Reading — Fine: A Comic About Gender by Rhea Ewing

[chomiji]

In 2005, artist Rhea Ewing had a lot of questions about their own gender identity. Some of those questions were so big and so formless that they didn't even know how to ask them.

They started a kind of study, gathering people who were willing to talk to Ewing about their gender identities. Because Ewing thought in visuals, they turned it into a comic. It was originally meant to be maybe 30 pages, a little project for their final university project. Ewing soon realized that this work was too complex and multifaceted to be that simple booklet, and in fact, they didn't finish the comic until the early 2020s.

The book is arranged by topics, starting with Femininity and Masculinity and then working through more of the interviewees' experiences within themselves and then out in the world of other people, through Hormones, Healthcare, Queer Community, and much more. Under each topic are relevant snippets of the actual interviews, drawn as lively, expressive comics, and the words of the interviewees are thought-provoking and sometimes heart-rending.

Some reviewers I've read are miffed with Ewing, because the artist doesn't come up with a specific plan or specific answers to the issue of gender in today's society (and yes, there is acknowledgement and discussion of variations in culture within that society). But in fact, there are conclusions, expressed on the last couple of pages before the acknowledgments. What there isn't is a step-by-step recipe for "solving" the question of gender. And if you really read that far, you should appreciate why.

Comments

[tropicsbear]

Some reviewers I've read are miffed with Ewing, because the artist doesn't come up with a specific plan or specific answers to the issue of gender in today's society

Seems like a strange thing for those reviewers to be complaining about. Someone's experience of gender is very personal and will never be exactly the same as someone else's. I dunno if you can "solve" the question of gender aside from letting people explore and choose their identities without judgment.

[chomiji]

I agree absolutely! But some people have a very proscriptive view of books (even graphic novels). It's like "puritanical" but with a leftist orientation -- very weird.