Zine Month 2025: TransQuest

The time is upon us once again to place offerings of cash upon the altar of the zine. Whether as a Month-long celebration of crowdfunded tabletop games, or an arduous Quest towards the creation of a physical product, independent creators are shepherding exciting, innovative works into existence. And, as always, trans designers are making their art in the face of The Horrors.

In the last month, there have been innumerable attempts by the United States federal government to eradicate the existence and history of trans people from public and civil life — the administration’s executive orders rolling back protections against discrimination, banning trans youth care (which has been struck down by a federal judge, despite pre-emptive compliance by hospitals nationwide), banning trans people from the military, banning trans athletes, banning trans people from having accurate legal documentation, the pause of funding for all grants related to what they call “transgender ideology”, or the elimination of trans people’s role on governmental websites and historical events such as the Stonewall Riots. 

But as queer history has shown, there is no “LGB” community without the tireless organizing efforts of trans people, especially trans people of color such as Marsha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera. Trans artists have always been on the fringes, making art to survive and thrive in a world that has refused us dignity and personhood. 

While many of the designers on this list aren’t based in America, anti-trans sentiment is rising globally, with legal and social attacks on the queer community in countries like Canada and Russia, and bans on youth care in the United Kingdom. The queer communities of Weimar Germany were targeted first during the rise of fascism nearly a century ago, with Magnus Hirschfields’ Institute of Sexology housing the site of the Third Reich’s most famous book burning. We're seeing it once again in this nascent regime, as a digital book burning (and banning) focusing on literature by marginalized authors. And yet, here we are, more visible, organized, and creatively driven than ever before. 

There is a long running joke in the trans community, one the TTRPG industry shares, of passing around the same twenty dollars because the only people we have to support us are each other. This high holiday of zine, a few trans creators have opened their coffers in the hopes that others could add to that pot, bringing their art from the realm of imagination into something a bit more real.