Metamorphs: In Search of Nonbinary Media
"Metamorphs" is a graphic dissertation that poses questions around the gendered nature of sequential media, and tries to open up the question: If "Nonbinary Media" existed, what would it be? Is there even a point of having this as a seperate category?
Metamorphs offers no concrete answers to either of these questions, instead it uses my own lived experience as a nonbinary person of color to question the gendered nature of media, and considers possibilities for "Nonbinary Media" by looking at existing media from the early 2000's as a baseline.
What is the purpose of a study like this, done in a format like this?
In early 2025, I tried to search for published essays on, as I wrote it, "Nonbinary Media". I quickly found that there was an abyssmal selection to choose from, at the time I only found around 5 published articles existed that focused primarily on non-conforming/non-normative gender identities within media studies. Even when using other terms such as "Genderqueer" or "Gender non-conforming" the selection was quite slim, and focused largely on "Man" and "Woman" as the baseline for which all gender is experienced. Even within the few articles I found, most were published within the last few years, and of those a large percentage was made up of dissertations from Bachelor's students like myself.
However, the thing I found most frustrating was that I found almost no evidence of research on sequential media in relation to non-normative gender identities... despite the fact that this conversation has flourished in hobbyist/amateur researcher circles. All throughout social media, particularly on Tumblr and Youtube, you could find rich and complex conversations around the nature of gender in media in ways that simply did not exist in academia.
Metamorphs hopes to bring some of these conversations-- many of which are spear-headed by those with lived experiences-- into the academic world in an accessible format.
Disclaimer:
Although "Metamorphs" uses the term "nonbinary" (e.g. within "Nonbinary Media") quite often, I recognize that this term does NOT speak for all non-normative gender experiences! "Metamorphs" aims to be as accessible as possible to as many people who do not fall strictly within either a "Man" or "Woman" dichotomy, regardless of the specifics of this experience. The term "nonbinary" is used specifically because of the following reasons: 1. it is easily understood by a variety of people who may not be as familiar with the expanse of gender expression and 2. it echoes the language being used by a variety of officials (particularly in the UK) when referencing progressive legislation such as gender markers and healthcare related issues.
As such please note that if you are a person who feels like your gender is not specifically Man OR Woman and have an interest in comics, this research is for you! This includes but is not limited to people who are Genderqueer, Gender Non-conforming, Genderfluid, Agender, Twospirit, Demiboy/Demigirl, and includes people who may not feel like any label can describe their relationship to gender adequately!