About

Maia Kobabe is a nonbinary queer cartoonist, a kpop fan, a voracious reader, and a daydreamer. You can learn an astonishing number of intimate details about em in GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR (America's most challenged book 2021-2023) and in eir short comics and writing published in The Nib, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, and Time Magazine. Maia’s second book is BREATHE: JOURNEYS TO HEALTHY BINDING with Dr Sarah Peitzmeier (2024) and eir third book will be a middle grade coming of age comic written with Lucky Srikumar, due out from Scholastic Graphix in 2026.

Featured Work

Gender Queer: A Memoir

2019
the cover of graphic novel Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma of pap smears. Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere.

Other Works

  • Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding

    2024

Awards and Recognition

  • Alex Award from the American Library Association for GENDER QUEER, 2020
  • Stonewall Award Nonfiction Honor Book from the American Library Association for GENDER QUEER, 2020
  • ALA Rainbow Project Book List, selection, GENDER QUEER, 2020
  • YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens, selection, GENDER QUEER, 2020

Press and Media Mentions