Awards
2020 ALA Alex Award Winner
2020 Stonewall – Israel Fishman Non-fiction Award Honor Book
Synopses & Reviews
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now,
Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity — what it means and how to think about it — for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.
"It’s also a great resource for those who identify as nonbinary or asexual as well as for those who know someone who identifies that way and wish to better understand." School Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
“This heartfelt graphic memoir relates, with sometimes painful honesty, the experience of growing up non-gender-conforming.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“In the gorgeous and candid graphic memoir Gender Queer, [Kobabe] illustrates an aching journey toward reconciliation with being nonbinary and asexual....A challenging yet heartwarming memoir, Gender Queer succeeds on all fronts.” Shelf Awareness
About the Author
Maia Kobabe is a nonbinary, queer author and illustrator with an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts. Eir first full length book, Gender Queer: A Memoir, was published by Lion Forge Comics in May 2019. Eir work focuses on themes of identity, sexuality, anti-fascism, fairy tales, and homesickness. Maia's work can be found on instagram @redgoldsparks, patreon.com/maiakobabe and redgoldsparkspress.com.