. Um Punks for a Purpose or something like that. I don't know. Another one when one of our members runs it, so I don't actually know about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

That's exactly it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yay! Punks with a purpose, I think. Punks with a purpose. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

I don't know if that's uh a drop. Is it are they also part of the zine library or queer library at Court Appearance?

SPEAKER_03 33:09

Oh yeah, yeah, Court Appearance. They ask us for our zines all the time. Funny story of Court Appearance. I got commissioned by uh by them to make a zine for them. Yeah, and this is a really this is a uh one I had a lot of fun with. I made a I made a zine about the horrors of getting a haircut as a queer person, and it's called Queers Getting Haircuts, and this it's in the style of B-movie posters. And so it's like it's it like the cover has a woman running away from a pair of scissors and she's like screaming, and there's Tech of the Killer Tomatoes. Yeah, that type of vibe. And I had a lot of fun with that. Every now and then, you know, somebody in the community will go and get their hair cut from Snarfy or Aero or whomever there, and um, they'll send me a picture and they're like, Did you make this scene? I'm like, why, yes, I did. Um yeah, that's that one's a popular one, but um, yeah, so anyways, yeah, we uh we're an artist collective. Uh you don't need any skills. Uh we work in the medium of zines. We do monthly meetups. Um, we have an Instagram page called um at Cherry City Zines. And um yeah, it's honestly really nice. We um we actually just met up today, uh at the time of recording. And um it's kind of just like a friend group. We hang out, we drink coffees, we we share each other's art, we encourage each other, and we fold every month uh a plethora of zines to help maintain the stands. And you may have seen us at um at uh like Pride in the Park or, you know, at the block parties. We like to um we prioritize giving out art for free if we can, and just accepting donations because um I grew up poor and uh I didn't have a lot of access to uh a lot of um art, especially queer art. Uh and when there was access to it, it was behind a paywall. I was the kind of kid that only had public TV because we couldn't afford cable and things like that. I told somebody that the other day and they were like, What's cable? I was like, Oh yeah, you're like 19.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Ow, the little things that can turn you to dust. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:22

But um, yeah, so we make we make art on all sorts of stuff, and um yeah, it's really rad.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Um were you the founder of this group? Or what's what's the origin story?

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Let me tell you the mysterious origin story. So uh we actually have a z uh one of our members has a zine, and when they talk about our mysterious founder, uh they're they like obscure it, and it's like a picture of like a person with multiple faces and things like that, and it's a super mystery, but I'll tell it to you guys in public. Okay. So I'm not the founder, but I am running things, so I'm like one of the organizers uh right now. Um so let me tell you let me tell you first uh how I got involved with this. So I had my po I had my poetry zine and I wanted to share it around, and so I go off to Blast Off Vintage and Pete there, um, you know, he's like older Gen X dude with glasses. Yeah, um he owns the store. Um I come in and I uh he's like I look at this zine stand, I'm like, oh my god, there's some zines. You know, I have one of those. And Pete's like, no way. You should put some of your zines in this stand. I'm like, well, it's not my stand. He's like, no, no, this is Frankie's stand. Frankie will like absolutely love it. And I'm like, well, when does Frankie come in? Maybe I can just like give it to them. And he was like, no, just put your print, make copies of your zines, put it there. Frankie will like love it. And so I was like, okay. So I go off to the print store, print off a bunch of copies, paste some money, and I and I put it off there. And a couple days later, my inbox on Instagram is flooded with Frankie. And Frankie's like, oh my god, you know, I've been wanting somebody, I've been having these stamps for years, I've wanted somebody to put out their zines. Wow, thank you. You're the first one to do it. I wanted to make this like a community thing. And um I actually got really along with Frankie, and then we realized we became kind of like a dynamic dynamic duo, and they told me the story of how this collective started. So there's somebody uh named Crystal, who's um also part of the Salem McQueer community. They're from um if I remember correctly, they went to school in upstate New York. Maybe they're from New York. And there they were at a university, and they decided to f found a zine library, probably just because they're cool. And they founded the zine library, and they left university, and uh they were told that the zine library was still going strong, people would add stuff to it, and it became kind of a community fixture. So Crystal moves out west to the wild frontier of Salem, and you know, um you know, they have a lot of zine experience, and they mentioned to Frankie who's their friend. Um, they're like, hey, uh I wanted I wanted to like make a zine or something. Do you want to like collaborate? And Frankie, who's never made one before, is thinking to themselves, like, oh, we're gonna like figure out product I'm gonna figure out production, like how to print a bunch of copies of this, things like that. No worries, and I'll just help be helping Crystal out. So Frankie meets up with Crystal and Crystal's like, all right, we're gonna make a zine together. Frankie's like, oh, super nervous.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

And they um they make a zine, and I think it was uh in support of Free Fridge Salem. And um and so they make a zine together, and Frankie gets bitten by the buck. And so they start making all these zines and they're distributing it around town, but it's not getting seen a lot. There's not like a uh a good location for them. They're dropping it like, you know, like on the side of the road and little boxes, you know, just random areas. And then they were like, hang on a second, I I have a friend who can make something. And so they had a friend who had like industrial equipment to make uh to like mold plastic. And they were like, Hey, do you want to make stands for us? And so they had their friend make these stands and they had measured the size of a minisine, which is you know, a normal piece of paper that you folded it in eight sides to make a book, uh, minisine. And they'd measured it, and the mini zines fit perfectly in this stand, and they could fit six in a row. And so they printed they made four or five of those stands. And Frankie asked, you know, Blast Off Vintage, Book Band, Art Department. They were like, Hey, do you want to have these stands? And Frankie would make all these cool art, it was educational stuff because they're a math professor. They wanted to let the world learn. And so it would be zines about astronomy, math, uh sometimes even the history of dance. And they would maintain these um stands and people would love them. Uh one popular zine, uh of Frankie's, which they still occasionally print. It's called No Drinks in the Pit, and it's an ode to punk culture.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

Yeah. Have you seen it?

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Yeah, uh no, I I know what you're talking about, but I I don't I've never seen the zine though.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Yeah. And so um one one page they still get compliments on is they were at the bar making this scene, and they were like trying to find non-gendered insults for assholes. So, like, you know, they're mean, but you don't want to misgender them. Yeah. And so so they were in the bar and they were like, all right, what what would you call somebody without it being gendered? And they're like, well, you know, a knucklehead or things like that. And so there's an entire list of non-gendered insults in that zine. And um, Frankie, if you're listening to this, print some more copies of that. It's a hit. But um, so they um they are making all these zines, and for a couple of years, they're the only person stalking these stands. As aforementioned in that story, uh, I'm the first one to add to it. And so me and Frankie were like kind of a dynamic duo. I would make I kind of got bit by the bug, and I would make all these stuff and put it in the stands, and then Frankie would. And sometimes Frankie had this kind of um, they felt like they had this um Sisyphian task of being the only person to maintain these stands because the people in the community really liked them, but Frankie was kind of getting burnt out. They'd been doing this for a couple of years. Their zines came from kind of a place of grief, and they were in a better place now, and so they didn't really need to make these scenes, which, you know, great for them. And so, um, you know, it really helped that I was uh that I joined along. And then um we got reached out to uh by Salem Art Association. Salem Art Association was a art association was like, hey, we want to do some zine programming, and so we wanted to reach out to local artists. We found your guys' zines in the stands. Is that something you're interested in? And so they wanted us to do uh fold sessions where uh any any zine artist could come in and start uh hanging out with us when we teach them the basics, or you know, they could bring their own art and we'd all fold it, and then we could do that to um distribute zines around. And we were getting paid for that, which was really rad. I honestly best gigs ever getting paid for zines. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

It's very rare. It's like zines are by definition, don't make money, right? Yeah, it's not about the money, no, you know.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

No, but man, oh man, I wish I could pay my bills with it. No, actually, no, I don't, because then it would kind of ruin it. Yeah. But I wish I could pay my bills and then just do explosively. Pay the bills end. Yeah, I wish money would just like kind of like rain. Right. Like, cool. And it wouldn't lose its intrinsic value because it's like part of the weather now, you know. I would love that.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Yeah, capitalism definitely ru ruined writing for me a little bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

I th I think, and that's one thing I've tried to avoid with my uh zine making, where if it become if art becomes something that you're depending upon for you to make like your ends meet, then it no longer becomes a thing of passion, no longer becomes a hobby, it becomes an occupation, it becomes a job, which those are perfectly fine, but it's not the same enjoyment.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Yeah, it's not an it's it becomes an obligation, which is not fun.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

But um, so me and uh me and Frankie get asked by Salem Art Department uh to uh start m you know doing these zine events. Um I get commission uh through Salem Art Department, I get commissioned to make a bunch of um of zines for their businesses and some other uh artists in the community uh were asked to as well. It was like a big event. It was um it's pretty rad. And uh that's how I made Queers Getting Haircuts. And um so we got asked to do that, and then um the event ended, and we were like, that was really fun. You know, do you want to keep doing that, but like not getting paid? And so we um we started uh Frankie running things. We started um doing these like monthly meetups, and like we would have some people join in, we would like talk about it, and then uh we didn't have a name or anything, but then pride came around, and my friend Melanie, who used to own Salem on the Edge, the art gallery downtown. Oh now it's owned by somebody else. Um she was like, Hey, it's you know, pride, uh they're looking for vendors or things like that. And I was like, oh my god, that'd be really cool. So I asked Frankie, and Frankie was like, Yeah, let's let's let's do it. Let's print out a bunch of our zines, let's give them out, let's see how people take it. And um, so we print out a bunch of our zines and we go to like apply for this. And we needed a name. And so I was like, crap, we need a name. Frankie, we need a name. And um, so we were like, we we were trying to come up with names in Salem is called Cherry City, and so we were like, well, Cherry City Zine Collective, which you know, I think it's our third try or something like that. And so we put that we put that name there, and we went out to uh Pride and we just had our little rinky nink stand. I'd bought, and I still use this to this day, I'd bought out uh the till of an old cash register, which was perfect size for mini zines, and I'm using it to to stock all of our zines. And um, at the time, I hope well, it's not like they can fire me. At the time I was working for Portland State University, and we were printing a lot of stuff, and so I would print a lot of color zines and like to slip it in because they wouldn't like notice because it was just like, oh, we had to print 500 textbooks and 500 zines, you know. But uh that was how I was funding uh the zine stuff for a while. I I don't I don't steal from my job anymore, but um so we like do pride, we've doing doing these it's not stealing if it's a benefit. Yeah, they're not giving me retirement, so I'm getting zines. But um so we're at Pride, we're really connecting with queer people, we're sharing our art, and through Pride and through these monthly zine folds, we've kind of built uh for over the last three years or so, kind of a community. People would start adding uh instead of just me and Frankie, more people started adding to the stands. Uh regular people started coming to our zine folds, people would come to our um come to our stand and talk about how they'd never seen of a zine heard of a zine before, but like how it was super inspiring for them. Yeah. And we've just kind of grown and grown. Recently, we did a um a kind of something I called the zine jam back in August, where the goal we were hosted at art department, where the goal was for people to come in and just sit down and try and make a zine in one sitting. And we did that all day. It was a beautiful event, and um it's been something that has been uh really nice for us as artists to share art in the community with no expectation of payment and just hear what people think and then like connect with each other, and um honestly it's uh revigorating whenever I hang out with my uh with with the collective, you know? So cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:23

I think people are attracted, they say that people are attracted to passion, right? Like when you when you hear somebody be passionate about something, it's hard not to be interested and be like, this sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

I want to do this for each as someone who has done a lot of uh book marketing and book book writing and that sort of stuff, um how do you and you know, I'm used to how popular is my book. I can go look at the the sales numbers and that sort of thing. How do you know if a zine is killing it?

SPEAKER_03 47:55

Okay. The way I know if a zine is killing it is if it really flies off the shelves, you know. Like I like I put it out there, and this isn't like like a foolproof method, but like I have a zine called Frogs, right? It's about frogs. The gays love that one. If I put out a copy of Especially now. Mm-hmm. If I if I put out a copy of Frogs and then I come back a week, or I come back a day later and all the copies of frogs are gone, that usually tells me something. If I put out a zine and it really sits there for a while, you know, then I'm like, alright, this is probably not fighting its audience, or maybe people aren't interested in it. The thing is, I don't have the data. I don't have customer reviews, and I think that's good for my mental health because if I if I knew how many people liked it, or if I knew how many people all their comments, it would feel good. There'd be lots of beautiful things, people would be very sweet, but I would also be trying to appeal to them. Yeah. And that's the beauty about independent publishing or zines. And it's like if somebody doesn't like it, they don't have they don't have to partake, you know. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be a huckster, I'm not trying to scam them or anything, I'm not trying to buy anything. I just want their attention. Like, just for like a little brief moment. And like I know that I write occasionally or I make occasionally some weird stuff or some things that maybe only appeal to me. And sometimes when I first started doing some of that stuff, I was very insecure. You know, I was just like, oh, uh, like I really like video games, but if I make a video game zine, then people might be like really off-putted by that, or like I wanted to just be general, just to appeal to as many people as possible. But as I've been doing this for multiple years, I've just gotten to a point where I'm like, I'm interested in that. I'm gonna make a zine about it. If somebody doesn't like it, then no no skin off my back, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Right, right. Yeah. No, that's it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:04

So I mean, I was gonna say it right now, because I think you you're hinting at this idea of like the when you made the the art department and people came in and started listening and and were really interested interested, I kind of th view that as, you know, if people are interested in in passion and attracted to that, uh it kind of transitions to the last question, which is what do you think our community needs at this moment?

SPEAKER_03 50:30

Well, as a transgender woman, I'm going to focus on trans uh stuff rather than the whole broader broader LGBTQ to 2 S I plus? Did I nail that? I don't know. Well take it. Yeah, we'll take it. LGBTQ. Um a community. And like because that's what I know best. I think as trans people, one thing that we could really use is more uh medical professionals that know how to take care of uh of trans people. And this isn't like it doesn't have to be people who specialize in it, but like considerate doctors, doctors who know more than the basics, because sometimes people will go to their primary care providers and these people won't know much of anything at all. And the people that are good in the community are swamped because there's so few of them. Yeah. Uh rec about two years ago, Oregon uh passed a uh bill to increase uh medical care for trans people. It was great and it was a right step, it was a good step in the right direction, but it was kind of like it didn't really like it opened up more possibilities for trans people, but didn't add any more doctors. It didn't add any more like medical professionals who like therapists, things like that. I remember when I was first coming out of the closet, I knew I needed mental, uh, like I needed uh mental health help, like with a therapist and things like that. And so I joined I was able to find uh a therapist who specialized in trans care, one of the only few in Salem. And then I realized that because there was such a need in the community, this therapist was stretched so thin and didn't want to refuse anybody because there was such a need in the trans community. And they felt like they could only they felt like they had to carry that on their shoulders and the quality of care after a while star wasn't very good because they were overworking. And um so I mean this isn't an easy, easy thing to solve, but like more people who know what they're talking about. Like I remember I was waiting for surgery and it was just such a painful couple of years, uh, because I just was on a waiting list and I had to just wait for like one of the few doctors who could perform that surgery here in uh in Oregon. And i I shouldn't have had to wait. People can really be hurt. People can things could not go well for people if they have to wait. Or and I know a lot of queer people, if they're so lucky, are fleeing red states because of a lot of negative laws that are harming trans people, and so they're coming to Oregon, and I'm grateful for it that we have laws that protect us. But they're coming here for their trans care, they're coming here for all these things into a system that is not ready. No, yeah. Even in the best of times, it's trans care is an afterthought. And um, I don't know the solution to that. I know I'm not going to medical school, that's really expensive. But like I don't know. And I appreciate the state as a whole trying their best, but like they're cutting as fast as they can, Victoria. They're quitting as fast as they can. They're cutting. Oh, they're cutting. Well, like Yeah, it's so I I I don't want to get all trans medicalist because I know you can be trans and you can be a happy trans person about transitioning. But I know for a lot of people that is a surefire way to alleviate their dysphoria. It's a surefire way to like be able to function. And like you know, in so much of the trans community, we have a lot of mental health problems because, you know, just like society, dysphoria, all these things, and like just cut us a break, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:23

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 54:29

Oh, there's a boson. Victoria, I think our time here is up. Thank you so much, Victoria. It was so good to talk to you. Please tell us where in the sea we can find you.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

Well, you can uh you can find the Cherry City Zine Collective at Instagram at Cherry City Zines, and um you can find my personal Instagram where I post all my poetry and art and my personal projects, at at Vickunst. So that's uh V-I-C-K-K-U-N-S-T. And that's also on Instagram. And yeah, that's about it.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

Awesome. Well, uh, that's great. Please subscribe and leave a review if you like our podcast, and you can also support us on Patreon as well.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

As uh Crafty Coyotes is the Patreon. That's correct, yeah. So uh on your way out, if you could put in a good word with the captain, that'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

I I told you guys about the Rusty Razor, though. I don't know if you'll be very accommodative.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

We take anything we can get.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

You've been discredited. And remember, Salem, whenever the seas are choppy, hoist your colors.