Dundee Artist Launches Zine Celebrating Transgender and Non-Binary Faces

A former Dundee art school Non-Binary student has launched and illustrated a zine that exclusively features Transgender and Non-Binary faces who have traditionally gone unseen in mainstream media.

Leah Cameron, 22, who graduated in June from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee, without a ceremony or the annual degree show that spotlights new graduates’ work to future employers but they could not leave the city without making their artistic contribution.

In September, Leah tweeted a request to their Transgender and Non-Binary followers to send them pictures of themselves with their preferred pronouns and a brief statement that celebrates their non-cis experience.

Leah said: “Like every DJCAD student who’s graduated has had a bit of an issue getting started with their creative careers.

“I really wanted to give myself like, a project that could be, you know, positive for some kind of movement.

Flooded with responses, Leah quickly adapted their plan from a single zine to potentially multiple issues which they are funding and producing by themselves out of recycled card and paper.

It is a personal project for Leah that they felt the Transgender community particularly needs at the moment so they took it into their own hands.

Leah said: “If I sat about and waited for funding for it, it may never happen.

Beyond the pandemic, 2020 has been a difficult year for the Queer Art community following the endless stream of Twitter battles and transphobic commentary from prominent public figures like J.K. Rowling, including in her most recent controversial novel: ‘Troubled Blood’. A novel about a cis-man that disguises himself in women’s clothing to prey on unsuspecting cis-women.

As a passionate Harry Potter fan as a child, JK Rowling’s comments towards the Transgender community was heart- breaking but not unsurprising, according to Leah.

Leah said: “The UK in general just seems like the epicentre of all Transphobia at the moment.

“I [felt] like I had to do something for my community to show people that Trans people, Non- Binary people are still just normal people like everyone else [but with] the beauty and variety that can come from the trans experience because there is no one way to be Trans or Non- Binary.”

Before creating and publishing the first issue of ‘This is What He/ She/They Look Like’, Leah had produced two comics with the Dundee LGBTQIA+ Art Collective, Queer Dot.

Art, according to Leah, is a crucial form of expression and exploration of their own identity that has been key to them coming out as non-binary.

Leah said: “It’s been a long process, trying to get my family to sort of understand but my friends, the trans and non-binary queer people around me, they’ve really helped me feel so comfortable.

This zine, Leah explained, also goes further than that. It is their own form of activism. Even in 2020, there is a non-exhaustive list of issues that face both the Transgender and Non-Binary communities on everything from mainstream media representation to a lack of access and funding to Hormone Replacement Therapy or option for gender-neutral passports.

Leah noted that, especially in the UK, we have a long way to go but creating a zine like this is their way to find some positivity for a community that in as bleak times as this, desperately needs some.

‘This Is What He/She/ They Look Like’ is available now on Etsy.

Leah Cameron is a freelance Non-Binary illustrator, based in Glasgow. Find them on Twitter and Instagram on @_leahyeah and their website leahyeah.co.uk