Tara Sypniewski: Nurturing Ottawa’s Trans Community Through Zines, Activism, and a Library of Hope

Tara Sypniewski and the team that runs the Ottawa Trans Library (OTL) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, have begun printing The Dragon Flyer, which publishes work by the library’s staff and community members. This publication is a zine, a form of print media defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as "a noncommercial homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and unconventional subject matter."

The Dragon Flyer project follows a tradition set by Sypniewski, a transgender activist and writer based in Ottawa who was part of early leadership for the group Gender Mosaic and published her own series of zines—Triple Echo—as well as briefly running the zine Notes from the Underground. Arts Help had the opportunity to sit down with Sypniewski to discuss the creation of the OTL, and her experiences of early transgender activism and zine-making. 

Sypniewski’s community involvement dates to the late eighties with the creation of a group for transgender Ottawa residents (mostly transgender women) called Gender Mosaic. The zine Notes from the Underground came from this collective, led initially by Sypniewski. The first edition was two pages, started and finished in a day in December 1988, the same year that Gender Mosaic was founded. The zine provided an introduction to the group, which, at the time, was called “New Ottawa Women,” or N.O.W. Tara Sypniewski’s impact on Ottawa and Canadian transgender communities embodies the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of Reduced Inequalities. 

Pointing to a sketch of the words “Notes From the Underground,” Sypniewski said that she had scrawled them out to look like someone had written it on a wall. “Kind of revolutionary,” said Sypniewski. She added off-hand that she had been inspired by the style of the Polish Independent Trade Union movement logo “Solidarność”, meaning solidarity in Polish.

In her early years as an out transgender woman, existing openly and with other transgender people was a much more fractured experience. She began to find other transgender people in Ottawa in 1980: a handful of residents in a red brick walk-up apartment on Laurier and off the office of the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library. This building has since been torn down. 

Sypniewski recalled the small-scale beginnings of Gender Mosaic, which in 1988 had only six members. However small in numbers they were in the initial meeting, the community grew with dedicated members who created the group’s strong foundation. They were, in Sypniewski’s words, committed. They showed up, and she continued to show up until thirteen people attended, then fifteen and even more. The collective survived for thirty-five years. 

A few years after the founding of Gender Mosaic and after taking over as the group's second president (she held the role for two years), Sypniewski created Triple Echo. This new zine was independently produced for several years from the late 90s to the early 2000s. It included remarkable compilations of interviews, coverage of queer and trans issues, short comic strips and lists of resources.  

In our talk, Sypniewski gushed about her favourite issue and favourite article, where she interviewed and wrote about Micheline Montreuil, a Quebecois woman who is known for her legal battles in 1997 against the Registrar of Civil Status of Quebec, as she was prevented from legally changing her name to Micheline. As reported in a later edition of Triple Echo and Micheline Montreuil’s personal website, her request was finally granted in November 2002 by the Court of Appeal of Quebec. According to Micheline Montreuil’s website, as of 2011, the Registrar of Civil Status gave her her third first name, Helene. 

Throughout these years of publication, Sypniewski also took the chance to write about the award-winning activism of Gender Mosaic’s 1999 president Joanne Law, the experience of Beijing bar-owner and transwoman Jin Xing, conservative psychiatric responses to transgender identities and many other stories. The final issue of Triple Echo was released in 2003. “As the lights go out on Triple Echo, I thank you all for your support. Be proud, be visible and above all, be strong,” Sypniewski writes in the article “Closing Time” on the final pages of the zine. She added that she hoped the next four years would be better than the last four, which they proved to be for the Ottawa community.

Although it was not in the years directly following the final edition of Triple Echo, a couple of decades later, Sypniewski threw herself into a new idea that would become the Ottawa Trans Library. The OTL was originally intended for the exchange of texts but naturally evolved into a space facilitating community events. Many community members, alongside Tara, feel as though the OTL has always been a city staple, even though it was only brought to life two years ago. “People sort of assume that it’s been here forever,” Sypniewski told Arts Help. 

Despite its seeming permanence, Tara Sypniewski had only created a budget from personal funds for two years. Through regular Patreon donations, the two-year fund was able to stretch further. However, they still rely on some external funding to keep the space and programs running. They’ve recently added a poster with donation information to their website.

Tara Sypniewski stands along major roots of Canadian trans history, one that she has had a personal hand in maintaining. Not only has the Ottawa Trans Library emerged from these roots, but so has a community forming a platform for the next generation to stand on. If we continue with this metaphor, we not only have a tree from the roots but also a treehouse.