I Am Only a Foreigner Because You Do Not Understand

In a piercing cycle of 28 short, often anguished autobiographical meditations, Nichols (Flocks) chronicles their life story and the long uphill climb to claiming their nonbinary identity in a hostile culture. Nichols’s comic avatar, a button-eyed ragdoll representative of their otherness, asks plaintively, “What would it be like to present my body without clarification or justification?” Alongside details of their history of body dysmorphia and gender confusion, Nichols delves into familial stresses—particularly with their mercurial mother—and the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. A particularly painful memory captures their ex-partner’s lack of support for Nichols’s gender identity and Nichols’s inability at the time to ask themself “if I deserved better.” Despite facing many trials and tribulations, Nichols manages to celebrate the joys of raising two children and the attainment of hard-won self-acceptance and inner grace: “Maybe my strength isn’t this... it’s in being hurt... and still choosing to love.” Nichols’s canny, adroit drawings capture their dizzying swirl of emotions and experiences with honesty and visual acumen. The result is a unified and heartfelt tone poem of the struggle for acceptance. (Nov.)