A few years ago Fallon Gold picked up a load of zines from a fair and her life was forever altered by one in particular – Nancy by Alex Creep. Now, with the release of the eagerly awaited Nancy 2, Loverboy talks genderqueer, femme men, DIY distros and loving Babs Streisand in Yentl, with The most gorgeous Creep we’ve ever met.

I will say, not only did I fall deeply in love with the first Nancy, I think it might be my favourite zine ever. Well, that was before I read Nancy 2. But now I won’t choose my favourite between your two children. I love them equally.
Thank you! I felt compelled to do the first one because literally nobody was speaking about (or for) femme gay guys, or if they were it was only derogatory. Gay guys were still terrified of seeming ‘too gay’ or too girly and I was constantly angry and upset about it. The straw that broke the camel’s back was seeing a ‘straight acting’ gay Facebook friend saying that Kurt from Glee (it’d just started) was setting back gay rights by years by acting so girly, and it sent me into a rage.

As well as using Nancy to vent, I also primarily wanted to put out a positive message, celebrating femme guys, telling them they were valid, beautiful and amazing – both as a call to action and to put out into the world the affirmation I was personally dying to hear.  It’s weird to me that in the space between Nancy #1 coming out in 2011 and now, people’s attitudes have shifted a load (I’m not putting that down to Nancy by the way haha) – you’d get slammed for saying anything bad about girly guys now; see Russell Tovey’s recent dragging. It’s far from all fixed and done but it’s vastly different from what it was – it’s actually a popular public opinion now to think boys can be girly if they want which is incredible.

What was the general response?
It’s been a slow burner, as with anything in the zine world. But over the years I’ve had amazing positive feedback from readers all over the world. People got in touch telling me that they’d been waiting to hear a femme positive message for the longest time and they were so grateful to finally hear it – which is all I ever really wanted for it! But honestly, I never expected I’d end up printing 400 copies of it.

Beyond that, I know it lives in archives and libraries all over the country and is used in zine talks at the British Library and Tate Library. I’ve been interviewed for blogs and books about it and on a recent trip to New York’s Printed Matter, I picked a copy of Queer Zines 2 (by Phillip Aarons and AA Bronson) and discovered a feature on it I completely forgot I’d submitted words for. I felt so moved to see it featured in a book so far away from home I burst into tears – given, I was still a bit jet lagged and I am a bit of a baby, but it was still really amazing to me.

While it was popular with queers, women and lesbians, weirdly, less gay guys engaged with it than I expected or hoped. I think there’s a general hesitance for cis gay men to dip into counter-culture or queer stuff which is sad and strange because there’s so much there for them. I can only guess that it’s because of a fear of not conforming or fitting in which I suppose I get.

Did you always intend to do more than one?
Yes! I didn’t intend for it to take me so, so long but life really got in the way. I had this huge feeling of guilt hanging over me for years but I kept not finding the time so I took a week off from my day job and worked on it fulltime until it was done. Also spurring me on was that popular opinion was catching up with me to the point where much more talented writers were making the points I wanted to make, but better and more eloquently than I ever could, so I wanted to get it out before it became entirely old news, ha. That said, some of the pieces have been rewritten and updated nearly every year since the release of the first one – and some even got ditched because my opinion changed.

Reading Nancy 2 was really powerful and – I have to say – pretty life changing for me. Even though I’ve thought about gender and constructions of gender, trans, fluidity, non-binary etc for years, you made me consider it in a deeper, more personal and profound way. This is such a personal zine. Would you describe it as a perzine (a zine from a personal perspective)?
Absolutely! Nancy is primarily a perzine because it’s really just about me and my tastes, experiences, interests and thoughts – I guess it’s 10% not because I talk more generally about queer culture, as well as film, and what I consider to be practical tips for buying dresses and stuff. Some people have been a bit shocked that I was so open about my experiences, emotions and thoughts, but that’s just how I am. Plus, personally, the things I find most moving and relatable are people’s lived experiences in their own words rather than abstract positions and theories (although there’s probably a sprinkling of those in Nancy 2 as well).

The biggest change for me since writing the first Nancy was realising that I don’t identify as male anymore, at least not entirely. Discovering the existence of non-binary was a huge deal for me – being able to escape the tick box of male/female has made my life a lot more liveable but getting to that point was surprisingly tough. At the same time as going through this, I grew a beard and cut my hair short which made my outward appearance more traditionally masculine and conformist than ever, which I also had a difficult time reconciling. I explore all that – AND MORE – in the zine so pick up a copy to read all about it!

I cannot urge people – of all genders – enough to do just that. It’s so incredible. Zines are such a great way of getting our work out there – DIY 4 EVA! What other forms of media, art and/or expression to you enjoy in terms of queer work, activism, documenting our stories?
To be honest, there’s very little I don’t enjoy about all forms of queer expression but I do have favourites obviously.

I love queer films and documentaries and religiously attend BFI Flare every year, consuming as many documentaries, shorts and features as I can. Due to the magical queer feels at the BFI during Flare, me and my friends actually refer to it as Queer Christmas.

Although they work in the zine format as well, I’m in awe of Rudy Loewe’s work. Their t-shirts, totes, prints and zines explore incredibly important topics of gender, sexuality, race, trauma and mental health. As well as just generally being flawlessly awesome, they’re totally a non-binary role model to me and I can’t recommend checking out their work enough.

Despite being hardly as covered as I’d like only due to financial constraints, I’m a tattoo fanatic and have a strict rule for myself of only being tattooed by queers and women. In terms of queer artists specifically, I love work of Uve The Kid, Jose Hates Life, Jo Slugggg, Clare France, and Emily Malice. I can generally recommend following the Queer tattooers account to find your own faves.

There’s a lot in the zines about how to safely express yourself in public and the real, actual dangers to being non-binary, gender fluid, trans* in the real world. I think this is something that’s not discussed enough. We see people coming out and being out there – but as you say in Nancy 2, this is often actually in the safety of our own spaces and on our private facebook feeds shared with trusted loved ones. I’m also thinking about Chris Crocker’s recent video about how he has to survive where he lives and how he doesn’t have the luxury of money and safety to transition as he’d like. Also Nando Messias’s The Sissy’s Progress which he made in response to being gay bashed in Whitehall. Do you think we need to talk about these issues more? About expression, safety, identity and how we are restricted by the realities of a phobic and dangerous society?
There needs to be so, SO much more conversation about femme expression and safety. Hate crime and murders of trans women of colour is disgustingly high. Femmes generally stand out and so are targets for those who are invested in the patriarchy, the oppression of women and the strict binary gender roles that enforce these. These attackers are terrified of the freedom we have that they were taught was wrong and couldn’t have, and so as with anything narrow minded people don’t understand, they want to stamp it out, whether that be through words or actual violence.

Shockingly, since Brexit (and Orlando), as well as the disgusting rise in racist hate, some of my femme friends have reported a rise in threatening homophobic and transphobic behaviour in public. It’s like all bigots have been given the green card to fling their previously obscured bile towards anyone who doesn’t conform or ‘fit in’ and it’s terrifying. The upside to all this awfulness is that it feels like marginalised communities are banding together, supporting each other and are more galvanised than they have been for years – at least that’s how it feels from my perspective and what I like to believe. It’s the one thing giving me much needed hope during these super dark days.

Spookily both Chris Crocker and Nando Messia are on my list of people I’m hoping to approach to interview for Nancy 3 (tentatively titled Nancys in Conversation) as I want to elevate other femmes’ voices and hear other peoples’ perspectives on the femme experience. Like I say in Nancy 2, I’m privileged in many ways and my life is so different from so many other femmes – so I desperately want to hear other people talking from a huge spectrum of experiences, especially marginalised peoples’ stories, so I’m hoping I can muster up the energy and time to make that happen.

Do you think there’s any correlation between femme-phobia of gay men and femme-phobia of gay women? Is it all about layers of misogyny or something more than that?
Misogyny absolutely always plays into all types of femme-phobia. It’s the damaging and overly antiquated idea that to be feminine is to be weak and passive and stupid – I was trying to avoid saying patriarchy again but it is AGAIN patriarchy’s fault.

The gay women I know don’t probably identify with either label necessarily but it’s an interesting question and one that I don’t feel entirely equipped to answer on behalf of gay women. I always actually assumed that the femme/butch labels meant that gay women were more open to people expressing their femininity and masculinity, especially in a way that gay men aren’t (as there aren’t even those labels available). But I’m sad to hear it’s not true; I totally get that femme-phobia probably works its way into everything.

I can’t remember which autobiography/book it was in (I think it was Jayne County’s but it could be Stone Butch Blues) but I was shocked to learn that in 60s America, before the wide spread conformity of the macho ‘Castro clone’ look that swallowed up most of the freedom of expressions for gay men, in the illegal gay bars, male pairing consisted solely of a masculine and feminine type of guy. So much so that if two feminine gay guys got together they were mocked as ‘lesbians’ by the crew at the bar. Obviously this dynamic obviously plays into stereotypes of man and woman probably like the whole “who’s the lady in the relationship” bullshit but it’s also really interesting to me that this was ever a thing as a dynamic that functioned and existed as it’s so vastly different from what it is now or what we’re told is possible/’normal’!

OMG I loved your illustration of Babs and Naked Mandy from Yentl. That film is curazy, isn’t it? I mean, it’s wonderful but it’s unlike anything else on the planet and every time I consider it I’m boggled that it ever got made. Is it perhaps the queerest film there ever was (in every sense of the word)?
Absolutely!!! I accidentally stumbled across it on late night TV as a teenager without any context, pre-proper internet, and the whole thing blew my mind. I explore this in the zine but the tense interplay of gender and sexuality is just so thrilling and felt like it spoke to me about my life in a way I never would have expected, and weirdly in a way I haven’t even properly seen explored in queer cinema!

Tell us about your distro Sister Ectoplasma
Sister Ectoplasma is a distro I setup a couple of years ago when I wanted to sell Nancy, and a few t-shirts and badges I made. At the time a lot of the queer-run distros were shutting down and a lot of people I knew were making amazing zines that I wanted to pull together and sell, so it just happened! I only stock zines made by women and queers and that’s hugely important to me. It’s really a labour of love as it takes a lot of work to maintain but it’s important for me to keep the zine dream alive, ha.

Your ‘Sissy That Walk’ Carrie gif set the Interweb alight when it was first put out there (how many years ago was that now?) but again when World Of Wonder posted it on their social media. Do you feel that you’ve made your mark in the world as a Meme-creator Superstar?
Ha! Yes! It totally started as something funny I made to make me and my friends laugh but it’s had nearly 18 thousand notes now on Tumblr and rising every day.

The only person I’ve ever known to be an actual Meme-creator Superstar is the hugely talented Simon Whybray who I’m in awe of. He’s constantly breaking the internet with his memes which usually spiral into internet history overnight. Meme-creator goals.

We both love Zener cards, right? Are you as obsessed with the 70s fixation with ESP and the supernatural as I am? (Perfectly embodied by Carrie and The Fury. Sigh, swoon.)
Absolutely! The occult generally is my first and eternal love and tools like Ouija boards and Zener cards are absolutely iconic to me. My goth leanings and aesthetic are entirely driven by my obsession with the supernatural and obviously Carrie is queen.

What is your favourite Mariah Carey song?
This is a toughy but I think it has to be Mariah Carey with Da Brat, Missy Elliott on the ‘Heartbreaker (Remix)’. I wish there was an uncensored version floating around but if there is, I’ve never heard it! Get in touch if you have a copy though!!

Argh, I’m with you – that video too!

Buy Nancy, Nancy 2, and other queer- and women-penned delights from Sister Ectoplasma

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