I first stumbled upon Julia Kaye’s work in 2017, through a Twitter hashtag game. Her art charmed me from the get-go, and I bounced with excitement to see Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition available at the local library. 

Super Late Bloomer is a short comic diary about Kaye’s early days of transition. After saying farewell to a long-term partner and moving back to her parents’ home, she begins the slow legal process of name-changes and gender markers and the slow physical process of changing the body. Gender euphoria and dysphoria aren’t a linear process: Kaye has bad days and good days. Agonies of doubt spread like weeds, and Kaye weeds them out. Ultimately, Kaye is becoming herself, after all. 

I found myself comparing Super Late Bloomer to Sabrina Symington’s First Year Out: A Transition Story a lot. While Symington’s work is more of an educational text, Kaye’s comics are a memoir. The two comics share the same topic, but I had different reactions to them. Though Super Late Bloomer did elicit some chuckles, it left me with a strange melancholy. I was struck by how much a trans person’s confidence can depend on others, especially in the fledgling days. Kaye decides to not judge this seeking of outside validation as a “good” or “bad” thing. Which is totally fair. For a cis person like me, it reiterated the need to be respectful and use pronouns correctly. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s day. 

The realization also made me more aware of my own gender. In the home, it’s a non-issue, a blip in the mind. Outside I’m hyper-aware that others see me as a woman and how much danger that puts me in. My wife and I rarely go out after sundown. 

Kaye’s openness about her journey is a gift to us all. It sparked a conversation in me, and trans readers need their mirrors, like all other gender minorities. If I spot the sequel, I’m grabbing it. 

My review of First Year Out: A Transition Story by Sabrina Symington can be found here: https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e096fb64-c037-47a3-9234-031cc96cd166