Gender Queer

This one has raised a storm of fake rage in the US states where book banning is the new normal. So I decided to check it out.

It's a graphic novel of a woman's memoir about growing up non-binary. She is three years old at the beginning when her family moves to a backwoodsy house with no electricity, water, etc. Her parents are kind of hippie but well educated. At the end of the book she is approaching thirty and considering top surgery.

Her life is one of continuing identity crises as she struggles to fit in but feels she is pushed into silence about herself. While I can see that the religious bigotry of the US would hate the book, it seems to me to fill a real need with young people trying to navigate their way through the minefield of opinions versus the emerging genetics and neuroscience of how bodies and brains are gendered in utero.

I picked this book for two reasons. First and foremost: the idea of a memoir written as a comic fascinated me. Secondly: I enjoy learning about others' life experiences and growing knowledge about people whose lives aren't the same as my own.

I didn't have any expectations, mostly because I couldn't wrap my head around the format. Then I actually started reading... and I didn't want to stop. Somehow, despite having no expectations whatsoever, I feel as if my expectations were both met and exceeded.

The art style was a little simple - except during the gorgeous special pages, which wove words and art together - but in a very charming and aesthetically pleasing manner; it felt nostalgic, though I can't for the life of me think of a comparison. The writing voice was friendly, emotional - not detached like so many other memoirs I've tried to read. And overall, the entire book was incredibly engaging. I never wanted to put it down, not even when I needed to sleep; the first thing I did when I woke up was finish it in one reading session. Which wasn't hard, by the way. The writing is snappy, quick. The visuals are easy to observe. Even, thankfully, the artsy combinations of words and imagery for special pages are very easy to follow and understand.

In case you haven't guessed, already: I loved the experience of reading this.

Gender Queer: A Memoir is a beautifully raw and engagingly honest look at Maia Kobabe's relationship with gender from a young age through presumably the present day. E paints the story of growing up without gender stereotypes - with a father and mother who both engaged in activities which were within and outside the expected roles of their genders - and the crushing way society's gender norms and preconceived notions tried to smoosh em into a box that didn't feel right once e started going through school. Not aware of the possibility of being nonbinary, e went through much of youth - and even young adulthood - struggling with being deemed a girl, not knowing there was another option, and trying desperately to be seen as just Maia rather than ‘Maia the girl'.



Some of Maia's struggles were deeply relatable to me, from being so disgusted and ashamed of having periods that e refused to go into public restrooms, didn't partake in particularly good sanitary habits, and had nightmares about it– to struggling with sexuality and realizing that, frankly, all the appealing parts of relationships were things e already had with eir best friend. Obviously, because I'm a bisexual, aromantic woman who very much isn't asexual and was fortunate enough to be assigned the gender I identify with at birth, not everything resonated on a personal level. I know how it feels to deeply resent the double standards of gender roles and hate everything shoved onto me by society as if I have to want kids, want a relationship, be feminine just because I'm a woman - but I don't know how it feels to not identify as female or feel like ‘girl' and ‘woman' aren't what I am. I know how it feels to be physically repulsed by a word used to address me - but for me, it's my real first name (no, I don't actually know why; I just am) and not a pronoun.

It isn't the same, and I'm not trying to say it is, but I am saying that the brilliant way Maia portrays eir struggles and triumphs radiates with strands of relatable content and very real, raw, human emotion and experience to the point that even the things I didn't have personal reference for were easy to comprehend, to empathize with, and to understand in ways I didn't before.

I think all memoirs should be written like this one. I know, that probably sounds a little weird, but I greatly enjoy Maia's narrative voice and this is the first memoir I actually feel gave me insight into the person who wrote it in a way which was engaging, fun, and not a total slog.

The only complaint I have - though I hesitate to use such a strong word, because it didn't particularly bother me - is that sometimes the timeline jumped around. A few times, the narrative went from Maia as an adult back to Maia as a preteen and such, and it'd take a panel or two to process that we'd been taken back in time to a memory sparked by discussing a later timeframe. It still worked overall, and both wording and art - Maia has a different appearance for different timeframes due to changes in personal style - made it easy enough to catch up after the momentary surprise of a non-linear tale. But it was a little bit unexpected, nonetheless.

Gender Queer is the most banned book in the US, and I was curious to see why. Well, I’m just embarrassed to be human. (Let’s stop pretending children don’t have genitals, shall we?)

Anyhow, this work is informative and helpful, full of relatable private moments we don’t often get a glimpse of in others.