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Comics I drew in top surgery recovery, 4/4 (More here, or read them all in order here.)

Just before top surgery 1 year ago, I wrote down memories and drew them in recovery just after. I couldn’t really say in words how I feel, but wanted to try to capture some tiny sense of it.

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june

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Comics I drew in top surgery recovery, 3/4 (More here, or read in order here.)

Just before top surgery 1 year ago, I wrote down memories and drew them in recovery just after. I couldn’t really say in words how I feel, but wanted to try to capture some tiny sense of it.

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exhausted from being forced to fight for my continued existence / reminding myself of truths the government can't change: gender variance exists all through nature and history, our differences are valuable and wonderful, we’ve always been here and always will be.

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Comics I drew in top surgery recovery, 2/4 (More here, or read them all in order here.)

Just before top surgery 1 year ago, I wrote down gender memories that I then drew sleep-deprived in recovery just after. I couldn’t really say in words how I feel, but wanted to try to capture some tiny sense of it.

Happy pride. I wish all trans people get to chase that bright spark of gender euphoria.

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exhausted from being forced to fight for my continued existence / reminding myself of truths the government can't change: gender variance exists all through nature and history, our differences are valuable and wonderful, we’ve always been here and always will be.

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Comics I drew in top surgery recovery, 1/ 4

(More here, or read them all in order here.)

Just before top surgery 1 year ago, I wrote down gender memories that I then drew sleep-deprived in recovery just after. I couldn’t really say in words how I feel, but wanted to try to capture some tiny sense of it.

Happy pride, I wish all trans people gender relief.

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Edit: I originally posted these here thinking I’d delete. For the 1 year anniversary, I decided to leave them up, and split them so they’re easier to read.

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june

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last day of pride month, almost my T anniversary, feeling very overwhelmingly positive. Here’s a comic about gender I finally made from some very old notes

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my books:

🎩 I SHALL NEVER FALL IN LOVE (2024 graphic novel) historical rom-com with a transmasc MC about not finding a rich husband. Queer history vs Austen mashup (mostly Emma) plot. Out now, in shops and everything. (Full info || tag)

🌿 FINDING HOME (2017-23, complete) free to read, slowburn 🏳️‍🌈 webcomic about slowly clawing your life back after things have been shit, trees, flower language, fae boyfriend, cooking, & agonised pining. (Intro post || tag)

✨ INTO THE TOWER (2023) illustrated choose-your-own path to the top of a spellbinder’s very magic tower via a masquerade ball. Like several mini fantasy novellas in one. Options include: cursed librarian, steal from the rich, dramatic queer treason, losing yourself forever in the source of all magic. (full info | tag)

🗡️ INTO THE DUNGEON (2018) short, fun, & kid-friendly choose-your-own dungeon crawl (intro post)

& WIPs:

🍷Unannounced 2025 gamebook: queer adult vampire romance. (tag)

🌊 BIG NEW ROMANCE COMIC WIP: (tag)

✨ illustrated romance/fantasy wip (tag) or more art & first looks at WIPs on patreon

💌 Sign up to hear when new books come out here. 

(It’s very helpful when you do. You can unsub any time. thank you!!

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My first few months on T, I wrote down little moments that felt significant so I could remember them.

I found them in a notes document recently. This is one of them.

(for @quindriepress ‘When I was me’ comics on gender euphoria book)

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using my classic method for drawing comic backgrounds: accidentally creating a sort of unfathomable hell of my own devising

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this one resonated I see

my biggest creative passion in life is ‘the project I’m not supposed to be working on right now’

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Hello, I hope you don’t mind me replying in a public reblog. I thought it'd be interesting to expand a little bit on this history for people who haven't heard of them - and on why I sort of think all of this is simultaneously true, and considering gender variation expansively can be useful for thinking about queer history!

I definitely don’t mean to say the Ladies of Llangollen were specifically punished for what they wore, or that they didn’t also wear skirts! The writing is mostly talking about other cases, just using this picture I already drew for the full history section to break up the text, but I totally see why the placement may look misleading here.

In the book itself, this is in the fashion section after explaining short hair was fashionable on women, and next to a caption that just says they “wore riding habits and hats considered more ‘masculine’.” (We have 17-19thC records of men generally disliking women’s riding clothes because they viewed them as not feminine enough, something that still happens with women’s sports clothes today.) Personally I found a lot of even French fashion plates with women’s riding hats in this style still had some kind of softer shape or element of decoration at this time, and saw the Ladies of Llangollen picture as really looking quite like men’s hats when seen side by side.

(These were the absolute most masculine ones I could find while researching the book, among many other more decorative ones, though I’d be interested if you’ve seen more!)

I’m sure I know much less about them, but my impression was also that their having to escape family expectations in Ireland is a way in which you might say they were to some extent outcasts, insofar as they ended up having to live outwith the society they grew up in (though the wording is a bit strong because it's really discussing other figures!) Of course, they were very much famous and quite beloved, lots of big names came to visit as a curiosity - but I think we can at least agree they're still people who did actually have to leave the country to get away from gendered expectations of them.

Mainly I think we might just mean different things by ‘gender non-conforming’, which I don’t mean as ‘equivalent of non-binary or genderqueer’, but in its broad and literal sense! I would say not marrying and going to live with a woman IS inherently not conforming to what’s expected of women at this time, and so was short women’s hair, even though it was a trend.

I don’t know if this is a source you don’t rate, but from whatever image - like Anne Lister - IMO their presentation is both not way beyond the bounds of what’s generally acceptable, but I also don’t think you could say it’s wholly conforming to the ideal of what most of society expected for women then. People are even still weird about straight, cis, traditionally 'feminine' women having short hair in the 21st century, and I think 'gender non-conforming' can be a useful phrase even just to talk about elements that only relate to appearance.

As a bit of a sidebar, we also live in a time now where anti-trans legislation attempts to confine all women to a narrow presentation range, but affects cis women who'd not see themselves as anything but women in terms of their identity at all. So I suppose I see pushing any boundaries of gender presentation as very linked now and historically, and broadening out definitions can often bring new possibilities. Most queer and particularly trans historians I’ve read take quite a broad view of what to consider when thinking about the many ways gender was historically more expansive than some people might think, including trends, and don't consider one interpretation as precluding any other.

Anyway, basically those mini instagram graphics are shortened from an 8-page illustrated history notes section at the back of a historical fiction book. It's a story using real history (and my modern experience) to imagine someone who does have an internal sense of gender at odds with what they're assigned - but it doesn't actually put a label even on the character, and I hope is pretty clear that we can never know the feelings of real people in the past, who existed with their own societally-specific ideas about gender and sexuality. (Though personally I don't really have beef with say, a big researcher of Anne Lister calling her 'the modern equivalent of a butch lesbian' as a way to get people interested.)

My book just has very short introductions that don’t include all the nuance - I’m not a professional historian and wanted them to be accessible to total beginners and young readers. (Though it does include sections about romantic friendships, as well as why we can't really label historical figures in a modern way!)

Mostly I wanted to point people towards finding out more for themselves, and hope it gives interested readers specific figures to look up and resources to get into!

Excuse the format (I made this for instagram since that's what the publisher wants, rip) but this is basically a shorter, easy-to-read version of the history section at the back of my new book. (Part 1 || The book)

More about my relationship with queer history (& section 28) under the cut

Looking up history to make a fun queer historical rom-com opened my eyes to how my entire idea of the past in this country was way off.

It also made me realise that part of the reason queer history felt like such new, revelatory information was a law that banned it, which was still in place when I was at school.

Section 28 was put in place by Margaret Thatcher in the 80s, banning "promotion of homosexuality" in UK schools and local authorities. Local libraries were forbidden from stocking anything with LGBT content, and it effectively stopped teachers mentioning any queer history, leaving them scared to even accidentally mention a same-sex partner.

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just want to add a quote from that article:

legends.

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Although the law was finally repealed in the 00s, it cast a long shadow. Older teachers were used to it, history books conformed to it, and new teachers still feared homophobic backlash.

Today there's a huge and disturbing rise in anti-trans rhetoric and legislation being attempted in schools and beyond, and it mirrors the homophobic conversations of the 80s. The truth that we've always been here gets met with vitriol - and to be honest, also just outright surprise even by well-intentioned, otherwise widely-read cis and straight people I know, especially in older generations.

I feel like there's also the flipside: once I listened to a podcast where two american women, older than me, were both SHOCKED that anyone was ever executed in Britain for being gay?? For me the threat of execution (before 1824), exile or imprisonment (the two years of hard labour that famously lead to the death of Oscar Wilde) were the main, only things I grew up aware of about queer history.

At best, the queer history I saw growing up was absolute tragedy. Part of what was such a revelation when researching was reading historical accounts that hint at hidden queer histories, secret joys and long, complex lives.

So by the time I finished researching my historical romance book, I'd decided to make an illustrated history section at the back too - these pics are a mini version.

I wish more people knew about the real history we have and how far back it goes - I hope someone unfamiliar might be able to get get a tiny introduction, and recs for ways to get a clearer view of our past.

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snippet of something from patreon

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...gonna keep reblogging this every time this website fully glitches out on me for over 5 minutes at a time

periodic reminder I have a newsletter, for emailing people about once a year when I have a new weird queer illustrated romance book out (perhaps later this year for example)

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Character drawings from Into the Tower (x)