Vol 4 No 3 | Oct-Dec 2024

Will to Live

Story and art by Mia Jose

This is comic looks at the world of a non-binary person and how they tend to be forced by societal factors to ‘fit in’.

In the words of the author:
We used to think of gender as a binary, meaning there are only two: male and female. Today, we understand gender to be a spectrum on which ‘male’ and ‘female’ are just extremes. While a lot of people identify as either a ‘man’ or ‘woman’, there are several of us whose gender identity does not fit neatly into either of these boxes. We can broadly refer to such people as ‘non-binary’, who may express both masculine and feminine behaviour: in clothing, physical appearance, etc. Whereas people who identify as fully ‘male’ and ‘female’ tend to use he/him and she/her as their pronouns, respectively, non-binary persons are likely to be comfortable with ‘they/them’ as their pronouns. This draws from classical rules of grammar, where we have always used ‘they/them’ to refer to persons whose gender we are not aware of, or in referring to an unknown person.

Here’s some more information:
https://transequality.org/issues/resources/understanding-nonbinary-people-how-to-be-respectful-and-supportive