Belated Thoughts on Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

 

Cover courtesy of Oni Press

I read this book a few months back, and forgot to add it to my list of read books. My apologies. And let's be clear, I am not the audience for the book, being a cisgender woman, so why, you say, would I check it out?

Because of Twitter. Because I'm not a fan of banning books, and this title became a topic of debate between myself and some tweet-troll who labeled the book as disgusting pornography. So I decided to check the book out--like most people should before disparaging a book for its content.

I'm glad I did. This is not a book about disgusting porn, or "men having sex with boys," as the tweet-troll tried to convince me. It's an honest memoir about a person who grew up with a lot of questions. The book is honest about those questions. The author exposes their soul.

Does it present answers for our youth about the topic in question? Not entirely, but that's not what the book is about. The book is about struggling with identity through your young years, and it gives readers the satisfaction of knowing that they are not alone, that the questions they have, the awkwardness they feel, is a normal thing. The book opens the door for potentially meaningful discussion, if you find your kids wanting to read it. That's only a bad thing for parents who don't want to be part of the conversation, in my opinion.