[REVIEW] Gender Queer: A Memoir, by Maia Kobabe

(Buy this book here.)

I’m back after a bit of unexpected hiatus. It’s Pride Month, and while I read queer stories whenever I want and not just in certain months, I think now is a good time to talk about this book.

(I do have a sensitivity issue/unpopular opinion about some things in these pages, and because I wished I had had a content warning, I’ll put those thoughts at the end of the review as an FYI.)

Gender Queer is the most challenged book of 2021 and 2022. If you search the weird parts of the internet for “books that should be banned” this one is at the top of a lot of lists.

And I kinda get why. When it comes to the gender spectrum, non-binary-ness was harder than I thought it would be for me to understand. I sit so comfortably within my half of the gender binary l (internally, anyway–there’s a different conversation about gender presentation and how Black women are often perceived) that when the idea of being nonbinary was first explained to me, I wasn’t a jerk about it but I did feel pretty uncomfortable contemplating the idea because I just didn’t get it.

A version of that discomfort must have been what Kobabe( who uses the Spivak pronouns e, em and eir) felt, growing up in a world that demanded a gender expression and presentation that e just didn’t get and didn’t want to. Gender Queer is a well-told graphic novelization about eir experiences figuring out life, love, and expression as neither man nor woman, but a very different, very whole person.

There’s a lot here, and it’s all very frank, although not all that graphic–discussions of awkward puberty, discovering one’s asexuality through exploring sexual situations, family responses, and medical prejudice and insensitivity. There are illustrations of naked bodies, gross hygiene situations, and a few instances of body fluids, but it all comes across as quite clinical, not erotic or filthy, which has been a common accusation.

This is a vulnerable, candid memoir. It’s introspective, informative, and challenges norms that many people never really have to think about, drawn in a soft, sweet, accessible way. I can totally see why it gets censored and banned. I also think it should absolutely not be. It’s rare to find a book about anyone that uses storytelling so deftly to show us a person, living their life normally despite how challenging that may be at times.

But I do have some issues with it and one of them, at least, needs to be behind a big ol’ CONTENT WARNING.

First, and not content-warning worthy, is that this book exhibits an utter lack of intersectionality, which I tiredly feel isn’t even something worth criticizing white American writers for anymore because it’s just American culture in some places if we’re being honest. At a few points, Kobabe lists all the books e’s read over the past year and these are the white-lady-est lists ever–and a bunch of manga. Yikes. This isn’t a criticism so much as a sad cultural truth, and I’m pointing it out because I feel that some Black, Brown, Asian, etc. genderqueer fam might want to know this before they get frustrated on the overwhelming whiteness of Kobabe’s world.

Second–and here comes the content warning– my real issue is that some of the situations presented as part of Kobabe’s childhood memories come across to me as clear neglect. They just aren’t called that because eir family is white, well-educated and ‘earthy’. Early pages depict em and eir childhood friends peeing in the yard because there are no toilets available. Later, there are instances of a clear lack of access to hygiene products and knowledge about hygiene as the author gets deep into puberty. Also, Kobabe didn’t learn to read until e was 11, which is not neglect, exactly due to eir dyslexia, but when presented along with everything else, is upsetting.

Listen. This is a blog for diverse folk. Fellow readers, you and I both know that if Kobabe was brown and/or poor this would be a very different memoir and eir parents would not be presented as saints and pioneers at all. There’s also the issue of the author’s (IMO) experiences of neglect being conflated with eir gender expression, and that is concerning. In no way do eir negative experiences or interpretations of them invalidate eir gender journey and I’m not challenging their non-binary-ness. However, connecting neglect with gender realization is edging into the same territory in which creepy Christians are constantly trying to stake a claim that gender difference and queerness are caused by pathology or family dysfunction. Again–I’m not questioning the validity of eir gender, only expressing concern about eir depictions of child neglect and how blithely they’re shared, as though the problem is gender, not neglect.

Frankly, I think it’s really weird that amidst all of the dicussions and reviews of this book–good, bad and unhinged–I’ve never seen a content warning or even acknowledgement of the (admittedly brief) scenes of neglect. I may be way off base here but this seems like quite the living room pachyderm to me and I almost put the book down because of it. I’m glad I didn’t, but you may feel differently and so I’m sharing here.

That said–I’m glad I read this. It’s a good book that needs to be available in libraries, schools, and bookstores for young people to read, but there are some things included that perhaps the author didn’t intend.

Affirmation and fanfic to Gender Queer.

(Beautiful people, fellow readers, welcome back to the blog. It’s been a while but I’m glad to see you here. Thanks for reading, and if you want to read more books about gender diverse and queer people, check out the Equal Opportunity Bookshop, specifically our booklists on Trans Experiences, LGBTQIA+ Reads, and Books By Trans Women. Remember, we’re a Bookshop affiliate and any purchases you make at those links means we make a little bit of pocket change. Now, go read something good! Peace!)