00:00I wonder how my teenagehood would have gone had I not been in Texas when I was 13 realizing like I like girls I want to date girls because it was a difficult environment to be gay in I was in this huge high school 2000 kids I was apparently the only lesbian which I definitely was not the only lesbian I didn't start drawing until I was 16 I took a comics class with a cartoonist in America named Scott McLeod I realized that I had really been
00:29missing my whole life a way to express myself some kids keep journals some kids take photographs some kids talk to their friends and I never really had any way to express all the sad thoughts the violent thoughts the angry thoughts all the normal thoughts that that kids have and so in those first few years of drawing comics it was it was addictive all of my books deal with queer themes art often is an investigation
00:59into pain art is a way to process pain and we tend to read stories and we crave stories about people who have been through extreme circumstances I don't read a lot of books about someone who's having a really good day or someone who's had a really good childhood but I think this notion is is actually totally false because I have made all of my best art when I've been the happiest and I've made my best art when I've been sort of the healthiest and most secure
01:29and I think it's a really good thing when you've struggled when you've struggled with your identity but at the same time I think like anyone queer or not boy girl cisgender transgender any person on this earth if they find peace in self-expression if they find joy in drawing it's as profound an experience for them as it is for me the world would be a better place if more people took time to like sit down with a paper and pencil and draw something because it's
01:59actually a bit hostile in a lot of areas to queer people and I think sometimes people think that I make queer stories in response to this hostility in the world from the outside it might seem like a conscious choice to be like I'm gonna make a queer character I'm gonna tell a queer story it really isn't I don't actually think of my books as queer I just kind of think of them as my books in America even the works of mine that are sort of the least political are still somehow politicized
02:29of queer themes they're gonna be places in America where they're not allowed they get banned they get taken out of libraries they get taken out of schools this has happened to me my books aren't changing any laws and they're not changing the larger structure that's something that has to sort of be done outside of books but I do feel like books are a part of the fabric in society that can promote change
