The text is accompanied and transcended by the author’s own intriguing, expressionistic line drawings. His description of his gender-identity development occasionally slips into a well-worn pink-and-blue binary. Man shares his experiences of becoming deaf as a small child and at times feeling ostracized from the Deaf community but not how he arrived at his current Deaf identity.
He is open and vulnerable throughout, even choosing to reveal his birth name. He describes his gender and sexual identity, his experiences of racism and ableism, and his desire to use his visibility as a YouTube personality, model, and actor to help other young people like him. Growing up in conservative central Pennsylvania was tough for the 21-year-old Deaf, genderqueer, pansexual, and biracial (Chinese/White Jewish) author. Important for its frank sex talk but far less inclusive than it aims to be.ĭeaf, trans artist Man meditates on his journey and identity in this brief memoir. More troubling, the book’s efforts to support transgender readers are undermined by persistent, thoughtless affirmations that biology really is destiny-for instance, when the author debunks the myth that “gay men are ‘girls’ ” with a jokey “Penis? Check! Yup, gay men are, in fact, male.” import, and while U.S.–based readers shouldn’t have much trouble understanding Briticisms like “fancy” or “shag,” some of the anti-discrimination laws referenced won’t apply. Chapters on sex and apps like Grindr are helpfully matter-of-fact, and readers hear from people who choose casual sex as well as those who prefer emotionally intimate relationships. To add more perspectives, segments from interviewees who represent areas of the LGBT spectrum not represented by the author himself are also included. Easily readable tables and humorous cartoons further liven up the presentation. With irreverent chapter titles like “Stereotypes Are Poo” and a chatty narrative voice, the tone is largely upbeat, though the author also touches on “some MEGA-SAD FACE topics” like discrimination.
Speaking with candor, humor, and enthusiasm, Dawson addresses topics from coming out to sexually transmitted infections to sex apps. An exuberant guide to LGBT life takes the stance that “being L or G or B or T or * is SUPER FUN.”
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