Gender Queer

At the start of Kobabe’s second year of graduate school in 2014, eir roommate puts up a One Direction poster in their shared dorm. Kobabe is quickly sucked into the One Direction fandom. The band’s fourth album is important to Kobabe because its release coincides with eir “first crush in several years,” a “family health crisis,” the death of a friendship, and eir last year of graduate school (158). Kobabe begins writing One Direction fanfiction, pouring all eir feelings into it and writing nearly 100,000 words in a year. Kobabe’s fanfiction is premised on the band members all being in love with one another, but e never experienced firsthand kissing or other intimate activities that might happen in a relationship. To fix this so e can finish eir fanfiction, e downloads the dating app Tinder. After a failed date with a woman referred to as Y, Kobabe has a wonderful date with another woman referred to as Z. After a frank discussion about eir boundaries, desires, and lack of experience, Kobabe and Z begin dating. After two months of dating, Z buys a strap-on harness to fulfill Kobabe’s fantasy of having a penis. While the visual image is exactly what Kobabe wants, the actual experience gives em dysphoria because e doesn’t feel anything.