The Photo Book Taking a New Generation Into the 2000s Lesbian Underground

KUTT ran for three issues between 2002 and 2003 as a lesbian sister zine to the gay magazine BUTT. It used BUTT’s pink pages and tongue-in-cheek attitude to survey the dyke scene in Amsterdam and beyond. Copies became scarce over two decades, and demand increased as interest in the project returned. The contents were later collated into a new book to connect the cult title with younger readers. The reissue responds to nostalgia for tactile media among millennials and Gen Z, who are drawn to printed matter amid digital overload. KUTT’s name was a cheeky Dutch wordplay on BUTT, and the idea began as a bar joke that became serious. The first issue featured a cover with Chloë Sevigny, photographed by Martien Mulder.

"Before The L Word, there was KUTT: the short-lived sister zine to iconoclastic gay magazine BUTT. Lasting for just three issues between 2002 and 2003, the publication took BUTT's signature pink pages and tongue-in-cheek attitude and applied them to a survey of the dyke scene in Amsterdam and beyond."

"Over two decades on from its original run, copies of the magazine are scarce and in increasingly high demand. Responding to this reignited enthusiasm for the project, the contents of each zine have now been collated in a new book set to unite this cult title with a fresh generation of readers."

"“I think younger people are interested in printed matter, it's nice to make something printed in amongst this digital overload of images [on social media],” Gysel explains. In a social media-first era, print is often seen as a rarefied, elevated medium; but KUTT is a window into an era of queer publishing that was attitude-first and proudly DIY."

"“'Kutt' is like 'cunt' in Dutch” and the idea for the project wasn't coined in a boardroom, but in a bar. “I'm good friends with the guys who make BUTT. One night, in a bar, we had this idea of making a lesbian sister version of their magazine,” she explains. “It was a bit of a joke at the beginning, but it became serious.”"

Read at AnOther