All of Us Together: A Zine Exploring what Fascism in the United States Means Beyond Borders

The Rise of the Right

In the wake of the reelection of Donald Trump to the United States (henceforth US) presidency, I felt a chasm of powerlessness open within my body. 

Even before Trump took office on 20 January, 2025, his administration swiftly laid groundwork to roll back rights Queer people in the US had formerly enjoyed, erase us from federal websites and national monuments, and continue ostracizing us within the broader.

The impact of these actions, though, are not confined by US borders. 

Because of the US’s unfortunate preeminence in global politics and power dynamics, any assault by our government in turn affects the lives and liberties of Queer people in all nations beholden to its bullying influence.

This is especially true for Queer people living in Europe, where US economic and military power works to sway governments toward its ideology du jour.

Just as the US consolidated their turn rightward, we watched European governments attack Queer people and other marginalized communities, consolidating their threats to us in a pre-Pride Month frenzy. Poland, France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, England and others have hastened their shuffle to the right in these last months, leaving Queer people grappling in the wake.

Similarly, this year, the other two parties in the Estonian governing coalition ousted the Social Democrats, who’d formerly built relationships with marginalized groups, organizations working for Queer and Trans liberation among them. Right-wing bureaucrats who display marked hostility toward the interests of these groups have taken their place

Paths Forward

In these moments, Pride celebrations feels both defeating and more necessary than ever. But, it is hard to find my celebratory spirit in the midst of all this existential dread.

So, I met my grief, seeking to exorcise this Queer sorrow, in order to claim my Queer joy.

In this effort, I created a zine: PERSPECTIVES: Queer Writings and Art on US Fascism.

Zines (short for magazines) are independently created and distributed publications long used as a cornerstone of Queer communication and organizing efforts.

Though the art form is less widely used in Estonia, it’s enjoying a resurgence due to its particular usefulness in distributing information, ideas, and art among traditionally silenced communities.

The most beautiful thing about a zine is that anyone can make one, about anything, and it can be distributed by hand or over the web to get anywhere it needs to go. 

This zine is an anthology of Queer voices. Compiling poetry, art, musings, mournings, and calls to action from inside the US, as well as in Estonia and Finland, it provides space for Queer people to give voice to this new chapter in the long story of US facism, and what it means to us.

Sorrow as the Stuff of Art

Even as I feel lost in that peculiar powerlessness I have become so familiar with as a political refugee and, at the same time, a lover of my homeland, I knew I had to create something with that sorrow.

The pivotal tool fascism uses to divest Queer power of our power is erasure. They erase us from legal protections, from activist movements, from history, from public life. They erase us because, most simply: our very existence is a threat to their social control.

When I look back at other, similar movements in history, I see that we have so little to draw upon in reconstructing the Queer history that’s lost through this process of erasure. As such, I felt it was important to collect and archive voices of those directly impacted by this new wave of censure.

As I wrote in the zine’s Editor’s Note: “I believe it is our duty and honor to keep our stories however we can.”

I created this zine as an invitation to step out from the chaos– to create stillness in the storm, to archive what this moment holds for those of us inside and outside the US, as an act of care, and as an act of posterity for our future.

The chaos is intentional, but so is this opportunity to make art and, in so doing, to resist.

Keys to Understanding

One of the most meaningful parts of this project were the things it taught me about Queer identity, hope, and resistance.

Throughout the process, I found a wealth of common threads uniting Queer people across these seemingly disparate places and experiences.

We share the same fears: lack of acceptance, loss of our way of life, isolation, death, encampment, grief.

But we also share the same hopes: solidarity, stronger communities, new connections, technology and agriculture and art as tools of resistance, and the growth of something new from what once was.

The pieces in the first and second half of this zine, I found, are in rapt conversation with each other.

As Queers in the US ask, “What do we do next?” Queers in Europe say, “We survive.”

As Queers in Europe ask, “How do I find the path to myself?” Queers in the US say: “Community is your compass.”

What’s Next for Us?

This zine holds a dual promise in its pages: an archive and a roadmap, for all of us, together.

Here, we talk to each other across different cultures, different continents. We find our way to each other and treat each others’ wounds with the medicine of our hard-won wisdom.

In the end, I leave you at the beginning, with my opening comments in the zine’s first pages:

Find here a collection of poems, rants, musings, and art from Queer people, taken together to represent a singular moment in our shared history of sorrow and struggle.

For those interested in reading other zines I’ve made, you can find them here. 

For those interested in zines and zine-making, I suggest taking a look at the collections of Queer Zine Archive Project, Sherwood Forest Zine Library, or attending the upcoming Helsinki Zine Fest.