| Sophie Labelle | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Area(s) | Cartoonist |
Notable works | Assigned Male |
| www | |
Sophie Labelle is a Canadian [1] [2] cartoonist, public speaker, and writer. She created the webcomic Assigned Male , which draws upon her experiences as a transgender child. [1] [3] She is an activist in the transgender rights movement, and speaks on the subjects of transgender history and transfeminism. [4] [5]
Labelle grew up in rural Quebec, near Châteauguay. [2] She worked as an elementary school teacher, and was the camp coordinator for Gender Creative Kids Canada. [6] [7] [8]
Labelle is the author and illustrator of Assigned Male , a webcomic and series of zines addressing issues of gender norms and privilege. It features the character of 11-year-old Stephie, a transgender girl discovering and embracing her gender. [1] [4] [8] Labelle said that while working with transgender children, she "noticed how negative everything we tell them about their own body is, so I wanted to create a character that could respond to all those horrible things trans kids hear all the time." [4] She has made educational guides to go along with the comics, promoting safer spaces for transgender youth. [4] The Washington Blade called the webcomic "hilarious" and said it shows transgender humour can be funny without being offensive. [9]
Labelle has written several books and zines about gender identity and expression, including The Genderific Coloring Book, A Girl Like Any Other, Ciel at Camp Fabulous, and Gender Euphoria. [10] [11] The English translation of the second volume of the Ciel series, Ciel in All Directions (2020, Second Story Press) was named as a 2022 Bank Street Children's Book Committee's Best Books of the Year. She wrote the foreword to Tikva Wolf's book Ask me about Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles. [8] [12] She has created trans-centered sex education materials for Trans Student Educational Resources. [2] [13]
In May 2017 Labelle released the comic book Dating Tips for Trans and Queer Weirdos. A scheduled launch at the bookstore Venus Envy in Halifax was cancelled after threats were made against both her and the store. She received death threats, her home address was posted in online forums, and her web site and social media accounts were compromised (leading her to take them offline temporarily). [14] [15] In the wake of the harassment, Labelle advocated for Canadian Bill C-16 to protect gender identity and expression, and for stronger laws against cyberbullying. [16]
Polyamory is the practice of, or the desire for, romantic relationships with more than one partner at the same time, with the informed consent of all partners involved. Some people who identify as polyamorous believe in consensual non-monogamy with a conscious management of jealousy and reject the view that sexual and relational exclusivity (monogamy) are prerequisite for deep, committed, long-term, loving relationships. Others prefer to restrict their sexual activity to only members of the group, a closed polyamorous relationship that is usually referred to as polyfidelity.
The word cisgender describes a person whose gender identity corresponds to their sex assigned at birth, i.e., someone who is not transgender. The prefix cis- is Latin and means on this side of. The term cisgender was coined in 1994 as an antonym to transgender, and entered into dictionaries starting in 2015 as a result of changes in social discourse about gender. The term has been and continues to be controversial and subject to critique.
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. Trans men have a male gender identity, and many trans men undergo medical and social transition to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identity or alleviates gender dysphoria.
Real Life is an American webcomic drawn and authored by Maelyn Dean. It began on November 15, 1999, and is still updated, after breaks from December 10, 2015, to September 10, 2018, and again from July 16, 2019, to June 15, 2020, from December 6, 2022 to February 26th, 2024, and most recently, from April 9, 2024, to present. The comic is loosely based around the lives of fictionalized versions of Dean and her friends, including verbatim conversations, as well as fictional aspects including time travel and mecha combat. Characters regularly break the fourth wall. Real Life focuses on humor related to video games and science fiction, and references internet memes.
Dana Claire Simpson, is an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of the comic Phoebe and her Unicorn, as well as the long-running webcomic Ozy and Millie. Other works created by Simpson include the political commentary cartoon I Drew This and the alternate reality drama comic Raine Dog.
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
Kathryn Moira Beaton is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant, which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books The Princess and the Pony and King Baby, published in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The former was made into an Apple TV+ series called Pinecone & Pony released in 2022 on which Beaton worked as an executive producer. Also in 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, about her experience working in the Alberta oil sands. Publishers Weekly named Ducks one of their top ten books of the year.
Jon Macy is a gay American cartoonist. He is best known for his graphic novel DJUNA: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes, a biography of the beautiful and irascible Modernist author. His graphic novel Teleny and Camille won a 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Erotica.
Portrayals of transgender people in mass media reflect societal attitudes about transgender identity, and have varied and evolved with public perception and understanding. Media representation, culture industry, and social marginalization all hint at popular culture standards and the applicability and significance to mass culture, even though media depictions represent only a minuscule spectrum of the transgender group, which essentially conveys that those that are shown are the only interpretations and ideas society has of them. However, in 2014, the United States reached a "transgender tipping point", according to Time. At this time, the media visibility of transgender people reached a level higher than seen before. Since then, the number of transgender portrayals across TV platforms has stayed elevated. Research has found that viewing multiple transgender TV characters and stories improves viewers' attitudes toward transgender people and related policies.
Gisèle Lagacé is a Canadian comics writer and artist, writer and illustrator of webcomics. She is best known for her series Ménage à 3.
In contrast with mainstream American comics, webcomics are primarily written and drawn by women and gender variant people. Because of the self-published nature of webcomics, the internet has become a successful platform for social commentary, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) expression.
Assigned Male is a webcomic illustrated and written by Sophie Labelle. It draws upon her experiences as a trans girl and woman. The comic, and series of zines, address issues of gender norms and privilege. It began in October 2014 and is ongoing, published in English and French. The webcomic is released in printed anthologies on Labelle's online store.
Accounts of transgender people have been uncertainly identified going back to ancient times in cultures worldwide. The modern terms and meanings of transgender, gender, gender identity, and gender role only emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. As a result, opinions vary on how to categorize historical accounts of gender-variant people and identities.
Julia Evelyn Kaye is an American artist, illustrator, and voice actress. Kaye currently works as a storyboard artist and revisionist at Disney Television Animation, and is the creator of the webcomic Up and Out. She has also done work for Maxim, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, GoComics, College Humor, along with other graphic design work. She provided the voice of Snapdragon in the animated series High Guardian Spice.
Trans Girl Next Door is an autobiographical webcomic by Kylie Summer Wu, documenting her transition as a transgender woman. Wu started her webcomic shortly after starting her transition in 2013 in order to express and process her feelings. Trans Girl Next Door covers Wu's transition, her love life, and the more mundane parts of her life. Wu was listed in the Trans 100 in 2015 for her webcomic.
Rain is a slice-of-life webcomic first published in November 2010 by Jocelyn Samara DiDomenick. It follows a teenage trans girl named Rain Flaherty as she attends a private Catholic high school and interacts with the community around her. In 2013, volume one of Rain was published in a book format.
Venus Envy is a webcomic written and designed by a trans woman, and artist, named Crystal Frasier. It was first released in 2001. In addition to dealing with the themes of transgender people and gender transition, the strip also deals with other themes such as adolescence in general, William Shakespeare and women's soccer.
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