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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
reflective
fast-paced
Very enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny at times, a little bit disjointed, but think of it as a serial webcomic (as it originally appeared) and the pacing makes more sense.
No holds barred pregnancy adventures. A lot of this is quite funny, but I found my attention wavering throughout (I am a child and things to be in color to fully pay attention). The identity aspects are fantastic and super interesting I just found myself drifting off for much of the pregnancy bits.
funny
medium-paced
The book is older than I realized. I get a weird vibe, maybe it's the negativity, but I don't think so. Pregnancy sucked for me but not as much as her, or at least not in the same way. I was also expecting a graphic novel and this is more a collection of comics.
I read this book expecting for it to be a look at experiences of a butch lesbian during pregnancy, which is a perspective I haven't really seen explored in literature. The first half was okay but once I hit the transphobic rant in the middle, I had to stop. It comes seemingly out of nowhere, is really confusing as far as what A.K. Summers is even trying to say, and is deeply transphobic and offensive. There are many other, better queer memoirs to read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism, Transphobia, Pregnancy
Moderate: Sexual content, Medical content
The sexual content flag is a clear image of a vulva and references to sexual activity.
Basically, it's a semi-fictional memoir about giving birth as a butch woman in NYC during the early 2000s. It came out around the time when gay marriage picked up steam in the U.S., and I agree with the author that we should chronicle what life was like just a few years before (though being in 2019, gay marriage becoming legal certainly didn't end all homophobia!).
AK Summers doesn't "get" or even seem to respect transgender people. To me, it's clearly rooted in her own gender nonconformity and confusion about what makes other AFAB GNC individuals realize they're trans rather than, like her, a butch woman. Instead of being open to others' experiences and conclusions about deeply personal issues of the self, she decides kids these days are just...like that. I guess. "Butch flight," a common TERF scare tactic used online, is referenced but not named. Interestingly, in her bibliography, she references books that COULD help her "get it," but if she read them, she decided her opinions were perhaps more relevant than others' lived experience. Naturally, there's also a potshot at young bisexual women.
Overall, I understand one's need as a butch woman to process one's feelings around gender and articulate why what works for some people (transitioning, hormones, surgery, a new name and pronouns) doesn't work for the self, but did that clunky section lift the narrative? Did it offer any insight you couldn't get from any other transphobe? Was it also perhaps rude to Leslie Feinberg, whose book is cited in the bibliography under the "butch" section but not "trans/genderqueer?"
Summers says the comic is a product of its time, and she was right in more ways than one.
AK Summers doesn't "get" or even seem to respect transgender people. To me, it's clearly rooted in her own gender nonconformity and confusion about what makes other AFAB GNC individuals realize they're trans rather than, like her, a butch woman. Instead of being open to others' experiences and conclusions about deeply personal issues of the self, she decides kids these days are just...like that. I guess. "Butch flight," a common TERF scare tactic used online, is referenced but not named. Interestingly, in her bibliography, she references books that COULD help her "get it," but if she read them, she decided her opinions were perhaps more relevant than others' lived experience. Naturally, there's also a potshot at young bisexual women.
Overall, I understand one's need as a butch woman to process one's feelings around gender and articulate why what works for some people (transitioning, hormones, surgery, a new name and pronouns) doesn't work for the self, but did that clunky section lift the narrative? Did it offer any insight you couldn't get from any other transphobe? Was it also perhaps rude to Leslie Feinberg, whose book is cited in the bibliography under the "butch" section but not "trans/genderqueer?"
Summers says the comic is a product of its time, and she was right in more ways than one.
A delightful graphic novel/memoir, recommended to me by a friend who is a midwife specializing in queer pregnancies. Definitely worth the read. It's funny, it's honest, and speaking as a straight cis woman who was last pregnant 36 years ago, it resonated for me too. Especially the narrative about giving birth. Boy howdy.
fast-paced
funny
medium-paced