In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
In Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe has crafted an intensely cathartic autobiography about eir path to identifying as nonbinary and asexual, and coming to eir family and society. By addressing questions about gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—the story also doubles as much-needed, useful, and touching guide.
Maia's story is an excellent exploration of gender exploration, the lengthy self-discovery process, and the challenges (and satisfaction!) that comes from trying to be accepted for your authentic self. The book contains many references to other great reading materials, and I've already pulled out tons of quotes when discussing these topics.
Highly recommend this book, whether you feel it relates to you, people you know and love, or just the world around you.
It is clear that Maia is vulnerable and open with the reader throughout. Maia provides great insight into the experience of gender nonconformity as a child, and this book is a quick important read for anyone with others in their life who may have gone, or be going through, something similar.
This graphic novel is among the greatest hits of the book banners who in the past few years have been berating librarians and threatening the freedom of others to simply read. As an autobiography, I can see how Gender Queer—with its absolute unveiled description of Maia Kobabe’s journey to eir realization of self—might be discomforting to some, but this work could be absolutely life-saving for young people in crisis or just struggling with putting into words who they are.
An impressive "graphic memoir." One of the few comic-book-style memoirs I've ever read, and one that I couldn't put down. I'm a slow reader and it only took me an hour or two to get through it. The illustrations are top-notch and the writing is engaging, as well. An important work that everyone should read and learn from.
Personal note on the research mentioned: Touching a Nerve, by Patricia S. Churchland.
An impressive "graphic memoir." One of the few comic-book-style memoirs I've ever read, and one that I couldn't put down. I'm a slow reader and it only took me an hour or two to get through it. The illustrations are top-notch and the writing is engaging, as well. An important work that everyone should read and learn from.
Personal note on the research mentioned: Touching a Nerve, by Patricia S. Churchland.
And today we are taking a look at the nonfiction memoir comic Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Originally published in 2019 by Lion Forge. There is very light nudity, about half real and about half suggested (with people contorted to cover everything controversial). This is a coming of age story so stuff like menstruation and other puberty developments do loom large at times. I would describe the author/artist person, but that seems to be the point of the book itself. The official description is as follows:
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, …
And today we are taking a look at the nonfiction memoir comic Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Originally published in 2019 by Lion Forge. There is very light nudity, about half real and about half suggested (with people contorted to cover everything controversial). This is a coming of age story so stuff like menstruation and other puberty developments do loom large at times. I would describe the author/artist person, but that seems to be the point of the book itself. The official description is as follows:
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity--what it means and how to think about it--for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
I guess the only part that I'm not really sure about is that last part, because as an afab person who isn't sure how I identify otherwise, I felt like some questions about what nonbinary is were raised but never actually answered. Not all questions for sure, but I think this is mostly related to my own continuing frustrations and not related to the book itself. Being about the same age as myself, there was a lot of myself and my friends that I saw in this narrative (both gender wise and other wise) which was fun.
The artwork was another real high point of this book as well. The farthest thing from aloof and/or melancholic, Gender Queer is colorful (although strictly realistically), full of all sorts of emotional energy, the page layouts are the skilled balance of varied and easy to follow. Even with a little bit of visual metaphor to express some of Kobabe's harder to explain feelings, I would recommend this as a very easy first comic to many people who are still holding out on books with pictures.
Gender and sexuality obviously take centre stage in this life story, less so class and race although Kobabe came across to me as fairly aware of eir place in the world as afab, white and not poor, which is much preferable to total naivete and ignorance.
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