In the initialism LGBTQIA, the letter Q can stand for queer or questioning. Questioning means a process of self-discovery, finding out whether and how you are queer. As people learn about themselves and others, they may try on a series of labels as they figure out what best fits their lived experience and what feels like the most comfortable and accurate way to express that.
This collection is part of my directory of other people's creations on itch.io, Curated Collections of LGBTQIA, where you can find more collections about other topics, and on specific sorts of transgender identities. I personally select and review each creation in them, even if they are different than my own views or experiences as a queer person myself.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
Length: 31 pages.
About the artist's "experiences growing up as a trans kid with an unsupportive family, discovering myself and transitioning as an adult."
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About the cartoonist's experiences growing up, questioning his gender, and starting his social transition. At the time he made this comic, he felt the most comfortable describing himself as nonbinary. After this comic was finished, he figured out that he was a transgender man, which he wrote about in the sequel, Cisn't.
Queer themes: Social transition. Binding. Name change. Relationships. Coming out.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A single page of instructions for a physical game. Use an ordinary set of tumbling tower blocks which are best known under the brand name Jenga.
Length: Many days.
About: "A long form, real time, tumbling tower solo game."
Queer themes: Questioning. Nonbinary. Gender.
Vibe: Productive.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: An interactive text, created in Twine, which guides you through steps of making a drawing on a piece of paper.
About: This game "uses the art-making process to mirror the process of forming a gender identity, and invites players to think about their gender in ways that are unclear, abstract, potentially uncomfortable, and disconnected from a binary understanding of gender."
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Medium: A zine. 16 pages, with covers. Layout for reading on screen.
About: A workbook for describing your gender by plotting it on a grid, where the reference points are other concepts than a male-female axis.
Vibe: Innovative, approachable, makes difficult concepts look easy.
Content: Rated PG.
Medium: A short comic book zine. Black and white. There are separate versions for reading on screen, and for printing and folding. Not screen reader friendly.
About questioning whether you are asexual.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: Comic book zine. Full color.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: The author's experiences of being genderfluid and pansexual.
Vibe: Friendly explanations. Finding belonging.
Content: Rated R.
Accessibility: Some of the text is intentionally difficult to read for artistic reasons.
Medium: A personal zine designed for reading on screen.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir. Poetry. Collage.
About the zine writer's personal experiences with being a lesbian, enjoying being surrounded by other sorts of queer people (gay, bi, and trans), and how being a lesbian doesn't necessarily mean being a woman.
Content: Rated PG.
Accessibility: Not screen reader friendly.
Medium: A full color book, hand-lettered, with cartoon illustrations. 11 pages, with cover.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Humor.
About: Short, easy definitions for some LGBT identity words. The definitions themselves are accurate, it's just that the tone is tongue-in-cheek in response to quarrels that people have had about how to define them.
Queer themes: The queer identities this covers are asexual, aromantic, bisexual, pansexual, lesbian, gay, trans, questioning, and queer.
Vibe: Queer joy. Choosing not to let the haters waste your time.
Content: Rated PG-13.
Accessibility: No audio. Black and white high-contrast 1bit graphics, so colorblind friendly and low vision friendly.
Medium: A zine created in Decker (a program inspired by the Hypercard software from the 1990s).
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Manifesto.
About: A personal zine about how some people will clutch their pearls no matter how you present yourself, so you may as well be your whole real self.
Queer themes: Transgender.
Vibe: Raw, vulnerable, defiant.
Content: Rated G. Friendly for all ages.
Accessibility: Screen reader friendly. Colorblind friendly.
Medium: A computer game. This is a prototype, so it feels like only the first chapter of a story, but it demonstrates what it's supposed to do, and it's fully playable without any problems.
Genre and subject: Visual novel.
Duration: One play through is about ten minutes. There aren't major decisions or other endings, but you can replay it to experiment with other gender expressions for your character to see how you feel about them as a player.
Story: You help your friends plan a wedding.
Queer themes: A game where you can choose your gender expression, including nonbinary options. The purpose of this game is to be a sandbox where you can safely try out different names, pronouns, and other words for yourself, to see how you feel about being called by them in real life.
Vibe: Encouraging, friendly, companionable, hopeful, cozy, cheerful.
Content: Rated G.
Medium: A computer game that runs in your web browser.
Duration: About five minutes of play to get the idea.
About: An abstract game with a very small amount of text and a simple interface. Try to move a dot into a circle.
Queer themes: About being transgender but finding that any attempt to fit into a category eludes you. "It feels a bit pretentious to release something like this, but it's still the most accurate explanation of my experience of gender that I've ever had."
Vibe: Not emotionalistic itself, but in effect prompts emotions in the player.
Content: Rated PG just for some swear words.
Medium: Zine. 8 pages long, with covers. Designed for reading in web browser.
Genre and subject: Nonfiction. Memoir.
About: A personal memoir zine.
Queer themes: About being transgender but finding it difficult to name one's gender.
