Meg-John BarkerReviews

This wasn’t a history of queerness or queer people, but rather something akin to the historiagraphy of queer academic theories and their intersection, over time, with other emergent schools of thought like critical race theory and feminism. Accordingly, I find it hard to call it a history at all, as queer people were absent (a bit ironic, as there is an emphasis on queer is doing rather than being). The only “people” were the authors of the various theories. Told in news-bite sized text with illustrations, which helped break up the tedium of academic jargon, I struggled to be drawn in.

This book is really eye-opening. There were so many concepts i never knew existed, and now I have the basic tools to examine them in my own life!

When I first picked up this book, I thought it would be more about "this is what being gay is" type of information than about sex itself. However, the two are intrinsically linked, so I should've realized sooner.

I absolutely love the section on solo relationships. It made me think a lot about my own personal life and wants.

There is so much information to chew on, I definitely think I need some time to digest it and will need to come back for seconds (and thirds) in the future.

I picked up this book because I absolutely love Queer: A Graphic History. After reading this, I'm excited to read more if their Graphic Guides.

There was definitely more text on the page than in Q:AGH, but this subject has a lot more nuances and contradictions than what is covered in Q:AGH, so it's understandable.

I was surprised at how much I didn't know before reading this. For example, I had never heard of polygender before, but it makes sense that it exists. I'm grateful for this guide providing me some much needed education.

Solid intro and/or review of Queer Theory. Impressed by the amount of information covered in such a short book. Great jumping off point to learn more.

Included in a blog post and resource list at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/06/10/non-fiction-about-gender-and-trans-e...

Included in a blog post and resource list at https://booksbeyondbinaries.blog/2019/06/10/non-fiction-about-gender-and-trans-e...

This is an interesting look at the discussion around Gender that is going on at the moment, I'm sometimes wary about some books like this because often they seem to create more rigid boxes for gender and gender expression but this one does look at the topic and ask a lot of questions. It's a worthwhile read as a starting place.½

Life Isn't Binary has, without a doubt, been one of the greatest books on gender, sexuality, race, ability, creed, etc. that I have ever read; which means you should read it too! This book is a quick and easy read and will serve as a great entry for anyone who is looking for a better way to understand not only gender and sexuality but all other identities from a non-binary point of view or for anyone who just wants an easy book to help them understand their own identity better. I thought that this book would primarily be about gender but the authors touched many different other things as well and even discussed topics I have never heard of before (i.e. ecosexuality).

This book was fantastic and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a better way to understand the world around them.

This is a good place to start learning about queer history and theories. Some of it I already knew, but I did learn a few new ideas as well. This also fit a category for the Book Riot Read Harder challenge.

Gosh darn it, I did not want to rate this book so lowly, but it's entirely my fault. I read Erica Moen's glowing review of this book all the way back in 2016 and I guess I forgot (a lot of) the details over time, because I went into this book expecting something very different from what it is.

Based on that subtitle, "A Graphic History", I anticipated a comic-style format introduction to the history of queerness, of being queer, in society throughout history. Instead, Barker and Scheele give us a crash course in queer theory, largely as an academic discipline with only a side order of on-the-street LGBT feelings about some ideas--such as the changing perception of "queer" as identity, slur, and reclaimed term.

The format is very different from what I expect when I see the word "graphic"--not panels, but large illustrations that take up most of the page, with the explanatory text shoved up at the top and the bottom in regular font. The illustrations are occasionally helpful illustrations of abstract concepts--and there are a lot of abstract concepts--but they're often just pictures of critical theorists, and these pictures are recycled any time these theorists come up. I might not critique that in a book more like The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, but in that book there more small pictures breaking down and illustrating concepts step-by-step. Queer, while it has the significant benefits of being concise and friendly-looking, does not take advantage of the illustrated format. Even with just a few paragraphs a page, I found my brain floating in space with the kind of "mind blown" feeling that's more like "exploded into bits" than "expanded understanding."

In other words, this book requires work. Not a problem, just waaaaay out of left field compared to what I expected.

Now that I've adjusted my expectations, I'm going to go back and start again. A chief and--I cannot stress this enough--significant strength of this book is how very concise it is. I can tell that these concepts, as difficult as I may find them on an evening where I wanted something lighter, have been boiled down to the basis. I found the first third of the book and approachable and friendly walk through of more basic concepts, like intersectionality. It was only when we started wading into the weeds of which academic/thinker said what that it started feeling really dense, at which point the conciseness was what saved me from being totally lost.

So I do recommend this book--but only if you, unlike me, do your research and know what you're getting into. Fortunately I got lucky and found my copy on the $1 cart at Strand, so I feel like I got a great deal for what is, essentially, a light-but-meaty academic book.

(Here's another case where I'm not sure what to do about the star rating. The two is for me, personally, not for the quality of the book itself.)

((I'm so far behind in reviews... Might just have to do ratings for some of them, sadly.))

a graphic history about queer theory manages to make high academic thought accessible to anyone. having no background in any queer theory this book managed to be a nice introduction to the topics as a whole. it really made me want to take a class or two about queer theory!

Even a popular treatment of queer theory is necessarily dense and heady, and I'll have to look at this more times so I can absorb it further. At the moment my mind is blown by the notion of homonormativity.

This book is a collection of writings by nonbinary people, about their lives as nonbinary and how their identities intersect. It is a very moving book, definitely worth a read. I am nonbinary, which made it a particularly emotional read for me, but I think everyone, cis or trans, binary or nonbinary, should read this book.

The pieces of writing are all very personal, it really feels like you're getting to understand the writers and their identities and lives. Some of the pieces occasionally take on a more informative tone, which, given that this book is talking about topics that not everyone knows much about, is helpful. I know there was some information about queer history and feminism that I didn't know much about, despite being both queer and a feminist myself. Each piece of writing shows a different person's journey to their identity. There are so many different ways to be nonbinary, and so many ways to figure out that you are nonbinary, and I think this book does a really good job of showing that.

I particularly liked that the writers are a very diverse group. There are stories that talk about religion, disability, being a person of colour, and how those things affect the person's identity and story. One of them, focusing on disability, really moved me, because it rang very true to my own experience. This is a good book to read both to learn about other people but also to see yourself in the writing as well. Older nonbinary people have voices in this book, which is incredibly important because it often gets seen as a phase, just teenagers 'trying to be special'.

I found the chapter about a nonbinary child, written by a nonbinary parent, particularly moving.

There is a nuanced discussion about definitions and language at the start of the book, which I really appreciated, because different people use different terms in different ways. Even the word nonbinary can mean different things to different people!

There are also cartoons at the start of each chapter, which I loved!

Ultimately, this is a wonderful book, and I really do think everyone should read it. Because the writings are split up into chapters, roughly grouped into themes, it would be easy to dip in and out if you didn't want to read it in one sitting (although it's engaging enough to read it all through at once!).

An oversimplification of queer theory and often conflates ideas or states things that are entirely incorrect. The art is cool though.

I like that theory exists, but generally I don't want anything to do with it. As a research scientist I was firmly an experimentalist. And in general I am more of an action-oriented person than a pure-thought person (while I also appreciate that the people who do favor theory have bridged the gap to get me to where I am able to take action on things).

There were some interesting nuggets in this book, and it definitely helped me to appreciate theory maybe a tiny bit more by giving it illustrations, but otherwise I was just kind of bored by the whole thing.

Also, due to my lack of theoretical knowledge in queer / gender theory, I lack the ability to critique this book on a higher level, as other commenters have done. I will admit that there probably are large flaws in this book that I am unable to detect, so I will leave that as a warning to others who, like me, don't know Sartre from Nietzsche.½

A good introduction and overview of queer theory.

The title is a bit misleading: it really should be subtitled a history of theory, for this is what it is. It is a bit jargony for casual readers, but it does a great job breaking down the complex terms and inter-related academic fields. A must-read if you need a crash course in queer theory. I would have benefitted from this in my theory class.

Probably more accurate to be called "Queer Theory: A Graphic History" - in just knowing the title I wasn't sure what to expect but it's an overview of the main theories and theorists that fall under the umbrella of queer theory.
A nice overview for me, as someone who hasn't read a thing about academic queer theory. Though sometimes I would think, I definitely understand this concept, and then close the book and be totally unable to explain it to someone else, that's mostly how I deal with academic concepts in general. I liked the style of this book, and the illustrations were great. Here's my favourite one:



I also liked this one just for the fun juxtaposition of nihilism with the happy talking head:



At the end there's a nice section on how to incorporate queer theory into your everyday life, which is hard to imagine considering how dense and academic a lot of it is; but I think what they've suggested is a nice broad idea for critical thinking in general:

"Try to avoid polarizing into either/or binaries: male/female and straight/gay, but also, beyond that, (sex) positive/negative, good/bad, real/fake, essential/constructed, healthy/harmful, transgressive/conforming, assimilationist/liberatory, reformist/radical...
Instead ask what an idea or representation opens up and closes down. What is included and what is excluded? Might it be a matter of both/and rather than either/or?"

I've been reading this at the same time as [b:Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science, and Society|30231724|Testosterone Rex Myths of Sex, Science, and Society|Cordelia Fine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1466695471s/30231724.jpg|50692501] which dovetailed pretty nicely in terms of muddling gender and sex binaries.

Many if not most books on relationships out there are not good. Sometimes the author had a spot of luck and generalises. Sometimes it's just stuffed with common knowledge, or advice meant to make people feel in control. Of course, most of them are also horribly gendered, and subscribe to differences between men and women at ridiculous levels, and/or assume relationships to be heterosexual.

**Rewriting the Rules** by *Meg-John Barker* was way better than that. I found it well-structured, and coming from excellent principles. It moves through a set of topics, starting from dealing with oneself, going through different points of relationships with others, such as starting out, having sex, separating, dealing with conflict, and ends on a couple of very good practical observations. All chapters discuss cultural rules we may apply without thinking (about gender, sex, behaviour in general, partnerships vs friendships, etc), and how they can be harmful and beneficial. This discussion is both very practical and very differentiated, which makes for a nice change compared with most other books of this type. I'd recommend it without hesitation for people looking to read and think a bit about relationships and friendships.

Firstly, for a graphic novel called: Queer: a Graphic Novel, I expected more of a discussion on the word queer and its connotations. I use the word queer freely and like it for its umbrella term. I find that using queer (although it has been directed at me in a derogatory way) is something that I personally feel comfortable doing. I like it because I find that people who accept it really readily accept it and don’t challenge it. I find that people who ask me to clarify in a certain way, “So does that make you gay or like…?” instead of “How do you identify and what are your pronouns?” raises a red flag that allows me to keep a safe distance.

The word queer is something I use to protect me, to identify me, to celebrate myself. I understand that other people may not use it or be offended by it, and that I totally understand. I try not to use the word around them and respect them and their boundaries and choices. I also use the words gay / bi / pan to identify myself because those are all spaces I occupy and feel that multiple labels aren’t a hindrance on me.

And the first thing I was disappointed about with this book was its one-sentence discussion on how the word queer was a hurtful term to some people. That’s it. That’s all.

… okay?

This also doesn’t feel very cohesive at all. There are separate headings on each page, discussing one or two items or theories or people at a time and I get no sense of continuity when I read. I don’t feel a strong argument, there’s just lots and lots and lots of definitions of things I already know or have studied. That’s not to say I’m pretentious but I’ve heard of Freud before and I know his basic theories.

So to go into this graphic history with an open mind, an open heart, ready to learn and to find I could’ve written some of these pages myself was really a let-down. This might’ve been useful for me ten years ago, when I was starving for genuine queer thought but at the same time, some of its content really doesn’t fit with me. The way they define queer is not how I define queer but somehow, despite always insisting that the queer identity is fluid and is different to different people, they’ve… managed to tell me this is what queer is and this is what it means and if you’re outside of that then you’re performing as something else?

It’s weird and hard to explain or to give an exact quotation, but it feels odd considering the authors go to great lengths to discuss subjectivity without ever critiquing their own definitions.

I like my queer theory and critical feminist theory to challenge me. I read feminist books published by trans people, people of colour and first nations people for this reason. I try to push my own boundaries away from what I’ve learned and try to be inclusive as much as possible. I am the first to admit I need to be more active in my activism. I need to stop passively re-tweeting or sharing images and to take part in marches, protests, sit ins and to write letters to my representatives. I need to use my white privilege better.

However, this didn’t challenge me, it was perplexing. The two authors constantly talk about subjectivity without mentioning their own, deconstructing others’ biases and not their own. They seem to champion academia while only ever mentioning its pitfalls within academia itself, with one single page limited to “Queer theory should be open to all". The first real mention of trans people, by the way, is on page 80 of 175, which is “You might be wondering how trans people fit into this. We’ll get back to this soon.”

On page 83, which talks about disrupting binary / sexuality / gender norms, the three people pictured are Miley Cyrus, Ruby Rose and Kristen Stewart. I have nothing against these women but (I believe) they are all bisexual or gay and, as far as I know, all identify as cisgender. No trans people are included. No non-binary or asexual people are included. Non-binary people are not even mentioned until page 160 .

I feel as though this is confirming some deep-rooted neoliberal biases I’ve been trying very, very hard to get rid of and after page 83, I got tired of this book. The rest of the pages were just a total chore. This is a shame because there were many voices I was interested in hearing from (Julia Serano, Cordelia Fine and so on) that were included in this theory book. That said, I did learn things and wrote down a few names I’d be interested in looking up. Because of this, I kept reading because I kept discovering new names of people who sounded interesting and have contributed a lot to queer theory. Feels a lot like intermittent reinforcement.

With asexuality, crip / discussions around disabled people and discussions around fat phobia all lumped together on the one page, I can’t help but wonder if they could’ve done better. So many of these pages almost feel like afterthoughts, and for my body queer body to be considered an afterthought in a book about queerness is… othering, and sad. They did well in regards to discussing race and queerness and intersectionality multiple times throughout the book, so I know they could do it, but… it was just depressing to see them discuss how queering others happens in theory to have them do it in their own book.

It feels like a bunch of mismatched infographics rather than a graphic novel. This might be a great book to some people and that’s fine, but it’s not a book for me.

This was too broad and not critical enough. I learned a lot, but it was work.

I had such high hopes for this.

You know how they say “When the student is ready the teacher will appear”? Well, I've been learning a lot of lessons over the last few years, but this book arrived back in my sights at exactly the right time. It's been on my wish list for a while, but after meeting the author at a conference and going to a valuable workshop of theirs on self-care and activist burnout, I knew I wanted to repay them by buying this... and it was well worth it.

I've just come out of a four year relationship which began just as I was embarking on a psychology degree, becoming interested in gender and feminism, learning about social constructionism, and during which I've been questioning my previously held beliefs.

The book covers our taken-for-granted rules about relationships, the ways in which these may be problematic and the alternative 'rules' which exist outwith mainstream society... suggesting that it may be best to hold all rules lightly, and to be flexible and in-the-moment about what really works for ourselves as individuals. Each chapter relates these thoughts to a specific topic - ourselves, attraction & body image, gender, sexuality, monogamy, conflict, break-ups and commitment. Some of the ideas resonated with thoughts I'd already had, and many were new and prompted deeper (and ongoing) reflection.

This is definitely a book I'll be re-reading and thinking about for a long time. It's had a massive impact on me and the way I'll go about any future relationships. Seriously, I think it should be required reading for everyone - even on the national curriculum!

I sought out this work because of the subtitle, "A Graphic History." I was hoping for a graphic novel and instead received a pretty dull PowerPoint presentation. Basically a droning lecture is typeset in big blocks of text that float over bland illustrations that exhibit little continuity or flow. The most amusing part of the book for me was the several minutes I spent afterward using Google Images to search for the various real people whose images appear in the book and counting how many times the illustrator used the very first picture to appear in the search as her direct photo reference. And then I spent more time registering how many times that single portrait was simply copied and pasted, tweaked or flipped as the person reappeared throughout the book. That seems like a pretty lazy and uninspired technique for an artist.

Speaking of lazy and uninspired, I always like to find my own thoughts on a work summarized within it: "Perhaps the most well-known criticism of queer theory is that it is inaccessible....There's a serious point here that if a theory is too abstract, complex, and opaque it will exclude those outside academia from engaging with it. It may also be regarded as elitist and class-biased." I did not engage with this work, but I do appreciate the exposure to ideas that are new to me even if the presentation is lacking.

Dr. Meg-John Barker and artist Julia Scheele team up to offer an introductory queer theory text that gives the lay of the rocky terrain that makes up the field in this graphic collaboration. Naming names and sharing ideas, Barker and Scheele offer both core figures and dissenting opinions, running through not just the 30-ish years that "queer theory" has been a force, but the fields and specialists who contributed to its development for over a century. Not intended to offer in-depth analysis or direct theory in itself, the book usefully offers key thinkers and theories to inspire further research and offer a greater level of familiarity for those just stepping into the research. Entertaining and informative, it's a good generalist, beginner volume.

This was pretty good, but a bit different than I was expecting (which was based pretty much on the title). More a queer theory 101 than a general queer history. Less a graphic novel than a book with comic-style illustrations.

Reviewed here.