The Radical Queen: Magazine of the Non-Man

The Radical Queen was a zine that Cei Bell and Tommi Avicolli Mecca cofounded in Philadelphia in 1973 for drag queens, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people. Many gay liberation movements of the 1970s, such as Gay Activists Alliance, were not necessarily welcoming of femmes, drag queens, transgender, or other gender-nonconforming people. At the same time, several factions of the feminist movement were also opposed to drag and transgender identities. Groups like the Radical Queens critiqued masculinist values in gay culture, embraced feminist values, and tried to make political and cultural space for gender-nonconforming people.