Sophie Labelle is a well-known cartoonist, speaker, and author from Canada. She is famous for her autobiographical webcomic Assigned Male, in which she writes about her life as a transgender woman.
She is a transgender rights activist and has given talks on transgender history and feminism.
Labelle was raised in a little town not far from Châteauguay, Quebec. She was the camp supervisor for Gender Creative Kids Canada in addition to her job as an elementary school educator.
Controversy
When Sophie was seven years old, her older brother started a comic book club, and she immediately became a member. They talked about the fantastic experiences their fifth-grade instructors had had. Those comics started trending across town.
Sophie, who was only 13 at the time, kept drawing even after the art club disbanded. As a direct result, comics exploring queerness and issues of gender have become increasingly popular.
Sophie became involved in LGBTQIA youth and school organizations. Her first draft of Assigned Male was motivated by conversations she had with her LGBTQ activist acquaintances.
This happened in 2014 when she was in graduate school for education. Sophie, a trans youth, often felt she wasn’t shown in the media. That’s why she made the decision to focus on kid characters in her comics. “Society as a whole is based on mandatory cisgenderism and heterosexuality, which pushes us to believe that every child born will ultimately be cis and straight.”
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Sophie Improved as An Artist and Storyteller as She Became Increasingly Well-Known for Her Work
“I didn’t expect Assigned Male to be popular when I first started sketching it. If I’d realized that my drawings would become so popular, I would have spent much more time on each one. But I didn’t have the right digital web tools at the time, and I had no idea what I was doing.
Her comics improved in quality with time, both visually and narratively. Because of the positive feedback I received, I was motivated to create even more comics.
A Historical Review of The First Steps
When Sophie was seven years old, her older brother started a comic book club, and she immediately became a member. They talked about the fantastic experiences their fifth-grade instructors had had. Those comics started trending across town.
Sophie, who was only 13 at the time, kept drawing even after the art club disbanded. As a direct result, comics exploring queerness and issues of gender have become increasingly popular.
Sophie became involved in LGBTQIA youth and school organizations. Her first draft of Assigned Male was motivated by conversations she had with her LGBTQ activist acquaintances.
This happened in 2014 when she was in graduate school for education. Sophie, a trans youth, often felt she wasn’t shown in the media.
That’s why she made the decision to focus on kid characters in her comics. “Society as a whole is based on mandatory cisgenderism and heterosexuality, which pushes us to believe that every child born will ultimately be cis and straight.”
Sophie improved as an artist and storyteller as she became increasingly well-known for her work. “I didn’t expect Assigned Male to be popular when I first started sketching it.
If I had realized that my drawings would become so popular, I would have spent much more time on each one. But I didn’t know what I was doing because I lacked the necessary digital web resources at the time.
Her cartoons progressed in maturity alongside her art and writing, adding clever new gags and witticisms as she did so. “Knowing that people were enjoying my comics inspired me to create even higher quality works.”
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Career
Labelle has authored many books and zines on the subject of gender identity and expressions, such as The Genderific Coloring Book, A Girl Like Any Other, Ciel at Camp Fabulous, and Gender Euphoria. Among the best books for kids published in 2022, Ciel in All Directions (2020, Second Story Press) was chosen by the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee.
For Tikva Wolf’s book, Ask me about Polyamory: The Best of Kimchi Cuddles, she penned the foreword. She has worked on sex education resources for trans students through Trans Student Educational Resources.
Labelle’s comic book, Dating Tips for Trans and Queer Weirdos, came out in May of 2017. Despite having a launch party planned at Venus Envy, a bookstore in Halifax, the author was forced to postpone it after receiving death threats.
She was the target of death threats and had her home address published on message boards and social media accounts hacked (which she temporarily took offline). As a result of the harassment, Labelle pushed for stricter anti-cyberbullying laws and Canadian Bill C-16, which safeguards gender identity and expression.
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