We caught up with the brilliant and insightful They Call Us a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
They Call Us, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?
Morgan Kail-Ackerman was catcalled three times in one week while walking around Chicago. Street harassment was nothing new to her (this is the case for all gender minorities, unfortunately), but this one week put her over the edge. She was exhausted from constantly being a victim of harassment, and she wanted to do something about it. So, she spoke out. She first went to her friends, Kailah Peters (KP), Meg Harris, and Asko Skladany, who agreed wholeheartedly that enough was enough. It was time for us to come together and finally do something. Then, They Call Us was born.
We all met at DePaul, either through theater, dance, or creative writing. We all love to express ourselves through our discipline and felt like They Call Us could be a place to raise the voices of other people. The four of us came together and, using our strengths, created the magazine that you see today. Morgan does the design, Asko the illustrations, KP the editing, and Meg the social media.
We knew They Call Us would be a worthwhile endeavor because it helps raise the voices of other people. Feminists around the world can see their writing and art published for free. They are sharing in the tradition of being able to give their own perspective and fight against the voices that want to silence us. So many people have told us what this magazine means to them – it is a place of belonging. We are just happy to create a platform for unique and familiar stories to be shared.
What sets us apart is our Coven Congresses. At the beginning of our zine, in order to tell the story of as many people as we could, we held a meeting for any gender minority who wanted to come. We wanted to create a safe space for people to talk about how they felt in regard to their gender. The magical part: it took us three hours before we even mentioned men. There is so much more to being a gender minority than the existence of men, and it was a beautiful moment to have a space where gender minorities could share their struggles and feel seen. After our Coven Congress, we realized that our magazine could be exactly that: a place for gender minorities to feel safe, feel heard, and know that they belong.
We want nothing more than for you to read our magazine. Our voices are our weapons. This is a call to arms.
They Call Us, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
We are a coven of feminist artists based in Chicago, IL. Our team met each other at DePaul University and bonded over our mutual passion for gender equality. We were activists individually for many years before coming together to craft They Call Us. Morgan Kail-Ackerman, our designer, used her outspoken voice to write creative short stories and direct theatre performances to promote female representation in the arts. Kailah Peters (KP), our editor-in-chief, wrote, published, and performed poetry around the city, often discussing gender-based issues at large. Meg Harris, our social media director, participated in countless political movements in the city for women’s-rights, including organizing Chicago’s first Period Movement rally. Our illustrator, Asko Skladany, used their graphic and illustration skills, along with theatre performance talent, to advocate.
When we first brainstormed for They Call Us, we wanted it to be an amalgamation of all of our interests. A place where each of our forged paths in feminism could converge and be celebrated. But we did not want it to be just for us. If we were going to go through with this, it would need to be publicly accessible and open to all gender minorities.
The concept of the literary magazine bloomed from there. We created a logo, a website, and the prompt for our first edition: They Call Us Theirs. At the time, all of us were fed up with the catcalls, sexual harassment, and sexist bullshit that runs rampant in the city. I wish I could say such experiences are limited to Chicago, but every woman knows better than to believe that.
We were tired of feeling powerless, nonconsensually claimed by men who sought to exercise their power over us through sexual jeers. Essentially, men who saw us as “theirs”.
We wrote a prompt inviting gender minorities to share their experiences through the written word, visual art, and conversation. The first edition was meant to be a protest of sorts, not to argue with such oppressive powers but to let others know that they were not invisible or alone in their anger. Our voices are our weapons.
They Call Us Theirs launched on International Women’s Day on March 8th, 2020, mere days before the pandemic tore through our lives. We organized a launch party on the day. We strewn copies of the edition around the room and had authors published in the edition perform readings of their work. The three co-founders, Morgan, Meg, and KP, made speeches, and the rest of the night launched into side discussions about the edition, what people related to, and what they found interesting. At the time, there were only a couple dozen people in one of our apartments gathered around a couple bowls of stale chips, but by the end of the night, we knew we had something special. We had sparked something, and we had a feeling it would catch.
It was not long before we put out another edition, and another. Four years and thirteen editions later, we could not be prouder of the community we’ve built. We want our readers and contributors to know that They Call Us is our territory. This is where we can use our voices to name exactly how we experience judgment, beauty standards, sexual assault, workplace sexism, bonding, sisterhood, and all the above. There is no reason to make it pretty or polite. This is exclusive for us to claim exactly who we are. Everything else is just what they call us.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
A huge part of our philosophy as an organization is giving resources to our readers. They Call Us as creators are only composed of four people, and we are all the same age demographic and live in the Midwest. This gives us only a particular point of view, instead of a wide range of perspectives of being a feminist and gender minority in a patriarchal world. Feminists all over have their unique voices and perspectives to share, so we think it is important to include a list of resources in every zine we publish. At the end of each themed edition, we include a resource list to extend interest and knowledge in the topic so that feminists can get new perspectives, outside of just our own and guest artists and writers. We love writing our resource list and continuously updating it as we publish new zines.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Honestly, we are experiencing a period of resilience right now. Our lives have evolved and changed so much in the last four years. Collectively, we’ve grown our careers, moved to new cities, gotten engaged, and hiked the mountains of Peru. All of which is so rewarding but has meant that we do not have the capacity to grow our brand the way we first envisioned. Going into 2024 meant confronting our own limitations and being realistic about what that means for our beautiful magazine.
After much deliberation and planning, we are pleased to publicly announce that we are transitioning to producing in-person events! We are looking to sponsor a Coven Congress event this fall. Like our editions, the event will create a place for gender minorities to express themselves in their rawest form. We will invite people to gather in discussion, watch key performances from artists in the Chicago-land area, craft, set intentions for our gender equity, and engage in a ceremonial connection. Details are forthcoming.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theycallus.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/they.call.us/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@they.call.us.zine
Image Credits
Ellie Aldrich