I am so grateful to be the President of our school’s Queer Quarterly club. Every Friday meeting, it provides such a beautiful and fun space for queer students at our schools to hang out. So, last year, when I was a general member of the club, and someone mentioned that they wanted to create a publication, I was super excited. I love literature, and I was very excited to create some for our school community.
Through my time in the club and around other queer people, I had seen how much art we had produced and how good it was. I was upset that we could only show it with our friends, and there was no already-set channel for us to share it with other people who may enjoy it and feel seen by it.
In general, I felt a lack of appreciation on campus for art that is not done in a class or a performing arts program like Theatre, and even those spaces are very undervalued. I wanted to create a place for the art that people were already doing to be celebrated. I did not want them to have to wait for a class assignment or an event to be recognized for their beautiful art. I wanted a more routine and frequent place where their art could be seen.
It also felt particularly important for queer people to have a space to share their art. I believe art is a space of creation, a place where we can create understanding within ourselves and create understanding with others. With art, we have the opportunity to depict and create a world that we love, and queer people have been doing this for generations. It is a necessary lifeline.
Art Director Junior Lukas Dilonardo noted a similar fact. “Art, historically, is a way that queer people express themselves when their identities are legally or socially condemned, and the current stigmatization propelled by anti-trans legislation has made a place to publish art crucial,” he said.
After I set out to start creating the zine, it turned out that previous leaders of the club named the club Queer Quarterly because they wanted us to produce a zine every quarter, four times a school year.
It felt like a real signifier that this was something our queer people wanted, and I felt honored to carry out that responsibility.
Activities Director Sophomore Aster Bell felt similarly. She helped assemble the zine and write the introduction. She said her experience “gave me a feeling of great pride and connection, because I really love how the founders of the Queer Quarterly club had this as their mission, and we’re finally able to make that dream come true. I feel as though they’re my ancestors in a way; even though I don’t know them personally, the queer experience is something that makes the entire queer community a family, and I feel as if I’m doing something right by them, and sharing in that deep desire to make a space for queer people to be safe and happy. I think the zine is an amazing way for people to show off their creativity and spread that joy.”
The first zine was published on February 13. After a month of promoting the zine on the morning announcements, W.I.L.D. report, and Instagram, over 30 pieces of art were submitted.
The art pieces showed queer people in love, lots of character drawings, poetry, contemplations of queer life, and a group dedication to a friend who got sent to another school by unsupportive parents. I loved all of the art that people submitted, and all of the art they were brave and joyful enough to share with us. I was delighted to see that a lot of the people who come to our club weekly submitted. It felt like a way to better understand my fellow club members and bring us closer as a club.
It was also a positive experience for people who submitted.
Dilonardo said, “I feel good that I created something for the zine and was able to express myself vulnerably and maybe help someone who feels the same way that I do as a queer person. I hope people identify or empathize with the queer perspectives found in the zine.”
We also acknowledge that discrimination against queer people is rampant on this campus, and we wanted to do something to curb it. In the back of the zine, after all of the art, we put suggestions for students and staff to learn how to prevent and stop discrimination. It included needs that we had been hearing from queer students for years and links to resources and organizations where they could learn more on their own, a crucial part of being an ally for queer people.
We sold the first zine at the Heritage Festival for $1 to keep them accessible and also raise money for our club’s weekly art programming. After that, we gave the zines away for free.
Since we wanted to keep the zines going quarterly, two zines a semester, we wanted to do another, but I wanted it to be bigger. I loved how the zine had brought our club and school together, and I wanted to expand the reach, so I proposed that we open it to the entire district.
Everyone was very excited and felt that it was a good idea to bring queer people together across schools that don’t have much interaction with each other. The second issue of our zine, titled “The District Queer Quarterly”, was published on April 17.
It was beautiful getting to converse with the queer clubs and students across the district, and I hope that we can continue to strengthen these bonds.
I also hope that other clubs on campus take our lead in doing projects that help and connect people. It is our opportunity to shape campus culture and create the school we want to see.
If you’d like to keep up with the ways Queer Quarterly is improving our campus culture, join us in C45 every Friday after school, and follow us on Instagram @lohsqueerquarterly. Also, follow the queer clubs at Rancho Cucamonga High School @rchs._.gsa, and Etiwanda High School @ehs.prideclub.