Good News Travels Fast: In Conversation with Dyke News Scotland

Should you find yourself in one of many queer or queer-adjacent spaces in Scotland – Category Is Books in Glasgow, the Lavender Menace Queer Books Archive in Edinburgh, Orkney Library or even Faslane Peace Camp – you may stumble across a stack of unassuming A4 booklets. Pick one up, and you’ll get a glimpse of thriving Scottish lesbian culture between its folded pages.

Dyke News Scotland was launched in late 2024, after the founder saw the Modern Queers newsletter and decided to create a local, lesbian-centric version. Now in its third issue, the newsletter is produced by an anonymous volunteer collective, printed in an Edinburgh apartment and distributed to over 30 venues across Scotland.

There’s an immediately obvious aesthetic callback to DIY queer publications of the past, from the lino-cut title banner to the affordably reproducible black-and-white format. The logo is a thistle wrapped around the labrys axe, an iconic symbol of radical lesbian movements of the 1970s. “I draw upon political artworks and propaganda,” says the designer, who particularly favours artists of the Mexican revolution. As for the title, emblazoned across the front page: “I want folk to see the word DYKE from a mile away.” 

“It was important for me to have something with ‘dyke’ in it,” the founder tells me. The word carries a strong history in political lesbian subcultures and reflects the project’s inclusivity. “The idea was to have something that's lesbian-centered but not lesbian-only,” she continues. “We don’t define it, because it’s for whoever identifies with it and with lesbian culture.”

Amidst the ongoing attack on trans rights, and particularly on trans women, the editors noticed more submissions relating to transness and trans-inclusivity in lesbian spaces. They feel they’ve never needed to explicitly state their political commitment to the trans community, as it emerges through the content they print: “It’s front and centre.” And despite narratives pushed by certain trans-exclusionary media figures, they’ve never experienced any pushback from readers – nor do they expect to.

With each callout, they sift through submissions of illustrations, comics, short essays, event advertisements, jokes, a surprising number of crosswords and – perhaps less surprisingly – tons of poetry. Compiling the newsletter, editorial decisions are guided by space and printing constraints above all else. “We think it’s important that it’s not super-polished, or super-perfect – that it feels approachable,” an editor explains. “There's been good and bad poetry in it, and that’s fine – you're allowed to have bad dyke poetry!”

The personals section is particularly sweet, with submissions from musicians seeking bandmates, people looking to set up a soup exchange, and single dykes looking for love. As of yet, no known romances have blossomed from the newsletter’s pages, although I’m told of friendships and a jam session. But, with more submissions, the team is optimistic: “I hope on some fateful Dyke News fetch quest that some lucky lassies will brush hands over a paper and their lives will never be the same!”

The print form offers an alternative to the over-saturated and often alienating world of social media. “I think it's quite lonely to be a lesbian when you're newly out,” one member reflects. “It's nice to have something you can actually touch.”

The newsletter ties its distribution list into a tangible, wide-reaching network of real-life queer meeting places. “I think a lot of what we're trying to show is proof of being physically close to your community,” an editor reflects. “And convince people that you can go out and be in queer spaces, because people are out there.”

The stores, bars, cafes and bookshops on the distribution list were chosen for the communities they serve. “Queers hang out in bubbles, and it's actually quite hard to reach those bubbles online,” says another editor. “People who might not see it online can still pick it up," another adds. "It's about catering to different kinds of queers.”

By nature it’s hard to know whose hands the newsletter ends up in, but the submissions give a sense of diversity in the readership, particularly the letters to the resident Agony Aunt. “I’ve had questions from young gays just coming out, but also from older dykes asking how to break into younger scenes,” she explains. Because of print’s accessibility, her column can bring together sometimes disparate sections of the community through shared struggles and experiences.

The next issue marks a year of Dyke News, but the team has no plans for expansion. Instead, regular small donations would enable the project to be stable, continuous, and sustainable in the long-run. “I like the idea that things don’t need to grow for growing’s sake,” one member says. “We're part of a broader ecosystem of grassroots queer projects – not trying to be the dominant thing is cool, because then more people can do similar things of their own.”

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Find out more about Dyke News Scotland on Instagram @dykenewsscotland; submissions for Issue 4 are open and donations are welcome