TransLash family,

This special edition of TransLash Zine is a companion for the launch of Season 2 of our podcast series, The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: APlotAgainstEquality.

Day by day, the attacks on trans kids grow louder, and more anti-trans bills keep moving through state legislatures. In this season of the #AntiTransHateMachine, we illuminate how the right wing has fueled these bills by generating a breathtaking and wide-ranging disinformation campaign.

Christian Nationalists are manufacturing pseudoscientific theories and using the entire anti-trans hate machine to pipe them out into the mainstream; creating a rationale for these bills. And it’s catching on. In Season 2, which dropped on Trans Day of Visibility, March 31, 2023, we show you how their anti-trans propaganda is working; ultimately being laundered by some of the most powerful newsrooms in the world.

Within the pages of this zine, you will experience the personal impact of the #AntiTransHateMachine on trans lives: the ways in which folks have survived ideological detransition and conversion therapy pressures from their family and society at large. Some of our contributors for this edition have chosen to remain anonymous for safety reasons, and we respect their choice.

Through our contributors’ writing and art, we hope to shine a light on both the terror and pain inflicted by the anti-trans hate machine––along with the strength and beauty of TGNC (trans and gender nonconforming) folks who are fighting back; through their activism and how they simply choose to live their lives.

These stories might be triggering to some so we invite you to read this edition and come back to it at your own pace. However we believe the fundamental story of hope and resilience within these pages will shine through. It’s why we’re telling these stories.

The aesthetic for this zine was inspired by the work of our amazing cover illustrator Theodoor Grimes, whom you may know as @ggggrimes on Instagram.