Gender Queer
Ratings72
Average rating4.4
15
Ratings72
Average rating4.4
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.
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.
Reviews with the most likes.
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.
Loved the art and the honest and thoughtful self exploration, particularly as it shows it takes time, space, and learning to fully realize lots of pieces of yourself. A must for HS & public collections, this will be so validating for many readers.
when i first heard about this book i wasn't immediately interested, but given all of the controversy in the book world with bans and challenges i felt like i needed to read it just to see what all the fuss was about. this book deepened my understanding of pronoun choice, especially those that seem ‘outside the norm' (i.e. she, he, they). if anything, reading the book has moved me from a position of neutrality on the title to one of strong support. this is an important work to have available for those who need the ability to see themselves in a piece of work and for those who are seeking to better understand the inner lives of others.??
