Thumbnail book cover for Gender & Sexuality For Beginners. A rainbow backdrop and hand-drawn eyes with variations of gender symbols.

A critical examination of the sex-gender system and the evolution of gender roles

This is a book for everyone: useful, smart, opinionated, surprising… Even more important, and this is not something I get to say very often: If a copy of it were to land in the right pair of hands, this is a book that could save a life.

The Stranger

Taught in courses at nearly two dozen universities, G&SFB was anthologized in Gay City Volume 6: UpClose Personal.

“…a beautifully written and accessible exploration of a variety of gender-related topics.

Flavorwire

A challenging and engaging page-turner, this book could change the way Americans perceive gender, orientation, and the practices that promote heteronormativity. With precision and lucidity, Garbacik manages an impressive feat: she presents readers with an accessible history of the evolvement of our society’s basic tenets surrounding gender and sexuality. What’s more, she turns many widely held assumptions directly on their head, leaving us with the disquieting sense that, when it comes to understanding the differences between men and women, we may have been misled.” 

Dr. Belisa Vranich, author, clinical psychologist, founder of The Breathing Class™

An articulate tour through diverse histories, addressing both popular and obscure texts from across the world, and in a variety of general and academic disciplines…accompanied by level-headed analyses by Garbacik.” 

Publishers Weekly

A genuinely subversive book that, better than most post-modern philosophers, undermines efforts to push, stamp, file, and index people into rigid categories, no matter the personal cost.” 

The Front Page Online
An arm proudly holds up a sign which reads, “The personal is political.”Hand-drawn ink illustration by Jeffrey Lewis, as seen in Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.

From the Back Cover

What does sexual orientation signify if the very categories of gender are unsettled? There is no consensus on where one’s sex begins and ends, or what purpose the categories of masculine and feminine serve. Is it possible to promote equality while our society’s definitions of “male” and “female” continue to leave out much of the population? Although significant strides have been made in recent years on behalf of women’s, gay, and lesbian rights, there is still a large division between the law and day-to-day reality for LGBTQIA and female-identified individuals in American society.

Questioning biological definitions of gender and the sexes as forms of compulsory identification, Gender & Sexuality For Beginners critically examines the meaning and perpetuation of the gender construct in historical and contemporary contexts. It interweaves neurobiology, psychology, feminist, queer, and trans theory, as well as historical gay and lesbian activism, to offer new perspectives on gender inequality and to ultimately point to the ways in which the inadequate sex-gender system oppresses us all. Gender & Sexuality For Beginners illuminates how the evolution of gender roles and definitions of sexual orientation in American society are neither as objective nor as “natural” as we are often led to believe.

Supplemental Resource Guide

Hate flipping to the back of the book every time you want to know where a quote came from or who performed a particular study? My publisher created a downloadable Gender & Sexuality For Beginners Supplemental Reference Guide with my end notes, bibliography, and additional resources for an easier reading and teaching experience!

Selected Press

Buy the Book

You can get a copy online from Powell’s, Elliott Bay Book Co., B&N, IndieBound, or directly from Red Wheel/Weiser, AK Press, or Microcosm Publishing. Ask in person at your favorite local independent bookstore! Or check if your local library stocks the For Beginners series.

About the Illustrator

A high-contrast black and white portrait shows Jeffrey Lewis sitting in a city scene with a tree and fences. He is wearing jeans, a black shirt, black hat, and smiling subtly.

Born and raised New Yorker Jeffrey Lewis is a comic book writer/artist and a musician. He has released a number of albums on the venerable indie label Rough Trade, and has been self-publishing his comic book series Fuff since 2004. In addition to his live appearances and tours around various corners of the globe, Jeffrey’s work has been featured by the History Channel, NPR, the New York Times, the Guardian and elsewhere.

Selected Images

Cross-section diagram of the brain showing the corpus callosum. Hand-drawn ink illustration by Jeffrey Lewis, as seen in Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
Hand with a pencil near a paper which reads, Check one: male, female. Hand-drawn ink illustration by Jeffrey Lewis, as seen in Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
Diagram of a human ovum. Caption reads, Female= of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs. Hand-drawn ink illustration by Jeffrey Lewis.
Margaret Mead studing with tribal group in New Guinea. Hand-drawn ink illustration by Jeffrey Lewis, as seen in Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
The Vitruvian Man, with a caption that reads, “Before the enlightemenment era, anatomical study was focused on male bodies; a ‘one-sex' model of anatomy.”
A full page multi-panel comic shows two babies being delivered, while introducing the complexity of gender within scientific discourse.
Hand-drawn ink portrait of Jamison Green, born 1948. Trans activist and cofounder of FTM International. Illustration from Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
A long line of men in hospital suits communicating the male overreepresentation as test subjects. Illustration from Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
Fossilized skeleton of Lucy, a Australopithecus afarensis discovered in 1974. Illustration from Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
A baby with a diaper crawling on the ground. Caption reads, Studies have shown that mothers tend to overestimate their boys ability to crawl and underestimate their girls’ ability.
A march with many people holding signs that read equal rights now, we’re denied what you take for granted, the people united will never be defeated, and others.
A hand-drawn portrait of post-structuralist philosopher Judith Butler (born 1956). Illustration from Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
Nineteenth century dolls in gendered clothing of the time. Gendered clothing was a way to actively enforce gender archetypes.
A hand-drawn portrait of queer theorist David Halperin (born 1952). Illustration from Gender and Sexuality For Beginners by Jaimee Garbacik.
Three women’s suffrage protestors holding a sign that reads, Mr. President– how long much women wait for liberty?
The Supreme Court seen from the outside. Title: Roe v. wade. Caption begins, During the 1970s, birth control and reproductive rights came into focus as a national policy issue…

G&SFB Book Tour!

Three-piece rock band featuring Jeffrey Lewis on guitar and vocals performs in a dimly-lit do-it-yourself music venue.
Jaimee wearing sunglasses and selling books during a Pride event. The table is decorated by rainbow flags.
A July 2013 issue of Seattle’s The Stranger weekly newspaper. The arts section features an article by Paul Constant accompanied by photos of the book and Jaimee.
Jaimee reading from their book to an audience in the University of Washington bookstore.
Jeffrey Lewis holding his hands behind his head while sitting on a large fallen redwood trunk and gazing up into the canopy.
A wide shot shows the contrast of Jaimee’s silhouette and a massive trunk of a Redwood. She gently touches the bark of the large tree.
Stylized black and white photo of Jeffrey Lewis and Jaimee Garbacik presenting on stage at San Francisco music venue, The Chapel.
At Backspace, a Portland music venue, a dark room with art on the walls spotlights Jaimee reading among listening attendees.
Jaimee, with a comedic grin, standing next to the Bestsellers wall at the Elliot Bay bookstore and pointing at the copy of Gender and Sexuality For Beginners.
Los Angeles venue Echo Country Outpost displays a colorful sandwich board sits in the sun advertising Jaimee and Jeffrey’s tour.
Jaimee, wearing a suit jacket, tie, and big smile, sitting in a bathtub full of copies of Gender and Sexuality For Beginners.
Jaimee and Jeff on tour
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SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCE GUIDE
BUY THE BOOK
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
SELECTED IMAGES