How a Debut Graphic Memoir Became the Most Banned Book in the Country
Coming out as bisexual in high school had been relatively easy: Maia Kobabe lived in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area and had supportive classmates and parents.
But coming out as nonbinary years later, in 2016, was far more complicated, Kobabe said. The words available failed to describe the experience. “There wasn’t this language for it,” said Kobabe, 33, who now uses gender-neutral pronouns and doesn’t identify as male or female. “I just thought, I am wanting to come out as nonbinary, and I am struggling with how to bring this up in conversation with people.
And even when I am able to start a conversation about it, I feel like I am never fully able to get my point across.” So Kobabe, an illustrator who still lives in the Bay Area, started drawing black-and-white comics about wrestling with gender identity, and posting them on Instagram. “People started responding with things like, ‘I had no idea anyone else felt this way, I didn’t even know that there were words for this’,” Kobabe said.
Kobabe expanded the material into a graphic memoir, “Gender Queer,” which was released in 2019 by a comic book and graphic novel publisher.
