Gender Queer

There's no better way to get people to read a book than to ban it, right? Though I imagine the Christian neofascists gunning for Gender Queer aren't as worried about keeping it out of my hands as they are those who would be most helped by it: teenagers and young adults who are questioning their gender and/or sexuality and searching for proof that they aren't the only “weird” ones. Assuming reaching that audience is Kobabe's goal, I think e succeeds reasonably well. E shares the evolution of eir thought processes around eir own gender and (to a lesser and somewhat more confusing extent) eir sexuality. As someone who is assigned male at birth but also is stridently non-gender conforming in a number of ways, there were a number of parts I could relate to, especially the emphasis on the reflection and the trial and error that goes into shaping one's performance of gender to match one's internal sense of gender. Feeling pops of recognition as e's past self has thoughts that exactly match my own is as validating as intended. And I don't always love the usually very simple art, but I adore the color palette provided by eir sister, and I think one of Kobabe's strengths is using metaphor and visual language to describe eir feelings about/experiences with gender clearly and succinctly.Memoir can be tough, because it can be hard as a reader to separate feelings about the individual from an assessment of the work. I'm not too much older than Kobabe and know eir type (obsessed with fan fiction/slashfic and fandom, theater, art, and Oscar Wilde) a bit too well and so my own experiences with that crowd made em grate on me somewhat. E describes writing hundreds of thousands of words of gay fanfiction about One Direction, which, uh, no thanks. Kobabe also can't change the facts of eir life, but it's also notable that e grew up in an environment that is not only privileged in traditional ways, but which was also extremely queer-friendly; eir parents are hippie-types who moved the family off the grid and homeschooled e, eir high school had an active Queer/Straight Alliance, e mentions several high profile queer friends, eir sister's partner is transmasculine, etc. Effectively all the struggle here is internal, which is not bad, but also probably well outside the norm. Lastly, I have one big bone to pick: Kobabe's embrace of biological determinism. Kobabe glowingly cites Patricia Churchland, an analytical philosopher who supports brain organization theory, which argues that brains are “gendered” through their exposure to different hormones in utero. The book has an annoying tendency to hop into and out of little vignettes and then move along, and this is no exception; it quotes a bunch of Churchland, and then shows Kobabe emself thinking “So Lady Gaga was right–I was born this way. WHAT A RELIEF.” And then it moves right along without another comment on it. I'm sorry but....no. Anyone claiming that a hormone has a gender (as Churchland seems to think) should be ignored. Estrogen and testosterone are present in everyone's bodies. They have functions, not genders. I recommend reading (or at least consulting) [b:Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences 11363891 Brain Storm The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences Rebecca M. Jordan-Young https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348012692l/11363891.SY75.jpg 13242443] which is dry and academic but dismantles the “science” behind brain organization theory. From a social perspective, this biological determinism implicitly cedes that queerness is an aberration, a crossing of wires, something that can be changed or fixed. It fails to stand up for the inherent dignity (and joy) of being queer and it denies the fluidity and complexity of gender and sexuality. Kobabe isn't a scientist or a queer theorist, sure, but in that case, leave it out, or at least complicate it a bit more. Thinking there's a purely biological basis for gender identity or sexuality is only temporary relief. Gender Queer can be a bit scattershot, and it ends abruptly, but I have no regrets about reading it and wouldn't hesitate to share it with anyone for whom questions about their gender weigh heavily on their mind.