About
FINE: a comic about gender is based on interviews of 56 different people throughout the US. The book resists the urge to oversimplify, and you will find no handy charts or graphs to summarize a person’s experience of gender. Instead, FINE explores how people navigate gender in the everyday world.
FINE is an offer of conversation: a chance to see the world from another’s perspective. The answers within the book contradict and compliment each other, inviting the reader to approach the people in their community with compassion, curiosity, and trust.
As Ewing neared college graduation in 2012, they became consumed by the question: What is gender? This obsession sparked a quest in their quiet Midwest town, where they anxiously approached both friends and strangers for interviews to turn into comics. A decade later, their project has exploded into a fantastical and informative portrait of a surprisingly vast community across the US. The interviews took place between 2012 and 2016, and the people interviewed include transgender people and cisgender people… and folks who didn’t identify with either term.
Questions such as How do you identify? invited deep and honest accounts of adolescence, taking hormones, changing pronouns – and how these experiences can differ depending on culture, race, and religion.
The book is a snapshot in time. Between the start and finish of the project, many interviewees changed the way they would describe their experiences. People came out as trans, adopted new language, or took new steps in their physical transitions. The language in the trans community changed during that time as well; new words were popularized as some phrases fell out of favor in different regions. FINE celebrates the incredible variety and diversity of terms and experiences within the trans community.
Amidst all of this is Ewing’s own visceral story growing up in rural Kentucky, grappling with their identity as a teenager, and ultimately finding themself through art and the people around them.
Photo by Cate Barry Photography
About the Author
Rhea Ewing (they/them) is a comic illustrator and fine artist who graduated from University of Wisconsin–Madison with a BFA in drawing and printmaking. They currently live in California, taking artistic inspiration from the state’s diverse landscapes.
Ewing calls upon personal and political themes of queer identity, finding connections to the natural world, and building safe spaces for all people. The value of art, by their reasoning, is the ability to create connections, question assumptions, and inspire others to do the same. To that end they work in a variety of mediums, including graphic novels, fine art, and illustrated books.
FAQs
How did you decide who to interview?
From the beginning I knew that I wanted to interview a wide range of people, including both cisgender and transgender folks. We all are affected by gender in one way or another after all! I started with people who I knew, then slowly expanded and kept asking around LGBT centers, conferences, and friends-of-friends for folks interested in participating in the project.
Was this a scientific study?
Hardly. This was all just me trying to figure gender out and what my place in it might look like.
How can I support the folks who participated in this project?
Check out the Support the Community page for info on how to directly support the work and communities of people I interviewed.
I’ve been struggling with my gender identity. Can I contact you for advice?
I’m not qualified to tell you who you are or what you need. I am also not a therapist. Ultimately, you are the only person who can say how you identify, and it’s okay if it’s confusing. What I can tell you is this: you’re not alone, and your happiness and authenticity are worth pursuing. Check out some of these mental health resources, many of which are geared toward people in your exact situation.