Gender Queer: A Memoir

Maia Kobabe’s, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity through the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, how to come out to friends, family, and society in general, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and violation of pap smears. Starting out as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than just a memoir, but also a means and conversation opener for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

First off, thank you Maia for sharing your story. The amount of positive LGBTQ+ books there are out in the world right now makes my heart swell. Kids and teens need these growing up. Adults need these types of show more books to help heal their inner child.

Kobabe’s novel is so honest and an open look at eir path to understand eir sexuality and gender. Their journey to finding and using their preferred pronouns was something I’ve had friends in the past struggle with - it was amazing to see the Spivak pronouns (e/em/eir) and how to pronounce and use them correctly.

I adored all the One Direction fandom references. I am way more into 5 Seconds of Summer, but Harry Styles definitely is a love of mine. I also wasn’t into One Direction slash fiction, but Sterek from Teen Wolf is my OTP, so I totally understood all the references. This portion of my world growing up is slowly showing up more and more in literature nowadays and it makes me so happy.

My only real issue with this book is that it ended so abruptly! I thought there was more coming!

Overall, this is a great and wonderful book about Kobabe’s journey to self discovery that I will be highly recommending to everyone (especially those who question it being Challenged or Banned). show less

Cartoonist Maia Kobabe details eir life, with a special focus on eir long and twisted (and ongoing) journey through sexuality and gender.

This book is obviously an homage to Fun Home, and I am glad I read them close together (but not back-to-back). While Kobabe’s thoughts on gender and sexuality are more modern and complicated than Bechdel’s, there are no dark undertones of shame and suicide. The book is sweet and colorful and joyous. What little tension there is comes from Kobabe’s internal feelings that e can’t really find the words to describe eir gender, eir annoyance at people who make assumptions about em, and feeling self-conscious about asserting eir gender and pronouns. I really adored the neat, modern, infographic style show more of the art. E sometimes incorporates graphs, and is not shy about getting artistic with the lettering. There were many panels I could picture as posters on a dorm room wall. I appreciated that Kobabe admits it feels weird to write a memoir at such a young age, but it’s an important book and I can’t wait to read eir next memoir in the future. show less

Happy #pridemonth, y’all! I’m starting off my month long queer reading celebration with Maia Kobabe’s GENDER QUEER, from @onipress. In this intimate graphic memoir, Kobabe illustrates eir struggles, both personally and societally, with coming to terms with being both nonbinary and asexual. Kobabe is very frank in eir depiction of what ey went through during eir journey, and I greatly appreciated this frankness. As someone who struggles with their own gender identity, I found this book both enlightening and cathartic. It helps to know that I’m not alone in these struggles.

Unfortunately, GENDER QUEER has come under fire from multiple conservative fronts recently, with some government officials in Virginia going so far as to not show more only trying to ban it from schools and libraries, but to make it illegal for bookstores to sell the book, and to make it illegal for residents to even own the book. Why? Because this book speaks openly and beautifully about the possibility of being different from the “norm” and showing that the gender binary is an absurd notion. It’s frightening to me to see this level of hatred for those of us who are different, which makes it even more important for us to raise up books like this and pioneers like Maia Kobabe, so that our younger generations of queers know that they are not alone and that they have a place in this world.

Absolutely recommended.

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I bought this book for my teenager, as it was at the top of all the banned book lists, which seemed like a good indicator that it would be worth reading. Then, as people continued to talk about it, I decided I had better borrow it from him.

I loved this book immediately. The illustration style is straightforward, inviting, warm, humane. The story is an unfolding of learning and discovery of gender that organically underlines how fluid it all is -- how the markers of gender are so heavily dependent on a particular time, place, social class, society. Maia's journey in slowly finding and drilling down on those things that feel authentic, comfortable, and frankly discussing the tradeoffs of conforming to one expectation or another.

One show more doesn't have to be questioning one's gender to find this book a revelation (though how helpful this book could be if you were!) The whole vibe of this is liberatory -- reminding us we can all be brave enough to pursue the becoming of who we truly are. In particular there were two scenes that felt like fireworks going off in my brain. First, the "controversial" blowjob scene -- which I honestly wish I could put in the hands of every teenager in their country. While conservatives wring their hands over the "obscenity," I was blown away by the honest depiction of someone trying something sexual with a partner that they thought they would be into, realizing they were NOT, communicating that, and their partner respecting that and moving on. I am comparing this to my own sex ed class, where we were shown a chart of a boy's arousal during sexual activity, and a line that depicted his "point of no return," where, it was heavily implied, it would be too late for us girls to say no.

I still get furious thinking about it. Obviously.

The other moment was unexpected. Maia meets up with Jana Bee, who introduces em to the concept of nonbinary identity and neopronouns. But something about Jaina's presentation -- hair, clothes, and especially that SWEATER made my heart fill with glitter. I am now on a quest for a real-world sweater that fills my heart with as much joy.

Listen. This book is incredible. And incredibly important. It needs to be on the shelves, available to kids who don't even know yet that they need it. show less

Maia Kobabe explains eir process of coming to terms with gender and eir own gender identity as non-binary and asexual.

This is honestly fantastic. It describes the author's journey from being assigned female at birth and having crushes on both boys and girls, to learning terms like bi and trans, and working through eir gender identity and finding pronouns that made sense. It's also about the awkwardness and challenges surrounding coming out as non-binary to various people (family, friends, strangers) and correcting misgendering. There are frank, matter-of-fact discussions of masturbation, OBGYN appointments, and sexual encounters but nothing overly graphic. I could see this having a lot of crossover appeal with high schoolers and young show more adults dealing with all sorts of identity questions. show less

I had heard about this book from several places, and heard only good things. (Except for the many book bans, which are a backhanded recommendation in themselves.) I kept meaning to read it, and intending to read it, but never actually reading it. Finally, this year, I checked to see if my library had it available. An ebook copy of the updated deluxe edition was ready to be checked out immediately, and so I checked it out and read the whole thing in one sitting.

I shouldn't have waited so long.

This is a really powerful book, and touches on many parts of Maia's school years, since that's where a lot of eir growth came in terms of sexuality and gender identity. Some of it was very different from my own youth—I've never questioned being show more born a girl, for example—but there were other parts that did resonate with me. I think that anyone who has ever questioned any part of their gender or sexuality will find something that they've felt among these pages, even if it's only a panel or two. Even those readers who are 100% cis-het will find answers here about how it feels to not be completely certain of one's sexuality.

This deluxe edition of the book has a foreword by ND Stevenson (whose Nimona I absolutely adored) in which he says that this book is one he would have greatly benefited from when he was young and questioning. I greatly hope that—book bans notwithstanding—this book gets into the hands of every young (or not-so-young) person who needs to read it. I hope that everyone who needs to feel less alone on their journey to become their true self can find this book and read its message. show less

CA: snakes, brief nudity

Kobabe's graphic memoir explores their experience with and confusion about gender from early childhood through adulthood, and it is *amazing*. Just stunningly crafted, gentle, and honest. I wasn't going to read this (in a quiet sort of "I'm probably good; I can pass that one up" way), and then a chucklehead from my adopted stated decided to sue a (single) Barnes and Noble store for making the book available to children (read: carried it in the store; B&N (of course?) doesn't restrict any of it's material; literally everything in there is available to everyone), and then I had to buy and read it in support of the author, the book, and bookstores. And it was a perfect reading experience. Thank you, Streisand show more effect. Seriously, though. The book is so good. Recommended. show less