This was initially supposed to be a comic essay posted in June, however I decided to post it as is since I was temporarily hospitalized when I intended to post it. Please forgive typos and poor wording.
Part One: A brief overview of the book
I read the wonderfully illustrated memoir comic Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe (e/em/eir1), and it rocked my world. I’m going to be vague about the book as I want people to read it for themselves. I believe that people who are trans, rethinking their gender identity, have trans friends or relatives, or want to be a better ally should read Gender Queer. Kobabe’s memoir is brutally honest, cushioning the blow with pastel illustrations, using color to effectively paint the mood and in simple language that anyone can understand. Kobabe, unlike many trans people, freely lived a life in which e lived freely played with gender non-conformity. Kobabe having a largely supportive family and friends eliminated the need to hide from those close to em, something most trans people must do while growing up. E illustrates the conversations e has with eir family and friends in a frank, honest matter that is more intimate than you can get in the written word alone. I find this depiction to be important for both trans people and for cisgender allies. For the trans people, to serve as a reminder that yes, you can have friends and family who love you for who you are, and for cis people to show how to be more supportive. Kobabe’s memoir focuses on eir gender identity but also touches on eir sexuality. It is important for allies to understand that for queer and questioning people, sexuality and gender identity is complex, and that when we are exploring these aspects of ourselves that you be patient and open-minded, something that Kobabe illustrates throughout the book as a great boon, in direct contrast to the deluxe edition’s introduction by ND Stevenson:
It's not easy being a young person in the South – and my own experience is limited because I never actually had the nerve to come out when I was living there… My mom would drive me and my siblings on weekly trips to the public library; there we’d stuff tote bags full of books, then surrender them to her so that she could evaluate them for any content that was not allowed [such as witchcraft, depictions of rebellion, romance and sexuality]. … I’m so grateful to have come to Gender Queer as an adult… it’s healed the broken heart of that odd little kid scouring the library shelves for books about genderbending shapeshifters and trying to read as much as possible before being caught. (Stevenson, Gender Queer, 2021 3-5)
In 2022, Gender Queer was listed by the American Library Association as the most challenged book of that year (1). States such as Texas, North and South Carolina and Virginia have had the books pulled from library shelves (2), leaving many people unable to access the book. A bit of a content warning here: among the concerns people had was the depiction of period blood and sex between consenting adults. The blood talk takes up about 8 pages, but those pages are largely illustration and is over as quickly as it starts. Even the most conservative of parents can’t ignore blood when speaking about menstruation, although I do understand the discomfort with blood in general. As for the sex acts in the book, Kobabe’s illustrations are nothing like the indulgent and lascivious art of pornography, in which said lascivious and indulgent framing is meant to titillate sexually. Kobabe’s illustrations merely serve as a visual to explain eir experiences with sexuality, something that teens with (or without) sex drives crave to understand. (If you tell me you’ve never once looked at porn as a teenager, the chances that you are lying are fairly high.) I feel that Kobabe’s anecdotes about sexuality are important for everyone to see, and e does so in a tasteful and relatively chaste manner.
If I had read Gender Queer as a kid, things might have started to fall in place. If my peers had read it as kids, they might have gained some understanding of gender, sexuality and how to navigate the complicated feelings of people who have not-straight, not-cisgender sexuality and gender identity. I would have understood my discomfort with femininity and my comfort in media that had appeal for any gender and in media that showed gender non-conformity, as well as help better curate my fascination with human interaction and how we experience life. My peers might have understood better that they needed to be as patient and understanding as Kobabe’s friends and family were. I hope sharing my experience with gender convinces you to read this book, and to my cisgender peers, I hope you leave with answers to questions about the non-binary and trans experience.
Part Two: How Kobabe’s words helped solidify my identity.
As with most other transgender people, my gender journey begins at childhood. I was your average little girl who did enjoy dolls and playing house, but as I grew older, I realized that I wasn't just interested in girly things and was not interested enough to continue pursuing what I viewed as feminine games such as Double Dutch, playing house and playing with dolls. Unfortunately, I don't remember most of my childhood and only remember half of my adolescence, but I do remember changes happening in what I enjoyed doing. I began to gravitate towards video games, comics, manga and anime. My adolescent years from middle school and throughout high school, I was consumed by watching let’s plays, drawing, Newgrounds animation and flash games, and reading comics, typically manga and web comics. I believe now looking back that the reason I gravitated so heavily towards such media was a sense of freedom from gender expectations. For example, the anime Naruto has mixed gender teams and prominent women in positions of power, where in typical American media, all ninjas are male presenting with women as damsels. Seeing the protagonists of Tokyo Mew Mew, a magical girl manga, fight with immense power and femininity made me feel comfortable knowing I could do masculine things, like fighting, and still have my femininity peek through. The transformation thing practically writes itself; transitioning between glamour and average life is appealing in its own right.
At around 15 or 16, I recall at points feeling like I didn't fit in with most other girls. While I had a “not like other girls” phase, there is also some evidence where I began to feel uncomfortable with being a girl in general. I felt that in order to be loved by my father, who would make fatphobic remarks about my mother and women in general, I would need to be male to avoid the derision. I never felt like I was shaping up to be a woman, so I would think from time to time what manhood would bring, but never wanted to full-on swap gender. With my friends, we would playfully create gender swapped versions of ourselves, which brought me more comfort than I thought possible. At one point, I even invented a character with the gag that nobody quite knew what gender they were (I had no idea at the time about Pat, an SNL character with the same gag). Prior to that, I used to write about a boy named Sam who had long hair and got mistaken as a girl. Retrospectively speaking, I think the last two nails in the coffin that sealed my philosophy about the arbitrary nature of gender was “shemale porn,” and drag. Seeing shemale porn and futanari hentai — as I understood them to be called at the time and won’t be using henceforth — depict transgender porn actors and transgender or intersex animated characters prominently and I remember thinking: “huh, neat.” I didn’t view them as men pretending to be women, just that these were people who were women and they had penises. This is also probably why I was enamored with RuPaul’s Drag Race and why the movie To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar became obsession of mine (yes, that is the full title of the movie). The performative nature of men dressing as women struck a chord in me. And naturally, like most of my childhood, I completely forgot about it.
In my early 20s, while I was working retail and right before the pandemic, I met a transgender man for the first time, who we will call M. I thought absolutely nothing of his gender identity, but seeing somebody boldly be their authentic self had planted the seed in which I began to question and doubt myself, recalling vividly that while I didn't feel comfortable in womanhood, panic struck me that I would have to fundamentally change myself. At the time, the conclusion I came to was that I was simply a very masculine woman after a conversation with M about how the rules are flexible. I wasn't quite aware about non-binary gender yet. M continued to do feminine things from time to time but largely felt comfort in his masculine presentation. I thusly concluded that I was cis, but masculine, continuing my existence in blissful ignorance and denial, burying the seed of doubt that I was anything other than a woman. Then, early on in the pandemic, I discovered a fledgeling transgender political streamer, Demonmama, who often discussed the matters of gender identity and had joined her Discord server, where many of the people were trans. I remember asking if I could paradoxically be both cisgender and non-binary and vaguely gestured to not wanting myself to be viewed as “spicy cis,” a derogatory phrase for non-binary and genderqueer people, or a “transtrender,” a derogatory phrase for trans people as a whole. The answer I got was a swift no; if you feel discomfort with your assigned gender at birth and desire to or pursue moving away from that gender, you are trans, period. With more discussions of gender as a spectrum, how medical transition isn't needed to be a “true trans”, gender non-conformity and the deconstructions of masculinity and femininity, I eventually concluded that I was… a very passionate ally and that maybe, I am just a gender non-conforming person, but very cis and very not trans. The camel’s back finally gave way in 2021 with Abigail Thorn’s video “Identity: A Trans Coming Out Story” and her subsequent coming out. Her video made me cry deeply, seeing someone so beautiful. She glowed with such joy and beauty that I finally broke and accepted that I am indeed non-binary and the elation of not having to be stuck to whatever arbitrary binary label felt liberating. I use two sets of pronouns, they and she, while living what I describe as 95% ungendered gremlin who dresses gender neutral and 5% pretty lady dressing up as a poor man’s emo/punk Aphrodite.
Now, happily out to my found family, reflecting once more after reading this book, I hope my story helps you understand just how brutal it is to be constantly wondering how you fit into the world of gender. I feel that Gender Queer has the power to make people self actualize and learn. Despite being out for about 3 years now, it has helped me understand both my trans peers and myself a little more. It’s a shame that the censorship of queer voices is taking over the 2020s. I urge cishet people to support queer literature, repost queer experiences, ask questions when you don’t know, and keep your mind open. To the young queer people, I say to you that you always have room to grow, even well past your teen years.
Bibliography
Gender Queer: Deluxe Edition, 2022
These are neo-pronouns. You use them as you would she/her/hers and he/him/his. To the best of my knowledge is, e pronounced like the letter “E,” em as in “them” and eir as in “air.”