My Zines Reviewed in Maximum Rocknroll
I’ve been trying to find these for a while. And now I finally have them. Look to see what Maximum Rocknroll had to say about three of my zines!
MACROPHAGE #1
$4 / 28 pgs
Perzine by Niamh Timmons, who is a queer, non-binary, disabled transgirl, about the different ways that they try to heal in the face of hemophilia, heartache, and other sources of trauma. (They have other works reviewed in this issue of MRR.) They decided to name this zine after the macrophage, a white blood cell which is indiscriminate in the way in what they eat—they were responsible in helping them heal from having swollen ankles filled with blood, but at the cost of their joint cartilage. This complicated view of healing, which covers the pain they experience as they deal with loneliness, the effects of their disability on others, suicide ideation, and queer relationships. The stories here are often barely related, strung together only through the shared sadness that Timmons experienced. It’s an imperfect zine (which both Timmons and myself find invaluable) but still a valuable one for its presentation of a person’s pain and their ways of coping. (JD)
RUN AWAY: FAMILY STORIES
$4 / 24 pgs
Perzine by Niamh Timmons, who is a queer, non-binary, disabled transgirl, focusing specifically on transphobia / transmisogyny and how it relates to them. Like many trans people, their relationship with their parents is fraught with tension and complications. They mention an interest in genealogy here, something carried down by their mother. They are curious as to the ways that genealogy flattens out the dynamism of people’s lives. Do they share common experiences with other family members? They don’t know—their parents are often closed off to them, and their family frequently doesn’t understand their identity, frequently asking them to return to their deadname. They do share one common experience—both of Timmons’ parents were runaways of sorts, and Timmons wishes they could escape the abuse and transphobia they experience. There’s no good solution here for Timmons, but they end the zine wishing for something more radical than a chosen family. However, what that looks like is beyond me. (JD)
TRANS SEXUAL GEOGRAPHIES
$3 / 24 pgs
Perzine from Niamh Timmons, who is a queer, non-binary, disabled transgirl that talks about sex and bodies and how that interplays with their gender. They talk about their exes, how they’ve learned about good sex and experienced bad sex, their traumas and experiences with transphobia in their relationships. They explain the pleasures of all of the new changes that their body has taken on due to hormonal replacement therapy, and the unforeseen ways dysphoria can arise from those changes. Connecting with and relating to your body is hard when you’re trans, and as this zine so thoroughly explains through examples, it is hard to share those parts of you while trying to date others. (JD)
