Magazine Blueprint

I wrote this blueprint to launch a magazine, "TransIt," in Benoit Denizet-Lewis’s Magazine Publishing Essentials class in fall 2022. The blueprint covers the magazine’s name, concept, audience, competition, business plan, content examples, and more.

Mission Statement

TransIt is a gender-inclusive publication which exists to platform radical trans joy. By publishing the only magazine in print by and for and by trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming creatives, TransIt aims to move toward a queer future where Trans is It.

Naming TransIt

The name of my magazine is TransIt. I wanted a playful name and possibly one that plays on the word “trans.” Other names I came up with were Camp, byT4T, Transist, and NB. I decided Camp was too drag-focused. Though I want campy elements and to incorporate drag into the magazine, I didn’t want it to be the main focus. byT4T is a play on the magazine’s queer readership and authorship (“by trans for trans”) and the phrase T4T (trans person in relationship with/having sex with another trans person), but it felt clunky and not easily recognizable. NB is a play on nota bene and nonbinary but felt too academic for the playful, glamorous magazine personality. Transist, like Camp, was a close contender, but it ultimately fell short because of its similarity to “resist” or “persist,” which evoke a fight for trans rights and thus don’t mesh with the overall magazine personality.

TransIt feels right to me because 1) it’s a play on trans with the word transit, and 2) it evokes a sense of motion which applies to gender transition and also keeping up with trends. “Trans” and “It” together could be read as a command with trans as a verb (“Trans it!”), or as describing the new “it” thing, or as describing someone with it pronouns. The cons of the title are 1) it could out potential readers if they buy it or read it in public and 2) that it might be mistaken for a magazine about transportation. I hope TransIt’s extravagant covers would make the second con a non-issue. Conversely for the outing issue, I hope the title could carry a sense of clout in more queer-accepting cities and possibly be used for flagging/meeting new queer people/indicating safety in public spaces. However, a last issue is that some potential readers might not describe themselves as trans or transgender at all, or take issue with the title centering trans readers rather than, say, a nonbinary reader who doesn’t identify as trans. This is honestly a risk I’m willing to take/something I’m willing to get cancelled for.

There exist a Japanese travel magazine (only in Japanese except for the title) called Transit and a Berkley academic journal about migration called Transit, but for the purpose of the project, I decided to stick with the name anyway.

PrintIt

I made the decision to do a tri-annual print run of TransIt. I think this magazine has to be in print because the glamour, luxury, and self-indulgence associated with a glossy magazine cover meshes with TransIt’s personality. I understand that there is more risk and work associated with a print magazine, but I think there is inherent value in being able to pass something around or seeing something on a shelf beyond a nostalgic factor. The audience for TransIt is queer and hopefully safe enough soon to return to queer spaces. I’d want to make the magazine available to be physically in spaces like feminist bookstores, college libraries, and queer-friendly community centers. I want the trans joy of the magazine to be associated with being in trans community and vice versa.

A digital version of the magazine would also be available for free but would exclude high-profile, highly anticipated articles to encourage print magazine purchase. Publishing three times a year rather than every month or season would build anticipation for new releases and minimize the risk of financial loss in printing. To offset the initial cost, the magazine could build hype with a PR campaign directing to preorders of the first issue/ongoing subscriptions of the print magazine available to buy online. I also think the aesthetic-oriented, fashion-focused elements of the magazine would lend itself well to having a robust, well-designed merch store in the online magazine website which could launch before the magazine. This will be addressed further in the business plan section.

TransIt Audience

TransIt’s target audience is trans, nonbinary, and otherwise gender-nonconforming readers aged 18-35. An ideal reader is also interested in trans-centering fashion, entertainment, and culture. As of 2016—according to a study by UCLA and the CDC—trans adults make up .5% of the U.S. population; there are an estimated 1.3 million trans adults in the U.S. As of 2016, 1.3% of adults 18-24, almost 400,000 adults, identify as transgender. Also, the trans population skews young in the U.S., meaning more trans youth will become trans adults—and potential readers—in the next few years. If about a third of that 18-24 population are interested in reading a trans magazine, that leaves about 13,000 readers, not even considering readers in their late 20s or early 30s.

I believe this target audience is big enough to sustain the magazine. I think the magazine would be a small operation in the first place with low profit expectations. The magazine could be supported by a fraction of Them’s readership. Them, a comparable, general-interest queer and trans magazine garners 1.2 million unique viewers per month according to their media kit. Them’s audience is one that will likely also be interested in TransIt’s content. (More on overlap between Them and TransIt is below in the competition section.)

The section of Them’s audience who might also read TransIt is probably on the younger end of Them’s audience, about 18-35, in the Millennial and Gen Z range. They are fashion- or aesthetic-oriented and probably on Tumblr and/or TikTok. They might be a bit vain and are excited about the latest trend, but they also care deeply about their gender-queer friend group. They are excited about the future of gender. This population wants to see themselves on the front page—not necessarily a more androgynous copy-paste from Vogue or Cosmo, which they probably don’t read anyway. They feel invited by a glamourous, campy photoshoot where the trans subject is effortlessly cool and also having fun. This audience ultimately wants to see themselves happy.

I imagine a few different types of readers for TransIt. I think it might be picked up in person at a feminist bookstore by a 32-year-old, burnt-out nonbinary organizer in search of happy, uncomplicated trans media. It could be read online in the middle of the night by an anxious, closeted, 17-year-old trans woman looking for community. It might be subscribed to online by a bigender TikToker who does high-concept drag and is always looking for inspiration and wants to stay on top of avant-garde and draggy fashion trends. I don’t think it’s the responsibility of the magazine to cater to allies/cisgender readers, but they might also enjoy the magazine if they’re familiar with the language used.

Other media TransIt’s audience might enjoy are Gender Reveal podcast (interviews with gender-diverse people doing cool things), Alexis Hall’s queer romance books, season 14 of RuPaul’s Drag Race (the most trans season yet), and Grace Lavery’s incredibly weird memoir Please Miss. They might listen to Carly Rae Jepsen or MCR (I don’t know how to explain, but these are campy, glossy trans culture).

Different from Them

As a queer magazine, TransIt would be competing against Them, Autostraddle, Out, and The Advocate. Autostraddle relies on an audience mostly lesbians and queer women while Out and The Advocate are more general LGBTQ magazines that mainly host queer news (both currently have monkeypox sections in their banner menus). It seems like TransIt could mesh seamlessly into this space with Autostraddle, Out, and The Advocate, and possibly even do collaborative events, etc. TransIt would be directly competing with Them; both are trans-centered queer publications.

My main concern is differentiating from Them. I don’t think it’s an issue to have two magazines in the trans, queer space; I’d love for there to be more. My goal is to have a distinct, desirable aesthetic and personality that differentiates TransIt from Them. Our content would be less news-focused and motivated by the mission of platforming trans joy first, as opposed to Them’s landing page dominated by news. I know there are readers of queer fiction who prefer not to read about homophobia, transphobia, etc., and I assume they might be magazine readers if there was a space which didn’t focus on negative trans news as much as other magazines. It doesn’t align with my personal wishes/values to exclude news entirely, but I think it would make TransIt distinct from Them to have it last in a section menu, for example.

Our tone, aesthetic, and personality would be weirder and more niche than Them, supported by our unique merch and connection-creating efforts like Discord servers (stolen from Autostraddle) or a pop-up store/community space. I feel as though Them stands outside the community looking in (maybe because it’s owned by media giant Condé Nast); I want TransIt to feel like it’s made by trans people who want to confuse you a little, in a fun way.

Based on the business model, I could also advertise TransIt as distinct from Them because of its trans employee-owned business model (see business plan below), as opposed to Them’s Condé Nast ownership. It might appeal to a young audience to support TransIt as a grassroots trans artistic effort.

I could also see TransIt competing with a magazine like Cosmopolitan or a media company like Buzzfeed based on the content I’ve come up with below, but neither (nor their competition) center trans and queer people like Them does or like TransIt would, leaving an open space in the market.

Business Plan

I would like TransIt to be employee-owned and not profit-motivated. If we have profits, they would go toward growing the magazine’s staff and reach, then toward raising employee salaries and providing more employee benefits once TransIt has a robust, full-time staff and advertising/PR/creative budget. To start, I don’t think anyone would be full-time. Ideally, TransIt would start with me, one or two staff writers, a print and web designer, a PR/advertising/social media manager, and a (contract?) finance person. We could hire freelancers as the magazine gains traction to supplement the magazine content.

I plan on generating revenue by 1) print sales (negligible), 2) advertising and sponsored content, 3) an exciting merch store, and 4) a pricing plan to access the exclusive print content digitally.

I plan to reach out to independent brands who emphasize gender-inclusive or unisex aspects of their products. For example, I would reach out to inclusive, queer-friendly online sex stores (like Babeland, Good Vibes, and Lovehoney), unisex fragrance producers (like Imaginary Authors, Boy Smells, and Thin Wild Mercury), and clothing companies for gender-nonconforming communities (like Both&, GWBB, or Lucky Skivvies). I would reach out to these brands with sponsored content ideas like featuring toys from Lovehoney, for example, in a collection of essays about gender and intimacy. I think fragrance would be well-suited for sponsored print content like a gift guide or a favorite fragrance roundup; print offers the option of including a fold out sample.

The TransIt merch store would feature standard merch items (totes, baseball caps, t-shirts, posters, keychains) with a pop-art-ish designs featuring trans bodies and unique phrases. My inspiration is by users bedroomculture and SubversiveNematodes on Etsy. They have more block-printy, DIY styles than I have in mind, but this is the type of content I would want to sell on merch. I think these unique designs would draw in more customers and readers than standard, now-cliché LGBTQ slogans. As much as I love Autostraddle, their rainbow “Queer as Fuck” pins or scissoring tees don’t “cut” it for me. I think Them’s merch store is cool, but it leans very heavily on their “One of Them” phrase.

TransIt content would be free online, but the online version wouldn’t include exclusive print articles. I would implement a VIP plan for readers to be able to access the exclusive articles online so as not to lose readers for whom digital is their preferred reading platform.

TransIt Content Examples

Entertainment

This longform profile would follow Willow Pill, transfem winner of season 14 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and talk about the relationship between disability and gender and also how she comes up with her ridiculously campy drag. Because of Willow’s popularity in drag and trans spaces, this could be a perfect article to include exclusively in the print version and online VIP membership.
This article would be a staff member interview of Issac Fellman, the author of Dead Collections, a novel about a trans vampire archivist published with Penguin earlier this year. The interview would explore Fellman’s blog, the relationship between vampires and transness, and publishing success.
This review would cover Dashaun Harrison’s 2022 nonfiction Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness in which Harrison examines how fatness, race, and gender nonconformity intersect. If I were to write the review, I would contrast the book with Sonya Renee-Taylor’s The Body is Not an Apology and examine how the books reflect different stages of fat justice (un)learning. Though Harrison’s framework isn’t always accessible to those who don’t read theory, I think this book is a timely and necessary one to celebrate the trans Black fat.
This review would cover Amazon’s movie Anything’s Possible, a high school romance with a trans woman lead. I imagine the review would initially be playful and poke at the high school drama plot holes, then shift to talk about the question of representation. If “anything’s possible,” why not a T4T romance, etc.?

Community

This profile of organization Southern Fried Queer Pride and its founder Taylor Alxndr would highlight how trans, queer communities thrive in the Deep South. This profile might speak to readers who don’t live in queer hubs and show that not all trans joy is found in those hubs.
This column would be written by a staff writer or freelancer who is a parent who is trans, or who is parenting a trans child. This could be a lighthearted column with silly things the kids say, odd gender explanation situations, etc. The writer could write under a pseudonym to preserve the privacy of the child(ren) in question. This column could appeal to the older, early thirties end of our audience.

Beauty

An Emo Femme Breaks Down Gerard Way’s Concert Outfits: This article could playfully report on MCR’s Gerard Way’s gender nonconformity while appealing to an emo/nostalgic/music-focused trans audience. I just made up who would write it—maybe would be more effective with a celebrity name.
Our Favorite Unisex Scents of 2022: I think the Beauty section is more Buzzfeed-y in that it includes listicles and roundups. This article could be an opportunity for sponsored content in partnership with fragrance brands who focus on gender neutral scents.
We Tried and Ranked 10 Packers: This article is obviously more playful, especially since it will include images, but it also speaks to a need for content that isn’t being made. I’ve seen binder roundups, but maybe there’s something taboo about packers that other magazines won’t touch.