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198 reviews for:
At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery
Shou Arai
3.35 AVERAGE
198 reviews for:
At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery
Shou Arai
3.35 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Eh... okay.
But there's not much out there written by intersex authors, so I appreciate Shou sharing their experience and perspective.
But there's not much out there written by intersex authors, so I appreciate Shou sharing their experience and perspective.
I haven't seen a manga in a while that I actually had any interest in, but this one grabbed my attention immediately. This autobiographical comic is about a intersex queer person and how they navigate the world and especially, how they deal with gender and sex in Japan. The book is witty, raunchy, and very much a product of Japanese queer culture (which might be a bit shocking to foreign readers).
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content, Transphobia
emotional
informative
lighthearted
slow-paced
(from my personal reading journal, Nov. 22, 2024)
About a month ago, I applied for a card through the Queer Liberation Library--they have a lot of collection overlap with my local library, but hold a lot more in the way of digital comics (and, more pragmatically, if the state of [X] goes very homophobic in 2025 and [Y] library can't retain its queer holdings, I'll need another source of LGBT lit. Shou Arai's collection of autobio 4-koma was featured in the QLL's manga collection, and since it was both available and about Japanese GNC people, I checked it out.
Arai-sensei was assigned female at birth and found they were intersex at age 30; after, they went on testosterone, had top, and lived openly as an intersex person (though their presentation leans masculine). Now around 50, they write about being a semi-public figure and mentor for Japanese LGBT folks, about their partner, and about aging in a demographic where advanced age is an unknown territory.
This isn't hard-hitting introspection or deeply informative; it's a 4-koma collection, and those are almost always either comedic or slice of life (sometimes both). Arai's work tends towards slice of life, and I'm comforted to see a GNC person living, comfortable and growing, in such a society as Japan.
This isn't a great translation, and slice-of-life pieces never translate super well in my opinion. Even so, I enjoyed this comic, but overall it's not a whole lot to write about. Perhaps I'll watch the documentary that Arai-sensei was featured in.
About a month ago, I applied for a card through the Queer Liberation Library--they have a lot of collection overlap with my local library, but hold a lot more in the way of digital comics (and, more pragmatically, if the state of [X] goes very homophobic in 2025 and [Y] library can't retain its queer holdings, I'll need another source of LGBT lit. Shou Arai's collection of autobio 4-koma was featured in the QLL's manga collection, and since it was both available and about Japanese GNC people, I checked it out.
Arai-sensei was assigned female at birth and found they were intersex at age 30; after, they went on testosterone, had top, and lived openly as an intersex person (though their presentation leans masculine). Now around 50, they write about being a semi-public figure and mentor for Japanese LGBT folks, about their partner, and about aging in a demographic where advanced age is an unknown territory.
This isn't hard-hitting introspection or deeply informative; it's a 4-koma collection, and those are almost always either comedic or slice of life (sometimes both). Arai's work tends towards slice of life, and I'm comforted to see a GNC person living, comfortable and growing, in such a society as Japan.
This isn't a great translation, and slice-of-life pieces never translate super well in my opinion. Even so, I enjoyed this comic, but overall it's not a whole lot to write about. Perhaps I'll watch the documentary that Arai-sensei was featured in.
The title is very misleading. Apparently this is like the tenth volume in this series. There is no 'realizing' they are genderless, they are intersex and decided to live as a man at 30. This happened in an earlier volume they refer to you o read several times that isn't in English apparently. This is not a narrative book, just some 4-panel comics, most of the time with no punchline, just observations. Its stretched really thin, how many pages can you dedicate to shopping for a new pair of glasses? Then there is a section near the end about his (he uses male pronouns in the book) vacation, where he complains people might think his boyfriend who is 20 years younger than him might look 20 years younger than him. Theyre worried the relationship mght look like father and son or predatory. Then mentions that they started dating when his boyfriend ran away from home at 19 and worked as his assistant. They mention a documentary about his life they made which is actually his life story and just sounds more interesting than what we got in the book. I would have liked to read this from the first volume!
Really neat to see all the thoughts and conundrums to balancing society's reactions and ideas with one's own truth and desires. There are so many more avenues to ideas behind gender and it's presentation than I even knew, and I've been trying to keep up with the latest discussions. But it's different when the author takes a personal viewpoint from another culture. So glad they decided to write this book and show us an example of growing up with no gender.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
I don't read Manga, so don't know if this is how Manga usually looks. This is the memoir(?) Of someone who realizes at 30 that they are intersex, among other things. Their partner is younger, gay, and started as their assistant. An interview in the middle of the book is with a similar couple. (Is that true of all comics artists in Japan?)
There is a chapter on growing a beard. I've been looking at men with small beards, wondering if they use that technique.
There is a chapter on growing a beard. I've been looking at men with small beards, wondering if they use that technique.