39 pages • 1 hour read
Maia KobabeGender Queer: A Memoir
Nonfiction | Graphic Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 8-58Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 8-58 Summary
Kobabe begins eir memoir with a vignette of leaving home to enroll in a comics MFA program in San Francisco. E struggles in eir class on autobiography. E has a writing exercise to list eir “personal demons”; all of eir demons pertain to gender, so e feels ashamed of the assignment and covers it up in eir notebook with paper and tape. E then rips the paper off, revealing the title of the memoir, Gender Queer, underneath. This leads into the memoir’s title page on the next page (12-14).
In October 1992, Kobabe’s family moves to a 120-acre property with few modern amenities in northern California. Eir family consists of Maia Kobabe emself, Phoebe (eir sister), Alexandra (eir mom), and eir unnamed dad. They have only one neighboring family; the parents are unnamed, and their children are Galen, Bronwen, and Rebecca. Kobabe’s earliest “gender-related memory” is Bronwen and Rebecca putting Galen in a dress and introducing him as “Galena” (17). Kobabe spends eir early childhood outside in nature with snakes and spiders. E becomes fond of snakes and is unafraid to catch them by hand. E receives many snake-themed gifts for eir birthdays.
Kobabe enters the first grade and feels the pressure of gender roles because of other students and teachers. E is told e has cooties and cannot play with boys, that e looks like both a boy and a girl, and that e must wear a shirt when boys don’t have to. Kobabe feels incompetent compared to eir peers and feels behind in developing skills such as reading and knitting. E does not understand the social cues and expectations around gender, such as shaving, celebrating periods, and wearing deodorant. For example, when e attends a party and all the girls get into a hot tub, e is ashamed because e is the only one with hairy legs. Kobabe struggles to become a fluent reader, but when e learns to read, e consumes books at a fast pace.
Kobabe’s period and breast development cause em gender dysphoria, and e wishes e was born a boy as e feels boys are “unravaged” by puberty (43). E hides eir period from everybody as best e can for several days before eir secret is found out. Kobabe sometimes wishes e could develop breast cancer as a readily available reason for removing eir breast tissue; e regrets these thoughts but cannot shake them.
Kobabe begins experiencing crushes on both boys and girls, which confuses em about who e is. E ignores these feelings until another student starts a queer-straight alliance in high school. Kobabe joins the QSA, which quickly becomes a Lord of the Rings fan club for LGBTQ+ people.
Pages 8-58 Analysis
This section uses juxtaposition to contrast Kobabe’s early life outside of school to eir life in school. It also juxtaposes eir life prepuberty and during puberty. The theme of Gendered Social Cues and Childhood is most important in this section as Kobabe learns the gender role that is expected of em through repeated error. E struggles with social cues that eir peers all seem to know beforehand and perform flawlessly. All these social cues, from cooties to shaving eir legs, are connected to the idea of girlhood.
Kobabe experiences gender dysphoria and disconnect from eir assigned gender at birth (AGAB) in physical and social ways. Puberty causes an extreme amount of discomfort and dysphoria for em. E chooses sports bras that flatten eir chest, and e hides eir period from others. The innate and physical dysphoria e feels is emphasized by the social dysphoria e experiences. For example, because periods are heavily gendered as female, e not only feels physical dysphoria over eir bodily function, but e must also contend with being perceived as a woman by others. The two types of dysphoria amplify one another.
Kobabe establishes eir art style and color choices in this section. E uses soft, warm, and inviting colors for the outdoor lifestyle e had as a young child. This color palette is often used in pleasant scenes throughout the memoir, such as when Kobabe buys briefs with Phoebe later on. White space—the parts of the page left blank—is alternately used for narration and emphasizing art. For example, when narrating eir experience in the hot tub at the birthday party, much of the narration occurs in the white space (30-31). When Kobabe introduces eir family, each member gets an entire page with a large illustration against a white background. E uses this to emphasize the art’s importance and signal when illustrations are particularly meaningful to em.
