“People started responding with things like, ‘I had no idea anyone else felt this way, I didn’t even know that there were words for this’,” Kobabe said. So Kobabe, an illustrator who still lives in the Bay Area, started drawing black-and-white comics about wrestling with gender identity, and posting them on Instagram. And even when I am able to start a conversation about it, I feel like I am never fully able to get my point across.” “I just thought, I am wanting to come out as nonbinary, and I am struggling with how to bring this up in conversation with people. “There wasn’t this language for it,” said Kobabe, 33, who now uses gender-neutral pronouns and doesn’t identify as male or female. The words available failed to describe the experience. But coming out as nonbinary years later, in 2016, was far more complicated, Kobabe said. Ĭoming out as bisexual in high school had been relatively easy: Maia Kobabe lived in the liberal San Francisco Bay Area and had supportive classmates and parents. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.
