Gender Queer: A Memoir Paperback – 31 May 2022

This should be mandatory reading. I am cis female but aromantic, so much of this was a wave of relief - my god this happened to somebody else too. The sick feeling at being someones ‘girlfriend’ in high school, the Pap smear torture.It makes me glad A03 exists. It gives me hope that somehow we can still get messages like this out. I can’t believe someone in Michigan took this to the police. It’s a wonderful, very relatable story of growing up in the gender wilderness between the mountains and the sea.

She didn’t know she was trans, she didn’t know she was ace and she had no frame of reference from any of it! A book like Maia’s could have changed her life and I hope eir words and art can do for others what I never had!

Thank you for this book. It made my heart sing. You are a legend, and always will be, in my eyes and the eyes of scores of trans and NB people. Thank you! Love from the UK!

I can understand why some parents are upset at this book. After all, it deals with gender nonconformity. And the grossness of bodily fluids, and period nightmares, and deciding (realistically) never to have children - and worse, masturbation! - and sex! The HORROR.Parents tend to want to think of their kids being pure, and innocent, and unsullied by base urges, etc etc... And on the other hand, most parents want grandkids, too. The idea that your kid might discover that there are other options, better for the person's own happiness perhaps, but not what their parents want, is a thing that can drive authoritarian parents to violence.For teens, though? Being able to understand themselves and others, having real and honest information, can make all the difference in the world, and lets people avoid a great deal of harm and self-damage.This memoir is very real, and very honest. It isn't *focused* around sex and masturbation, the things that are most often invoked to try to paint the book as obscenity - those things are literally dealt with in a couple of pages. (And I assure you, as someone who actually *remembers* being a teenager, your teen has seen and thought far muckier things already. Really.) The memoir is focused around identity, and understanding your own feelings. About understanding the self, and the self in relation to others. Reading it will not turn your kid queer - that's really not how it works - but if they are already uncertain of who and how they are, they'll see that they aren't the first, and that they can still be part of a community. And if they aren't uncertain and aren't even queer? It can help illuminate those who are, and remind us all of our shared humanity.Frankly, I think everyone should have a chance to understand these things.It's a good book. It's well drawn, too, as well as coherent and full of information, as a starting point rather than an end point. Give it a chance.

With so many polarised opinions in the media, it’s all too easy to reduce people to a sound bite or to think we know best. This book is told wonderfully and shows the journey of the protagonist over many years as they go from childhood to adulthood, all throughout showing their perception and experiences around gender and sexuality. These are complex topics that evolve through real, lived experiences. For some of us, we don’t have many role models and we don’t feel seen. Choosing to be different this way is not a flippant or easy choice. Far from it. It is often based in confusion and pain (and for so many, in wishing to be anything other than we are). Maia’s story really helps any reader to gain insight and empathy for folk who don’t always feel they match their gender as assigned at birth. The comic strip format is a refreshing change for me and in some ways made this material more interesting. I recommend this memoir whole heartedly.

I bought this book as it was on a banned books list, and I am a real ‘rebel’. I have met several asexual and non binary people but never stopped to think about what that can mean to someone. Just a word of warning: I had a migraine when I picked this up to start reading, so I was only intending to start it. I read it in one sitting despite the pain. It is that good.

Read this after seeing some fuss kicked up in some US school… thanks for the reading list btw… well I really don’t get what the fuss is all about… But I think it has helped me a little bit understand people a bit more, and as a 47 year old who’s never quite fitted the role that was cut out for me, I’m grateful for that.

READ TW BEFORE READINGThis is a really deep dive in gender and sexuality told in a honest I haven’t ever seen before. I think this is a really good book for anyone in the queer community, particularly if you’re asexual / non-binary / trans. Parts were hard to read because of how brutally honest they were, I felt myself tear up more than once.