Join Queermunity's very own News Correspondent Sarah Broadwell to find out why she voted Webb's stunning memoir five stars out of five.
This book explores Robert Webb’s personal experience with gender conditioning. It allows the reader to see through the eyes of someone who recognised the binary gender system established by society and understood from a young age that the boundaries laid out on how to be a boy did not comfortably fit. This is seen through a haunting moment wherein Webb explains seeing an injured bee in the rain. Knowing that incorporating violence, ignoring empathetic feelings and stamping on the bee would be ‘being a boy’, Webb actively rebels, builds a small dam to protect the bee and runs away. Webb also explains that homophobia was a constant during his upbringing. Another ‘rule’ that Webb saw clearly on the instructions of being a boy was that being gay was one of the very worst things to be. Webb notes how incredibly damaging it is when society forbids one from exploring feelings and hopes for a world void of societal panic when one identifies as anything besides heteronormative expectations. Webb weaves his way through serious themes whilst simultaneously keeping the reader smiling - an extraordinary feat. A recurring structure of the book is an abstract outline of conversations between Webb’s current self and his child self at various ages. This invites the reader to think of advice they would give to their own child self given the opportunity, and thus encourages beautiful moments of reflection. Personally, I felt this book created an inspiring platform for one to reflect on their own stories through immersing themselves in Webb’s. Despite the book’s core theme of being excluded from the norm, Webb isolates no reader, and I certainly finished this book with a great feeling of comfort.
Article Written By Sarah Broadwell
(She/Her)