If you didn’t catch our last glow prints in 2019, these come out AMAZING and the ink looks outstanding at night or under blacklight! They only printing ONCE on June 16th so make sure to put your orders in before then!
I’ve already mentioned this in the general I Kissed Shara Wheeler screaming post but I’m going to talk more about how much I love the execution of Smith’s gender identity because everything about it was so well done?
First of all, I was very happy to see some more diverse nonbinary representation! More nonbinary rep is always good to have, and I love Ash’s character a lot, but they’re a bit of a stereotype. I’d like to reiterate no hate to Ash, I love them, but they are assigned female, short hair, weird earrings, they/them pronouns, on TikTok. Which is fairly standard, though in no way bad.
Smith, though. A genderqueer character who’s assigned male at birth, a definite rarity even in queer fiction. Football player, typically masculine build, doesn’t use they/them pronouns.
I like how he and Ash coexist in the same book, and they’re both nonbinary (or some sort of non-cis), and the book is really just telling us there’s no one way to be nonbinary. Fantastic. Shoutout to Casey McQuiston for giving us this.
The scene where we found out Smith maybe wasn’t cisgender after all was also fantastic, potentially my favorite scene in the book. The whole experience of “well Ifeel like that and I’mnot queer” and then later realizing your queer is so relatable and an experience I think a lot of queer people share. As someone who has absolutely done that multiple times, Smith experiencing that Oblivious Queer moment made me laugh.
Ash’s explanation of how traditionally feminine interests =/= being a girl, and short hair =/= being a boy, was a good and also fairly realistic way of separating gender identity and expression. I don’t think most people in real life will use the unicorn thing, but people do talk about hair. It didn’t feel forced.
The way Smith described dysphoria was also great. Sometimes it is looking at your body and hating, loathing, it should be the other binary sex, but sometimes it’s not- sometimes it’s “I wish it was different but I guess I can deal with it.” And wearing baggy clothes to try to imagine your body is different? Very relatable.
“You know… if being a guy feels like something you haveto do, like it’s an obligation or something…” Ash says carefully. “Maybe think about that.” This line is probably getting so many readers to question their genders. Honestly, reading something like this would have been my genderqueer awakening if I hadn’t been awakened already.
In the burn pile, Smith’s multiple attempts at answering the prompt “what is a moment in your life that you felt truly yourself,” and the way he struggled with finding a time he felt truly himself, was a painfully common queer experience.
The football response to that prompt was good, but I adored the one about feeling endless, like the Holy Spirit. Queering religion and using it to feel closer with your gender. Very glad McQuiston didn’t take the “I’m queer so fuck being religious I guess” route, because that is fairly common, the “I’m queer and religious and they enhance one another” mindset is nowhere near explored enough.
Smith also wears his letterman jacket all the time, even in eighty degree heat, which Chloe puts down to “jock flexing,” but reading that scene after finding out Smith wears that jacket to cope with dysphoria makes the reader see this fashion choice of his in a very different way. I see what McQuistion did there.
I didn’t expect Smith to end up being genderqueer (though I definitely called the thing with Rory), but I’m so glad he is, because that whole subplot was beautiful and I clearly have a lot of thoughts on that, but I’ll shut up now.
