For this inaugural zine, we are summoning in the great power of what we have decided to call BABY GAY. Yes: an entire zine dedicated to yr weird, confused, & wondrous baby gay selves.
For further clarification: We are interested in (fascinated by && obsessed with) how the journal functions in the life of the baby gay: as a site of queer exploration, curiosity, confusion, self-hatred, self-love, grief, joy, and weirdness. And we want to compile a zine of these journal fragments, in order to create a collective space for what went on in our minds, fingers, brains, crotches while young little queerlings. The term Baby Gay has no correlation to age or numbers (or even the word “gay”), but rather finds itself in the stretch of time, often self-determined, wherein a person finds themselves to be but a small toddler in the large world and considerations of queerness. Baby Gay is intimacy, is childish goof, is covers pulled tight, is journaled fear, is locker room anxiety, is “I’M STRAIGHT/CIS I PROMISE”, is lying, is surviving, is not coming out of the closet once but repeatedly, is what we all go through in one way or another, on our long looping journeys of queerness and actualization.This archiving needs to be done! Our baby gay voices need to be heard! So much longing! So much angst! So much curiosity! We want it all!
Please send us your weird baby gay fragments! Since we’re eager to be able to see/feel the actual page where the writing happened (what a beautiful trace of your little self), we’d appreciate if you can send in hi-res scans when possible. We’re also open to photographs and other scanning methods, as well as an accompanying document with it typed up. All submissions will be published anonymously, though we will acknowledge, in the acknowledgements, all who contributed to the zine (pseudonyms very encouraged).
Seriously — go find your young journals and scan in photographs of those tepid teary pages. They’re begging for company— the company of other lil queer freak-outs and anxieties. It’s a way of reaching back to your younger self and saying i see you, i hear you, and yes you are a total faggot and no, you are not alone.
Send in submissions by February 15th to influxcollectiv@gmail.com
Email with any questions! We love answering questions. And we love submissions even more :)