“Some people are born in the mountains, while others are born by the sea. Some people are happy to live in the place they were born, while others must make a journey to reach the climate in which they can flourish and grow. Between the ocean and the mountains is a wild forest. That is where I want to make my home.” p. 191

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is an autobiographical comic about Maia Kobabe’s gender identity. I understand why it has been such a challenged book because some of the scenes are very graphic, but I think it has an important purpose and message. 

Really beautiful. I'd recommend this to anyone - queer folks, loved ones of queer folks, people questioning their gender/sexuality, people wanting to learn more about gender/sexuality. I wish I had had this book when I was a teen.

This book has already received noteworthy and deserved acclaim, not simply because it is a genuine and honest account of personal questions around sexual and gender identity for young people (and older, as well) but because it walks vulnerably but bravely into territories of personhood that few books like it do: a focus on the body challenges created by the traditions of binary identities, from the social to retail to health care.

It's fascinating that Kobabe, having been raised in a fortunately fairly open-minded family, nevertheless struggles with questions e can't easily articulate with anyone. One can imagine how difficult this is, therefore, for most; more, ironically and tragically, this book in particular has endured numerous challenges to inclusion in schools and libraries for a fairly limited number of explicit panels when it is this very story of dialogue and inclusion which is the subject of the work.

Perhaps some wish it banned because the topic is unsettling, uncomfortable. It absolutely is, especially for readers who find themselves too easily identified in its pages (myself at times included). It is common, then, that we might say that "this book is not for everyone;" I reply in this rare instance, however, precisely that this book is and must be for everyone. As painfully educational as it might be for some, this temporary discomfort is a point of growth. Equally, however, it is a space of affirmation for anyone (not merely the queer) who has hard questions about what is normal, what is healthy, what is shared, and who they are.

While Kobabe's chosen pronouns, for instance, are less known to me (e, em, eir>- as suggested by Michael Spivak), the simple and temporary struggle I have with them is substantially minute in contrast to the recognition and comfort (re: respect) of the one I am addressing. And so it goes with the constantly evolving linguistic landscape as we attempt, fit and refit, discard and revise the various names and labels of all peoples.  Gender Queer obviously doesn't make people gay: it addresses so many of our unspoken assumptions and recognizes their legitimacy. 

The reading is quick and basic in its assumptions of what previous knowledge a reader brings to it. Its topics are often explicit and real--periods, sexual experimentation, graphic conversations, love--and it does not end absolutely in a cynical or optimistic space. There is yet work to be done for all of us. And Kobabe's specific gender identity, troublesome for all to pin down, is mostly due to the failures of arbitrary language and our limited framings of identity. But along the way Kobabe offers enough other thinkers and writers on the subject for readers to dig further. 

For young readers with questions, this is an excellent book. For the rest of us, I wonder what an unwillingness to spend a couple of hours asking vital questions along with Maia Kobabe is really about.

I'm always trying to learn more about trans experiences. This book was very heartfelt and beautiful.

A boldly revealing and vulnerable perspective on gender identity. It pointedly illustrates the issues and confusion of growing up, navigating adolescence and articulating one's experience, as an individual existing on the outside of the gender binary.

As a transgender reader, I loved this book. If I had read this in middle school or high school, I would have understood myself a lot better. I’m sad that this book has risen the ranks of banned books to become THE most banned book in America. I hope this book gets into the hands of the people who need it somehow.