Essay Questions

What is autoandrophilia?

A key element of the engine driving the narrative is the author’s search for a spot within the body-gender disconnect spectrum. After rejecting most of the more well-known alternatives, the author comes across the controversial concept of autoandrophilia. This is a term that describes the specific gender dysphoric condition of becoming sexually aroused by the thought of having the biological form—the body—of the gender which was not assigned at birth. (For men who are aroused by the thought of being a woman, the term is actually autogynephilia.) While opponents of the theory are quite vociferous in their denouncement and rejection of it as a genuinely scientific concept, the fact that untold millions of people around the planet and throughout history have identified strongly with its precepts tend to undermine the objectivity of this opposition.

Who is Patricia Churchland and why is she so essential to the text?

Churchland is, according to the author, at least, the inventor of “neurophilosophy.” She is also a college professor and, most importantly, author of the book Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain. Rather deeply into her graphic memoir, the author introduces the concepts outlined in Church’s book in what amounts to academic fashion. That is to say that the book is quoted directly and indirectly and, in traditional scholarship methodology, these ideas are referenced with page numbers. The quotes from Churchland’s book are accompanied by illustrations of her within a teaching framework situating her as if she was delivering a lecture in a college classroom. The quotes support the argument that gender is much more complex than the traditional simplistic view that aligns gender with sexual organs. The result, rather surprisingly, connects the dry scholarship of Churchland with an allusion to a Lady Gaga song in which the author is portrayed with the thought bubble: “So Lady Gaga was right—I was born this way.”

What are Spivak pronouns?

The issue of pronouns are they relate to gender fluidity is addressed at various points in the book. Eventually, the author adopts what at the time of publication was still a very little-known alternative to the mainstream, but which had been making significant inroads within the non-binary gender population. Spivak pronouns look kind of weird in print—“Ask em what e wants in eir tea” is one example from the book. In concept, however, Spivak remarkably simple and contextual: “e” is basically he or she reduced to the final letter. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out from this fundamental explanation what “em” and “eir” refer to. Nevertheless, the author is at first very hesitant about adopting this new matrix of pronoun reference because it seems to force an inconvenience upon others to conform their language adoption to special very special and rare circumstances. A friend counters that the decision is really either to barely inconvenience others on rare occasions or suffer the discomfort of a constant barrage of gender misidentification emself.