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The memoir’s final section contains perhaps the only scene where nonbinary identity is directly challenged, at first shaking Maia’s sense of self but ultimately resulting in new learning and resolve. Maia’s Aunt Shari, who identifies as a lesbian feminist, says she is willing to use Maia’s new pronouns but suspects that internalized misogyny is what prompts FTM (female-to-male) and genderqueer people to no longer identify as women. Maia is clear that this is not what motivates em but can’t fully articulate why. Maia finds emself lying awake that night, stewing over the comment and feeling “broken.” As an antidote, Maia’s friend encourages em to read research published by Patricia Churchland, a professor emeritus at UC San Diego who founded the discipline of neurophilosophy. In her book Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain, Churchland argues that some people develop in utero with atypical chromosomes or atypical hormonal configurations between brain and gonads, providing one explanation for nonbinary identity. This research renews Maia’s confidence in eir identity, comforted by the biological explanation for eir relationship to eir gender.

In the final scenes of the memoir, the issue of language and identity reappears, not because Maia lacks the language to describe eir experience but because e’s now shy about using it. As Maia tables at a queer comics expo in San Francisco, which e considers a safe space, e nonetheless finds emself reticent about correcting people when they misgender em, even while wearing the Spivak pronouns button the expo has provided. Faced with these misgenderings, Maia is caught in a vicious cycle of freezing up and then feeling ashamed about freezing up. Later, Maia teaches comic-writing workshops to local junior high students and wonders if e should introduce emself as nonbinary. While reluctant to use limited class time to discuss complex topics like gender, Maia also worries that trans and genderqueer students might not have another opportunity to learn from a genderqueer mentor at such a formative age. Maia ultimately opts not to say anything, resolving to come out “next time.” For Maia, then, language remains at the center of negotiating self with society, as words are always subject to misunderstanding or disapproval, especially for genderqueer people in a gender-binary world. 

There are, however, affirmative moments and important self-discoveries in this final section as well. At a trans rights march, Maia determines that eir masculine clothing is feeling increasingly boring. Inspired by the fashion of Alexander McQueen, Johnny Weir, and Harry Styles, Maia crafts a more colorful and flamboyant look that includes earrings and florals along with a cap and a collared button-down. This feels like a victory for Maia, finding a gender presentation that is a mix of both feminine and masculine elements. Recalling the metaphor of gender as a landscape, Maia demonstrates that e’s become more comfortable incorporating feminine apparel into eir appearance rather than leaning singularly in the direction of masculinity. For Maia, this more androgynous look embraces eir genderqueer persona rather than simply serving to cover up or cancel out femininity.  

Maia’s willingness to speak up at eir second Pap smear exam is also a victory, as Maia shares eir pronouns and explains eir gender dysphoria to the physician. The exam again proves to be a horrifying ordeal that Maia is unable to complete, and the doctor recommends pain medication and an anti-anxiety pill and asks Maia to return two weeks later. However, at Maia’s first appointment, e had kept all of eir questions about gender and identity to emself. Now, before the second exam begins, Maia confidently uses the terms “gender nonbinary” and “gender dysphoria” to explain to the physician why an exam like this is so difficult for em. While this doesn’t make the exam itself any easier to endure, it does show that Maia has made significant strides in terms of both self-identification and of sharing eir identity with others even in deeply uncomfortable and painful situations.  

The memoir’s open ending reinforces that coming out is never a one-time event and remains fraught with social and political considerations even for those who have finally found a home in their queer identity. Maia’s resolve to come out to eir students “next time” is, at once, a moment of disappointment and of hope—disappointment that e hasn’t felt confident to come out already out of fear of being too political but hope in that Gender Queer itself proves to be Maia’s grand, artistic gesture of coming out. Introspective, frank, and full of humor, Gender Queer articulates and lays bare everything Maia had previously felt unable to say. Maia’s family, meanwhile, gets more adept at using Spivak pronouns, but they still slip up and sometimes express frustration about the pronoun change, which troubles Maia. Still, in the final page of the memoir, Maia leaves a loving note for eir parents, expressing gratitude that e is their child. There is conclusiveness and resolve but also vulnerability and a sense of unfinished business in this ending, showing that Maia’s genderqueer journey is ongoing.

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