Note: To discuss this, I will use the Spivak pronouns the author uses which are gender-neutral.
People like Maia Kobabe have existed for centuries. But e have been labeled as “tomboys” or “butch” where are derogatory and misleading. It’s hilarious for a society such as ours that wants to censor anything and everything that revolves around sex. Yet, we are a sex-obsessed culture when it comes to how we set our laws and unspoken rules. Kobabe and several other people like em are nonbinary and asexual and this bothers several people even though it’s supposed to be a private matter.
What’s fascinating about Kobabe’s life is eir parents weren’t stuffy conservative Christians but laid-back free-style hippie environmentalists, but still tried to abide by the social norms they were supposed to be rebelling against. While we live in a society that questions why men and young boys can walk around shirtless, why are women prohibited? It’s sex. We can’t have men get aroused, can we?
Gender Queer, a graphic memoir of Kobabe’s life shows how foolish we’ve set things in place in our society. Born in the body of a girl, Kobabe spent eir whole childhood being confused and never really understand much. People expected em to wear certain clothes and style eir hair a certain way. Even if you’re not nonbinary or asexual, you can relate to Kobabe’s life.
I remember one time I told people about the way people in my hometown of Calhoun, Ga. wore their socks with their shorts and they couldn’t believe it. I was in eighth grade, 30 years ago, and everyone had to wear socks that didn’t pass your ankles, i.e. booties. By the next Fall semester, less than three measley months later, that was out of fashion. I don’t know who made it out of fashion. I’m not even sure anyone else knew. That was the same summer all the young men had to have the “jarhead” haircut mostly popular in the military. But Fall, they had grown their hair out. Maybe they realized how foolish they looked walking around with bootie socks and a jarhead haircut.
But for Kobabe, I knew it had to be a whole lot different. Born into the body of a girl, e never felt like a girl. On the other hand, e wasn’t really feeling like a boy. It’s a confusion e dealt with for years. There’s the humiliation and pain of being told to get a pap smeer as well as people questioning eir sexuality. Kobabe was also a dyslexic who didn’t learn to read until age 11. So that must have been harder growing up.
The memoir has been controversial and even though some school libraries have carried it, it’s been banned from others. The American Library Association has named it the most challenged book of 2021 and 2022. And Kobabe doesn’t hold back. There’s images of children urinating in public, the embrassment Kobabe felt taking eir shirt off as a child at a beach even though the boys did and other more material such as masturbation and Kobabe’s partner performing fellatio on a strap-on dildo. But then again, the Bible has rape and child murders.
Which is more vulgar?
But Kobabe does make eir story relatable, especially to regular cisgender women who have experienced their first period or their families expecting them to have kids. You wonder how many people were like Kobabe who went their whole lives being forced into sex (more or less raped) by men? How many people born in the bodies of boys were criticized for not having sex or not being attracted to other women?
What Kobabe does is present eir story in a way that you can understand the long road e went down. In the end, Kobabe finds some acceptance of eir life after years gender dystphoria. I’m sure some people will stomp their feet and loudly proclaim Kobabe is a woman. Yet, those people probably wouldn’t even read one page of this book. Many should. But yet, they still want to see people like Kobabe as “freaks” with a mental illness.
Yet, ask yourself. Who is really the freak with a mental illness – someone who fully loves who they are or someone else who wants everyone to confirm to a certain way? Someone had to look at the socks and haircut decided that’s the way they wanted to look and then change their mind. I think people should follow Kobabe’s lead and focus on themselves. No wonder people don’t want the book in libraries. People might just learn something.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 