Maia Kobabe: Gender Queer (2019, Oni Press, Incorporated)
240 pages
English language
Published Jan. 22, 2019 by Oni Press, Incorporated.
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.
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.
So thankful for Maia and eir work. I didn’t realize I needed the representation that I did. I think I’m used to always being kinda weird and unique, but it was really nice to see so much of my “normal” be kin to someone else’s. Let alone a cool comic maker’s.
Gênero queer, de Maia Kobabe, é uma história em quadrinhos voltada principalmente para aquelus 1) interessades em aprender mais sobre uma perspectiva de ser não-binárie, enquanto aliades 2) interessades em investigar uma perspectiva não-binárie porque estão considerando o serem elus própries. Portanto, sim, a autobiografia/memória é bastante didática, o que pode ser meio chato se você já é uma pessoa iniciada no assunto ou se está procurando algo mais literário ou profundo. Tendo isso em vista, é uma pena que tenha sido frequentemente banido de escolas nos EUA, porque é justamente o tipo de literatura que adolescentes gênero não-conformes e sues amigues gostariam de acessar.
Lendo com 25 anos, e já conhecendo algumas coisas dos debates de não-binariedade de gênero, eu achei o livro um pouco didático e bobo demais. Até meio simplista e muito fofo. Acho que já estou preparada para leituras um pouco mais maduras e adultas. …
Gênero queer, de Maia Kobabe, é uma história em quadrinhos voltada principalmente para aquelus 1) interessades em aprender mais sobre uma perspectiva de ser não-binárie, enquanto aliades 2) interessades em investigar uma perspectiva não-binárie porque estão considerando o serem elus própries. Portanto, sim, a autobiografia/memória é bastante didática, o que pode ser meio chato se você já é uma pessoa iniciada no assunto ou se está procurando algo mais literário ou profundo. Tendo isso em vista, é uma pena que tenha sido frequentemente banido de escolas nos EUA, porque é justamente o tipo de literatura que adolescentes gênero não-conformes e sues amigues gostariam de acessar.
Lendo com 25 anos, e já conhecendo algumas coisas dos debates de não-binariedade de gênero, eu achei o livro um pouco didático e bobo demais. Até meio simplista e muito fofo. Acho que já estou preparada para leituras um pouco mais maduras e adultas. Inclusive, senti que alguns debates ficaram criminalmente incompletos, como o diálogo de Maia com sua tia lésbica, que questiona se a não-binariedade de pessoas AFAB (assigned female at birth) não seria uma forma de misoginia. Mas de forma alguma isso significa que achei o livro ruim, apenas não sou o público-alvo.
Acho muito importante ressaltar que algumas das experiências relatadas por Maia no livro são experiências que eu compartilho com elu, o que me fez ficar os últimos dias procurando certos relatos e conteúdos em sites e fóruns na internet sobre transmasculinidade. Ou seja, mesmo eu achando a leitura em si um pouco superficial e iniciante demais, suscitou debates internos bem maiores em mim. Acho que no geral, vale a leitura, até para entender contra o quê o conservadorismo estadunidense vem atacando. Spoiler: dissidências de gênero e sexualidade estão no front.
I began to think of gender less as a scale and more as a landscape. Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. This is where I want to make my home.
I think this is the first graphic memoir I've ever read, and I absolutely loved it. As an AFAB non-binary person, it made me feel incredibly seen. My experiences with the complicated thing that is gender and everything that surrounds it haven't been identical, but there are so many things in this graphic novel that are still familiar, from all the embarrassing physicality of it, to the deep unease of …
I began to think of gender less as a scale and more as a landscape. Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. This is where I want to make my home.I think this is the first graphic memoir I've ever read, and I absolutely loved it. As an AFAB non-binary person, it made me feel incredibly seen. My experiences with the complicated thing that is gender and everything that surrounds it haven't been identical, but there are so many things in this graphic novel that are still familiar, from all the embarrassing physicality of it, to the deep unease of asking people to use my pronouns along with the deep unease of hearing the wrong ones, to constantly trying to find the right balance in a world that presents you with two types of boxes to sort yourself into—and none of them fits. It was strangely fun to see the common bits of cultural context the author and I share. All the slash fanfiction. Familiar bands. The mentions of NaNoWriMo. All of it made reading this memoir feel like sitting down for a chat with a friend. That's probably a big part of the reason I devoured it in a single evening. I should also mention the artwork: I found it lovely and unobtrusive. None of it was unpleasant to look at, except the several things that were supposed to be, none of it clashed with the writing, and none of it made me linger on it studying the details instead of turning the page to read on. That last one is part of the compliment. I think there are comics where you want the reader to pause and admire the art, and then there are the ones where you want the art to be just enough to keep them immersed in the story. This is clearly an example of the latter, and the art does its job beautifully. All in all, highly recommended to all my fellow genderqueer folx and to anyone who wants to gain a better understanding of what it can be like outside the gender binary.
