It’s finals week at Kent State University in Ohio, and while other students are studying and wrapping up final projects, the editors of Fusion magazine, an LGBT-focused publication published each semester, are scrambling to get the word out about the Spring 2011 issue.
That’s because earlier this month, three printers in a row turned down publishing the magazine. The first two—Freeport Press, Inc., in Freeport and Hess Print Solutions in Brimfield—told Fusion that it was uncomfortable with printing some of the material. The third, Davis Graphic Communication Solutions in Bamberton, could not fit the publication into its printing schedule for the month. The student journalists did finally find a press with Printing Concepts in Stow, but with higher publication costs and other complications, Fusion was forced to pay $2,000 more than they had budgeted for the issue.
Freeport Press and Hess Print Solutions cited multiple points of discomfort with the magazine, including the publication of words they’ve called offensive, like “fag,” “queer” and “dyke,” but the largest source of contention seemed to be an eight-page photo spread featuring boys in women’s clothing and girls in men’s clothing. The spread features a large, bold headline that reads “Gender Fuck’d” and an image of a guy in a leotard where you can very vaguely make out an outline of his genitals.
Campus Progress broke the story last week, and since then, tons of news outlets, including the Huffington Post, have reported on the case of press censorship. But it appears as though the story’s being skewed to be represented as a case of homophobia or transphobia instead of a discussion about profanity’s place in magazines.
The headline for the Campus Progress and HuffPo stories says “Three Printers Refuse to Publish Kent State LGBT Student Publication, Citing F-Word, Images of Cross-Dressing,” which paints the situation as an LGBT discrimination problem. But neither of the two printers that rejected the content cited cross-dressing as something they were uncomfortable with.
Raytevia Evans, a first-year journalism and mass communications graduate student, is the editor-in-chief of Fusion this year. She said that Freeport Press has been publishing Fusion for years without disputing the content, although previous issues have contained the F-word. She explained:
They always knew that Fusion dealt with gay and lesbian issues and that specific community. So I’m actually not comfortable at all saying that it’s an issue of homophobia. I’m definitely not positive that’s the issue. A lot of people suspect it, and of course, we do somewhat as well, but we’re not 100 percent sure.
Simon Husted, who will serve as editor-in-chief of the publication next year, also said he didn’t think this is a case of discrimination.
I’m not so convinced it was a homophobic thing as much as some other people are. I know some people are making really big claims like that, but I don’t really agree with it.
Freeport Press told Fusion editors that if they removed the appearances of the F-word and blurred the outlined male genitalia, there would be no problems in printing. Evans and the rest of the Fusion staff, however, saw the changes as interfering with the message of the spread. Evans said:
If we changed the wording of the title, the audience wouldn’t exactly get it. That’s the common phrase that’s used in the community—“gender fuck.” That’s our target audience, and they would immediately know what we were going for. We just thought that would be the right phrase, and it shouldn’t be changed just because someone’s uncomfortable with it.
Discrimination against the LGBT community is never OK, and censoring free expression of gender identity and sexual orientation shouldn’t happen. At the same time, it’s easy to paint a business as homophobic even though that may not necessarily be the case. In this situation in particular, there’s not enough evidence to insinuate that Freeport Press and Hess Print Solutions were trying to censor the cross-dressing material.
That doesn’t mean that there’s not an interesting conversation that comes attached to this controversy. But instead of debating the appropriateness of the LGBT material, we should be talking about where the F-word belongs in print and whether it’s right for a press to deem all material in a publication profane because it contains a curse word.
Did the “Gender Fuck’d” headline merit the two printing companies from rejecting Fusion’s content? Or is the F-word appropriate in this, and other, instances?
(Photo: Fusion)
The problem is untoward censorship. Expression deluted is not expression of the author but expression of the censor. Fuck has a strenght oe comprehension andemotionality. A “nanny” is not in the best interest of the community as free speech is one of our most cherished rights. A printer holds the same position as a resturant in the day refusing to serve the public is discrinination.
The idea that the question here is about the use of the “f word” is disingenuous when coupled with statements made by the people involved citing discomfort regarding cross dressing. To say there is no discrimination when a press previously accepted the magazine with the word fuck in it but now will not is definitely a sign of discrimination. I don’t know that I would call it homophobia, since they did previously work with the magazine, but I would cite discrimination against genderfuckers and crossdressers and potential transphobia. And yes, that is an accepted term that is very familiar to… Read more »