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Webcomic / Assigned Male

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The comic centers on Stephie, a young trans girl and her genderfluid best friend Ciel. She makes friends with other queer kids and confront the many problems people in the queer community. All while having some fun along the way.

The strips range from serialized narratives, to gag-a-day, to purely informative ones. Whatever the style, they all focus on LGBTQ+ topics/issues and how Steph and Ciel, mainly Steph, deal with said issues.

Assigned Male contains examples of:

• Author Avatar : Steph is more often than not used by Labelle to talk about her own beliefs and discuss social issues.
• Deadpan Snarker : Stephie almost always has a sardonic remark up her sleeve, especially when it comes to ignorant people and/or bigots.
• Deuteragonist : Ciel is the second most important character in the comic next to Steph.
• Embarrassing Damp Sheets : Averted. Steph assumes Ciel wet the bed due to the latter mentioning it earlier, but it turns out Ciel is loving the manicure Steph gave them.
• Embarrassing Old Photo : When Frank visits Steph's house to work on a group project, Steph asks her dad to take down a pre-transition photo of her.
• Fake Twin Gambit : When Steph's friends ask why she looks so similar to "Stephen" (Stephie’s deadname), she pretends to be "Stephen's twin sister". Later on, she tells them the truth...somewhat. She does say Stephen's not living with her mom but still fabricates that this "Stephen" is actually a Hollywood actor.
• Innocently Insensitive : Frank in the beginning of the comic is a tad ignorant on queer topics and this often annoyed Stephie, but it's clear he isn't malicious. He becomes more educated on said issues as the comic goes on.
• Meaningful Name : Ciel means "sky" in French. Ciel chose it because every time they look at the sky, it feels like home.
• Mistaken for Gay : Steph was thought to be a gay boy by her friends and family before she came out. In truth, she's bisexual.
• Only the Knowledgable May Pass : Stephie asks for a passphrase from Ciel so that she can allow the latter to enter her house, but Ciel doesn't know what it is. Eventually, Steph reveals it to be "Do you want a hug?"
• Sobriquet Sex Switch : "Stephie" is simply the feminine version of "Stephen".
• Trans Tribulations : The comic is mainly about Stephie dealing and confronting with many the issues trans people face.

Alternative Title(s): Serious Trans Vibes

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The Best of Assigned Male

I wasn’t familiar with the Assigned Male webcomic by Sophie Labelle, so this comprehensive collection seemed an excellent starting point.

Stephie, a trans girl (11 years old when this series starts), and her non-binary friend Ciel hang out together. Ciel names themself at a camp for trans and queer youth. Stephie gets a boyfriend. The events here are so low-key as to almost be non-existent, but that’s not the point. Instead, the goal is, per the author, to show “non-conforming kids simply having fun with each other and exploring what it means to be themselves.”

I found the chapter introduction text pages very helpful in understanding when each work was made and what the artist’s goal was. Many of the chapters have a longer story backed up with several short strips. They don’t have gags so much as incidents, where Stephie tells someone (and thus the reader) how people should treat her or how some do the wrong thing when interacting with trans people.

The cast mostly talks to the reader or each other (but still aimed at the reader), so the book isn’t particularly exciting visually, although we get backgrounds, and the author is proud to have designed different outfits for the characters in every comic.

The dialogue sometimes chooses taking a stand over being believable as something 12-year-olds would say to each other. Steffie is a very insightful, well-spoken character, an excellent mouthpiece for the way trans kids should be treated.

Although a couple of the section introductions talk about the need to see trans and queer characters in stories that aren’t about being trans or queer, just about all the comics here explicitly address the topic. Often, the comics are short illustrated essays, where one of the characters states the way the world should be when it comes to unbiased sex education or breaking through cultural programming about masculinity. The final chapter, “Sex Ed for Everyone”, was thus my favorite section, as the subtext becomes text and Stephie and Ciel talk about teaching kids about gender diversity.

This approach is usual for this kind of book, one with an explicitly sympathetic point of view, a book that aims to provide positive representation for trans and queer people. It’s educational while being entertaining, and many of Labelle’s points will stick with me because Stephie made them. (The publisher provided a review copy.)

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A spotlight on ‘Assigned Male’-cartoonist Sophie Labelle

By Nour Anne Abdullah

Author, cartoonist and public speaker Sophie Labelle has many followers on her social media accounts. I’ve been following her and her work for a long time now. When I knew about her plans for an European tour, I instantly took on the chance, contacted her and asked if I could interview her. We stayed in contact until the day of the event which was in Amsterdam at ‘Mama Cash’ – a feminist organization. 

There were a variety of people attending the event from different countries and backgrounds. A lot of topics were discussed and experiences were shared. Personally, it was thrilling to meet Sophie in the flesh; she is a marvellous person and a great role model who’s inspired a lot of people, especially transgender people. Sophie is very active in the transgender rights movement and speaks eloquently and with sharp humour about subjects such as trans history and transfeminism.

Sophie was born in 1987 in Quebec, Canada and became an activist for transgender rights from an early age. As an artist she has developed her own kind of activism by showing the world through her drawings that “trans individuals are talented and able to tell jokes.” Her work addresses issues of gender norms and (white cisgender) privilege. Assigned Male is the title of Sophie’s gender-nonconforming webcomic and series of zines. Main character of Assigned Male is Stephie, a (Caucasian) trans girl who explores and embraces her gender against all the odds.

How it all began

At the age of seven, Sophie joined the comic club, established by her oldest brother. The topics dealt with the fifth-grade teachers of their school and their awesome adventures. The comics became a local success. After the club ceased to exist, Sophie; thirteen at the time; decided to continue drawing. This ultimately resulted in comics about gender-related themes and queerness.

Sophie became an activist with LGBTQIA youth and school associations. The experiences she had with her queer activist friends inspired her to complete the first draft of Assigned Male. This was in 2014 while she was studying to become a teacher. As a trans kid Sophie felt a lack of representation. This motivated her to choose children as the main characters in her comics. “Society in general is built on compulsory cisgenderism and heterosexuality, which forces the idea upon us that every child that is born will end up being cis and straight.”

By the time her work got more famous, Sophie evolved in terms of drawing quality and storytelling. “When I started drawing Assigned Male , I did not think that it would get much attention. If I knew that my work would become well known, I would’ve given it a lot more focus by drawing more conscientiously. But I had no clue what I was doing back then, I didn’t have any access to the appropriate digital online tools.” 

Through time, her comics got more mature, better artwork and smarter jokes in them. “The very fact that people were reading my comics made me work harder to make better ones.” 

Public reactions

Sophie has fans all over the world and gets invited to all sorts of events to talk about her work. Sophie likes to tour around. She’s travelled to many countries so far and visited locations varying from universities and government associations, from barbershops to queer festivals. One of the comments she gets is that people find it great to see transness normalized. Sophie points out that the world is changing, there seems to be more awareness about the gender spectrum and more understanding of what once was unknown. Sophie’s work is very much in sync with this development.

But there’s also criticism. Sophie’s somewhat sarcastic humour is sometimes being misunderstood. “I now and then get critical questions such as: We noticed that a lot of transphobes in your comics aren’t trans; are you cisphobic?” Sophie finds this confusing as well as amusing. The critique can be more severe. Sophie has been a victim of transphobia. “On the net you can read silly things about me, conspiracy theories assuming that I am not really trans and that I’m faking it just to make profit from it.” Neo-Nazi groups have threatened Sophie online because of her ‘(trans) gender propaganda’. The controversy did contribute to more public attention and interest in her work, which Sophie likes to see as a beneficial side effect.

Inspiration

Sophie’s comics are no autobiographies, but they are inspired by her personal experiences as a trans person and those of other trans individuals. Readers ask her if she will be going to make Assigned Female comics. Sophie explains that she’s willing to have trans male and non-binary characters in her comics but that she won’t ever make them lead characters in her comics. She suggests that others should fill in the gap “Otherwise I feel I am taking the space that other people should have.” 

Everything that’s been published either online or in print, is ‘self-published’. Sophie states that it’s really hard to be out there and be visible in a positive way, especially if you come from a marginalized group. Many trans artists that become famous become hindered by ‘imposter syndrome’. A psychological pattern that makes them doubt their progress. Despite success, they tend to be unconvinced of their own talents and skills. They tend to externalise the cause of their success: fate, luck. According to Sophie, this is because of internalisation of negative stereotypes about trans people. Some of those stereotypes have existed for years; and in fact still exist.

Role models

Sophie sees that the general image of trans people is slowly changing for the better. Trans people who have inspired Sophie are, amongst others, actress Laverne Cox and writer Janet Mock. She admires the way these women have talked about being trans and what they’ve done for the community in their activism. This has influenced Sophie’s writing and drawing. Alison Bechdel, a pioneer in the 80’s within queer comics about queerness and lesbianism, is also important to Sophie. Especially regarding the audience choice. Sophie focuses on her own queer and transgender community, instead of educating ‘normal society’. If a cis woman from the public asks Sophie how cis people can be a good ally, Sophie answers short and to the point: ‘Buy my work!’.

Writing for TRANS magazine is one of many trans activist deeds of Nour Anne Abdullah. She left her native country Kuwait to be able to continue her actvism in relative safety. She wrote about the pioneering role of the bicultural trans community within the lgbtiq+-community, about creating awareness in Dutch secondary schools, interviewed Dutch trans pioneer Beyong Veldkamp and wrote about latina trans sex workers in Amsterdam.

Transgender Creator of Assigned Male Webcomic Facing Death Threats From Online Trolls

For the past two years, Montreal-based artist Sophie Labelle has published Assigned Male , a webcomic about an 11-year-old transgender girl named Stephanie who is in earliest stages of transitioning and coming out to the people around her. While Labelle’s work has been noted in the queer webcomics community for its frank and powerful portrayals of everyday life for trans youth, the artist has recently become a victim of a targeted attack from online trolls who’ve sent her death threats and doxxed her personal information like her address in an attempt to scare her.

Last week, Labelle was slated to host a launch event for the release of her new book Dating Tips for Trans and Queer Weirdos. A fter receiving thousands of threats of violence from people who said they planned on crashing the launch, though, Labelle chose to cancel it for the protection of the guests.

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“We had to discuss as a staff how we felt about posting the event, whether we should continue hosting the event, and given the threats of violence how, or if, we could keep people safe,” Marshall Haywood, owner of the store for the event, told CBC News. “And because it did escalate quickly, we felt that on such short notice, we couldn’t really guarantee people’s safety.”

Following the cancelation of her book launch, Labelle continued to receive abuse from online trolls who eventually managed to gain access to her Facebook page for Assigned Male and delete nearly three years of her work. After the page became inundated with transphobic slurs, it was temporarily shut down by Facebook’s moderators before being restored to her, but at that point, Labelle had already preemptively moved to shut down some of her other sites for the comic.

“Their goal is explicitly to raise the suicide rate in trans communities,” Labelle told the Toronto Star . “They want us to despair and that’s why they attack support groups and pages like mine.”

While Labelle initially considered calling the police, she ended up refraining because she was unsure as to whether or not the authorities would take the harassment seriously and how they might attempt to handle the situation. Labelle has returned to posting comics and is now moved out of her old apartment.

“They think they are saving civilisation by posting some memes about how I should get killed. And when they start feeling bad about how violent and abusive they are, they say it’s just a joke. They accuse their victims of being ‘triggered,’” Labelle posted to Facebook yesterday. “That’s weird, because from my point of view, you’re definitely the ones being “triggered” by my existence.”

About: Assigned Male

Assigned Male is a webcomic illustrated and written by Sophie Labelle. It draws upon her experiences as a trans girl and woman. The comic, and series of zines, address issues of gender norms and privilege. It began in October 2014 and is ongoing, published in English and French. The webcomic is released in printed anthologies on Labelle's online store.

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Webcomic Review: Assigned Male

(Notice: This review refers to the author of Assigned Male and its main character with biological pronouns. When dealing with horse-puckey of this magnitude, it helps to keep at least one foot in reality.)

The author of Assigned Male is a self-styled first order left-wing mind who believes that he knows what’s better for us than we do, and he’s on a mission to save us from ourselves. The way he’s going about that is by writing a ridiculous webcomic that furthers his agenda. His whole mission backfired when the people who like his webcomic mainly like it ironically, while the rest of us ridicule it soundly.

Because it’s a given that Assigned Male is such a horrible webcomic, it’s predictable that it’s going to be getting a low score. You probably already know it’s bad, so this is another webcomic review that’s kind-of superfluous and it’s hard to say something about it that hasn’t already been said. Yet, the webcomic is so famous for being bad that it’s kind-of hard to ignore. So it’s like another Sonichu .

Transgenderism is one of the current perversities being propped up by the left-wing establishment, and people pretend to be tolerant of it for fear of backlash from said establishment, even though pretty much everybody is secretly afraid that their children may become one. It’s an issue where people pretend to be “progressive”, yet on a primal level, pretty much every sound-minded individual recognizes something is seriously flipping wrong. When someone pretends to be a homosexual of the opposite gender, it doesn’t tend to result in grandchildren for their parents.

There’s something that I’ve noticed when it comes to webcomics, especially when it comes to the bad ones: there seems to be a disproportionately high representation of transgender themes in webcomics as of late. It might sound like conspiracy theorism, but I personally suspect that there’s an agenda at play, especially considering that the transgender crowd just happens to politically align with a certain movement that believes that there’s getting to be just a few too many human beings running around.

Having said that, the type of transgenderism depicted is the no-op male-to-female variety. That seems to be the more prominent kind, because most doctors inform those considering gender-reassignment surgery that, among other forms of damage, those undergoing the operation permanently lose their reproductive capacity, and they don’t actually gain the capacities of their new gender. Most transgenders are discouraged by this, and settle for wearing a dress and accusing those who use the wrong gender pronouns on them of hate crimes.

If someone does undergo gender reassignment surgery, the usual result is crippling depression, as a body is no longer producing adequate hormones for their biological gender, so a person would end up chemically messed up even without taking a bunch of pills. The suicide rate for post-op transgenders is disproportionately high. Gender reassignment surgery is castration, and it messes a person up in the same ways.

Also, unicorns aren’t real.

It may seem like a sufficient introduction to red pill the trans agenda to death, but there’s something more to what’s going on with Assigned Male. If Sophie Labelle, the author of Assigned Male, were yet another transgender snowflake using the webcomic format to have her characters vicariously win the victories that he does not win in real life, he’d only stand out for how zealous and militant that Assigned Male makes him look. But there’s something more to it.

Sophie Labelle is a known and professed child recruiter.

So, you know about that webcomic that he has which indirectly promotes castration? Its target audience is the most vulnerable members of society. Sophie Labelle is just the kind of guy you should want to keep your children away from, and he’s determined to use his webcomic to get at them.

You know what? A review provides more dignity than this trash pile of a webcomic deserves. Why don’t I straight-up bash it?

Sophie Labelle does not know how to draw, but that doesn’t prevent him from trying. After all, he’s got an agenda to push, and he’s not going to allow something like an inability to properly express himself artistically stand between him and the children he’s trying to prey on.

I went and pulled a random example of Sophie’s art, so I’m not being unfair in presenting this as an accurate representation of how badly this webcomic hurts to look at:

When you’re trying to present transgenderism as beautiful, then you want to depict them beautifully. Otherwise, your endeavor is going to be self-defeating. Because as they are, the cast of Assigned Male, the main character in particular, looks like they were stuffed into a potato sack and beat against a jungle gym.

I know that when someone uses webcomics as the vehicle for their agenda, they may say that the quality of their art really isn’t the point, as an excuse to produce art that is sub-par. If that’s the case, why even use a visual medium at all? If your art is something that a reader can make fun of, that would end up being a liability for the overall message.

The art in Assigned Male does improve somewhat, as Sophie eventually decides to shade his characters. They’re still ugly, but in a different kind of way. After the style change, the children in the comic look like middle-aged dwarves.

The self-insert main character of Assigned Male is Stephie, a boy-to-girl no-op transgender child who is pretty much everything you’d be afraid of in a transgender you’d meet: overly-sensitive and hard-rails into throwing temper tantrums at every perceived slight, no matter how unintentional it may have been. While this already makes him rough-him-up-and-dump-this-mess-across-town material, in execution, the comic itself makes him much more unbearable.

For example, the comic opens with a short story about Stephie going to the doctor’s office with his parents, but Stephie storms out after he discovers that their records still indicate that he’s a boy. Because the physiological differences between males and females may necessitate differences in medical treatment of patients, one would think that Stephie would be understanding that doctors would want a pass when it comes to his game of gender pretend. But no, Stephie’s delusion is more important to him than his being treated for the illness that he went to the physician for in the first place. Much later in the webcomic, the issue of gender for medical identification comes up again, showing that Sophie still hadn’t learned his lesson.

Most of the conflict in Assigned Male involves Stephie taking on some kind of strawman representing whatever argument that Sophie feels like taking on. If that sounds familiar, it’s like another comic I’ve already reviewed, Vegan Artbook . But the comparisons don’t end there. Like Vegan Artbook, some updates are one-panel atrocities that throw some blurbs out there that sounded clever in the author’s mind. Here’s an example that pretty much sums up what’s wrong with Sophie’s outlook:

Until you’ve read a medical encyclopedia, right? No, it turns out that Stephie is more comfortable with kidding himself. What Sophie should understand is that the truth of any matter is never determined by mere belief. That’s the important understanding that separates those in touch with reality from those who are deluded. Again, because this is important: The truth of any matter is never determined by mere belief. Either something is true, or it is not. The only fact that pretending changes is the fact that you’re pretending. Societal distinctions of gender are based on the reality of biological sex, and any perception about it doesn’t change that reality, it merely flavors it.

Now, where can we find something scientific to illustrate the gender differences in a simple and straightforward manner?

Another thing to know about Sophie is that he has no problem with attempting to use his webcomic to talk way over your head. Stephie and the rest of the children in the cast talk like English majors in their senior year. And Stephie is supposed to be 11 years old.

I have my doubts that that’s the way children in Canada talk. And this is supposed to be a webcomic that’s targeting children?

If you’re an adult and don’t like his webcomic, then you’re not the target audience. But if you’re an impressionable child, then Sophie has no qualm with intellectually substantiating his nominal designation. Sophie punches below his weight class, and punches hard.

You probably don’t need to be told that skepticism is a great thing to bring with you if you were to plan on reading Assigned Male for yourself, but the author does use the comic to make numerous claims as though supported by studies. It’s an intellectually dishonest move that preys on the unsuspecting and shifts the onus of verification onto the readers that might not bother to look into the claim being made. It’s hard to expect more from a person who doesn’t just feel entitled to his own opinions, but also feels entitled to his own facts.

Another thing to know about Sophie is that he does get trolled pretty hard. Surprising, right? Some of his comics are specifically-designed to answer critics, such as this one:

Not really all that funny, especially when you realize that Assigned Male was written to prey on children. If someone points out how badly your webcomic sucks and they are outside your target audience, your webcomic still sucks.

Here’s another example comic:

Talking heads is pretty much what it comes down to. It seems like the assumption is that the suspension of disbelief favors conversations that are highly unrealistic for children to actually have. The dialog is so ham-fisted that it doesn’t seem to go with the faces, which are actually conveying emotion. It’s hard to imagine a pair of robots having a conversation so dull.

By now, you’ve seen a total of 4 different comic formats used by Assigned Male presented in their entirety. In webcomics, there’s less pressure to maintain a consistent format, which frees up webcomic artists to express what they want to with fewer restrictions of the kind that you’d see in a newspaper’s funny pages. However, sometimes it’s obvious that an artist like Sophie is settling for something simple (like the one-panel splash pages) because that’s what he feels like he’s up for making. That’s his choice, but it does take some effort to pull off in a way that doesn’t seem lazy.

But hey, Assigned Male was never about the reader’s satisfaction. It’s about the agenda, and how the author feels about himself for pushing it. If there’s something that bad webcomics like Addanac City and Robot Hugs can do to improve, it’s give a care about the reader’s experience. It’s what a webcomic author can do to keep their comic from being mere participation in the medium like Boss Rush Society , or a self-serving suckfest like Vegan Artbook . Because as it is, Assigned Male is like a crusty lover whose mission is to blow his load then say he’s done.

Now onto the score. I’ve already shown my hand when it comes to my opinion of Sophie Labelle’s agenda, but the fact that he’s targeting the minds of children pisses me off enough to take away any points that his comic might have otherwise gotten.

Assigned Male gets assigned a score of 0 out of 10 .

Sophie has actually succeeded in having another review taken down because he didn’t like it. I kind of wonder whether he’ll find this review, read it, and blow his stack.

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The Best of Assigned Male

By sophie labelle illustrated by sophie labelle.

21st May 2021

Price: £18.99

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Here's why I think the webcomic "Assigned Male" is really, really bad.

For the uninformed - http://assignedmale.tumblr.com

Unpopular opinion time! I don't like "Assigned Male" In fact, I really, really, really don't like this webcomic. Besides the not so great art style, the main character, Stephie, acts like an adult most of the time, and only sometimes is really child-like. That is to say, there's nothing wrong with mature characters, but you really don't hear transgender children shouting "I don't care what society thinks about my genitals' appearance!" It's obvious that the characters are just a transcription of the author's exact words. No time is taken to make a character different. Many characters could be switched around and the change wouldn't be detrimental to the comic. Once again, we have six year olds talking like 20 something webcomic authors. Which leads me into my next point. The author doesn't take criticism well. There are plenty examples of this occurring, but my favorite is ( http://imgur.com/FkuuuTg ). I find this insulting and ridiculous for many reasons. First off, it's really hypocritical of Labelle to assume that her only critics are "white cis dudes" when in several other comics, her characters explicitly tell the reader, and those within their dimension not to assume the gender of others. Is she trying to gain footing for queer and transgender individuals while also trying to denounce white cis males as villains? Whatever the case may be, it absolutely destroys her credibility to me, and I would never show any cis person this.

I'm a really bad writer, so I'm sorry if this is really bad.

TL;DR: I really don't like "Assigned Male" because it's really hypocritical and the characters have no personality other than the author's.

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Follow the author

The Best of Assigned Male Paperback – Illustrated, May 21, 2021

Includes New and Never Before Seen Stories! Follow young trans girl, Stephie, and her group of queer friends as they navigate school, family and relationships, and experiences of being trans. Humorous and acerbic, this ground-breaking graphic narrative brilliantly explores the journey of discovering and embracing your evolving gender identity, and promotes a sense of community and empowerment through artfully illustrated stories. Based on the hugely successful and influential webcomic Assigned Male , and in print for the first time, this expanded collection contains exclusive content as well as familiar, well-loved characters.

• Print length 351 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Jessica Kingsley Pub
• Publication date May 21, 2021
• Dimensions 6.85 x 0.8 x 9.75 inches
• ISBN-10 1787755932
• ISBN-13 978-1787755932
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

Book description, about the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jessica Kingsley Pub; Illustrated edition (May 21, 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 351 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1787755932
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1787755932
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.16 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.85 x 0.8 x 9.75 inches
• #469 in LGBTQ+ Graphic Novels (Books)

About the author

Sophie labelle.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

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New to Comic Rocket?

Description: edit

• Homepage: http://www.assignedmale.com/
• Transgender

Assigned Male

Rating Summary

• 1 Background
• 4 Story and Plot
• 5 Art review
• 6 Writing review
• 7 Drama For Cash
• 8 Author biography
• 9 Conclusion

Long ago, one of our members asked us to try and find Factual Wriley's secret SJW poe comic based on quotes from Mein Kampf. I've made several attempts to find it on Tumblr and failed. This time I got distracted from my inevitable failure by a repost of a video about a pulled YouTube review. The reviewer had made a critical review of what he described as an "evil, intolerant feminist web comic" which was "condescending, insulting, horribly-written tripe".

Naturally, I had to see if it was that bad. It was.

This comic always sucked.

I'm adding a foreword so it's clear why this comic wound up on our list. I know transgenderism is the current hot topic that "good people" are using to publicly prove their "goodness" with, by acting as if any slight is the same as the final step before transgenocide. There are a lot of people who might willfully choose to see a transgender comic getting a bad review through a filter of "this reviewer must be a bigot" because they want some "evil" to make sure everyone sees them "vanquishing". If you are such a person, before you begin shitting all over the internet about what this review you haven't even read is "really about", let me say this:

If it wasn't for the fact that the author is selling her work as books for children and had a negative reviewed pulled off YouTube, I would assume this comic was maliciously designed to make the transgender community look like a bunch of brainless psychotics.

That is how badly Sophie presents her points of view. Through her various mouthpieces and straw men, she makes the transgender community look irrational by association. The result of introducing any sane person to transgenderism by being given this comic as "informative" or "representative" would be terrible. They would come out the other side thinking anyone who cross-dresses is an oversensitive lunatic who failed biology, because that's what she's depicting. Whether you are transgender, transsexual, or merely someone arguing their side, the best thing you can do for everyone is to distance yourself from the foaming-at-the-mouth madness this comic contains.

If you don't believe me, read on.

Story and Plot

Stephie is an eleven-year-old boy who is now dressing and identifying as a girl. The full name of this comic is Assigned Male - The Incredible Adventures of Stephie (Who Happens To Be Trans) . There is surprisingly little adventuring, and "happens to be trans" is an understatement of how often it comes up, but it was good to see "incredible" used for its less common meaning of "not credible; hard to believe; unbelievable", even though that had to be an accident.

The story begins with Stephie being taken to the emergency room with a fever and throat infection. Stephie becomes irrationally angry at the duty nurse for attempting to confirm she had the right medical card, then angry at her mother for clearing up the confusion of why "Stephen" appears as the name on Stephie's card. She then storms out without getting her fever treated and her mother submissively follows. This can't be passed off as emotional immaturity because Stephie regularly spews college-level leftist propaganda from the first comic and is complimented on how wise beyond her years she is in the next .

So in the very first comic, Stephie chooses identity over health and her mother goes along with it because Stephie's an upset eleven-year-old. With that in mind, what in the hell is the message here? That parents should listen to their children because kids have better perspective than adults? That children only get upset over important things? That trans people live in a fantasy world and that anything that breaks the illusion for them (even momentarily) is more dangerous than potentially giving a child medication that she's allergic to? Emotions aren't more important than being able to breathe. If you believe otherwise, I'll indulge in that fucking stupidity for a moment and give you a counterargument you'll understand: hospital staff have feelings too, and they tend to get really sad when they cause a child's death by asphyxiation. Like, really, really sad.

The comic continues in the same vein, with our twenty-something eleven-year-old having conversations where nobody talks like real people. Stephie gets a black friend named Lea (to pad out the diversity quota). Lea alternates between serving as a sounding board for Stephie's speeches or as a wing man for delivering "truths" to the reader. We're also introduced to Stephie's straw man father who is depicted as a knuckle-dragger with generic "manly" imagery so you know you're allowed to hate him because everyone knows masculinity is evil and foolish. If the author were from the USA, he'd be wearing at least one American flag at all times and talk about the importance of voting Republican. He is presented as unsympathetic because - if your child suddenly decides he's another gender - it's totally normal and not any kind of struggle for anyone else to adjust to. Compassion and understanding should be totally unlimited for everyone... unless you don't immediately agree with the author, which can only be coming from a place of hatred or selfishness or evil masculinity. (You fucker!)

After being introduced to a couple of side characters, Sandro shows up . Sandro is a boy who Stephie introduces to cross-dressing , but who still identifies as a boy. This is so the author can put out a forced explanation of the various new "sexuality" classifications SJWs are currently forcing on everyone who'll listen when he eventually starts dating in a few months, which is blatantly obvious to anyone who didn't grow up eating lead paint chips can make the heavy-handed subtle point that how people dress is a meaningless social construct. Sandro later gains the ability to fire gender-neutral lasers from his eyes NO I AM NOT KIDDING .

The comic continues with Stephie always being right, especially when arguing with adults, in spite of making arguments that only work in a vacuum, are entirely subjective, consist of uncited "facts" and "statistics" invented on the spot, or which are completely absurd. Naturally, everyone who argues with her either was ignorant-but-sees-the-light or is a horrible person, like the homosexual speaker who turned out to be "homophobic". Some of her "adventures" include discussing "privilege," discussing gender-inclusive bathrooms, trading coats with Lea, other people discussing lesbianism, discussing feminism, discussing transgenderism, discussing reading books, discussing--

Say, have you seen a pattern yet?

Stephie is currently being paired up for a relationship with Myrick, who (I think) is a girl who identifies as a boy. If not for that I would have expected to see Stephie paired with Sandro in a relationship that would be incredibly tediously described, over and over again, in those "adventures" I went over.

The art is very basic. Backgrounds are simple or just solid colors. Most of the human figures are proportional, but the faces are sometimes drawn lopsided or unrealistically in a way that makes them seem ugly. Most of the characters suffer from chronic same-face and can only be told apart by skin color and hair. The only significant difference is between the faces of children and adults, which itself is only limited to forehead size and cheek width. When Stephie's mother made an incomprehensible comment about being a lesbian I had to guess it was her retroactively because she had different hair color in that scene.

It's clear that art isn't the first, second, or even third thought Sophie has when making the comic. It is lazy, low in detail, and has the same basic faces recycled endlessly. Throwaway characters are easier to tell apart from the regular cast because their eyes often are just dots.

Writing review

Nearly every part of the writing is terrible. The dialog doesn't sound like anything any people would say in any conversation that didn't take place during a college lecture. The "story" (a word I am using generously here) is a series of settings for the author to preach to you or depict her detractors as idiots. It is frequently interrupted by single-panel diatribes that take up a whole page.

The question here is not "Are there any arguments to be made for tolerating or accepting transgenderism?" The question is, "Would you really want transgenderism associated with arguments like these ?" Because there is no way to review this comic without bringing up some of the insane statements and implications being put forward as representative of the trans community.

Let's go through some of the thought policing bullshit we're expected to believe 11-year-olds say (and throw in some commentary from reality here and there):

• "Everybody keep [sic] saying that I was born in the wrong body. My body is not wrong! What is wrong is what people say about it. It's assumptions they make when they learn that I have a penis! Everyone seems so preoccupied with my genitals - the government in the first place - that they forget what I am going through as a human being." -- Stephie, who is 11
• "So you want to compensate for your insecurity regarding your masculinity and parenting by denying my identity?" -- Stephie, who is 11
• "Nobody asked you because newborns can't talk and biology isn't subjective... but mostly because NEWBORNS CAN'T TALK." -- Science
• "That would be ridiculous. It would mean that he thinks femininity is a lack of masculinity rather than a legitimate identity." -- Lea, who is probably 11
• "What? People believed you were a boy? I always thought you were a girl." -- Some unimportant child side character
• "Come on! Sandro clearly does not follow the hegemonic masculinity model and he wouldn't impose his domination on us. For all we know, we're experiencing a similar oppression due to sexism." -- Stephie, who is totes 11 years old for serious
• "'Cisnormativity' is not a real word and neither is 'heteronomativity.'" -- English
• "There's no need to acknowledge male parts make you male. You can't form an identity for yourself unless you convince yourself inconvenient facts are lies founded upon ignorance and hate. What harm could be worse than letting biology interfere with fantasy?" -- Prostate Cancer
• "YOU DON'T KNOW ME! DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH!" -- Common Sense
• "Let's pretend I didn't hear you [say that transsexuals are rare]. Would you personally include trans men in your conception of masculine homosexuality?" -- Stephie who is absolutely sounding like an 11 year old.
• "Milena, you know that you're privileged for not having to tell which are your preferred pronouns?" -- Stephie who is 11 and almost never has to tell people her preferred pronouns because she makes herself look like a girl
• "Nothing about you being pregnant is even slightly particular." -- Biology
• "Your relationship would be considered heterosexual and sinless by pretty much all of us (except maybe the Westboro Baptist Church)." -- Christianity
• "... and you could get legally married." -- Every government on Earth
• "You do realize your claims gender is a choice entirely contradict our claims homosexuality isn't a choice, right? Because we've been arguing that it's genetic for decades so that it can't be immoral because it's natural. Good luck shaming us into adopting your side." -- Liberalism
• "No, it's an effect of learning how reproduction works the vast majority of the time with plants or animals through observation." -- Causality
• "No, it's male. Our terminology is objective because we view things like preventing cancer as more important than obscuring language to reinforce your sense of identity." -- Medicine
• "No, seriously, I don't want you to die because you think you have to redefine facts to feel comfortable in being who you are. That's an exceptionally stupid thing to put ahead of your health." -- Medicine
• "You know I exist against white people too, right?" -- Racism
• "'Invisibilizing' isn't a word and neither initialism is an acronym." -- English
• " What ." -- Sanity
• "You don't understand. You're living the dream. You won't go through the trauma of puberty. Your voice won't break. You won't grow a beard." -- Some nameless woman speaking to Stephie (to the best of my knowledge, no indication was given in the comic Stephie is undergoing any treatments to prevent puberty)
• "You know we tried raising boys like girls back in the 90's, right? The boys used dolls as weapons. Don't give a boy that baby doll unless you're okay with the possibility of seeing it used as a club." -- Feminism
• "Neither is using 'normal' to describe something as normal." -- English
• "We advertise products to sell them, so no." -- Advertising
• "'Cissexist' isn't a word, neither is 'trans-masculine'... you know what? Are you sure we've met? Because I keep feeling like I should introduce myself." -- English
• " You are mistaken . Also, English isn't speaking to you anymore, but wanted you to know 'neurosexist' isn't a word." -- Neuro science
• "I notice you didn't actually provide any of the studies you referred to and claimed to have personally read." -- Observation
• "Calling everything you disagree with bad names to avoid considering what they've said is terrific! Keep up the good work!" -- Propaganda
• "Nobody is entitled to demand acceptance, only tolerance. People living together in spite of having conflicting beliefs - tolerance - is the basis of civilization. Your beliefs aren't better than someone else's because they're yours." -- Equality
• " 'Ms. Doubtfire' wasn't a trans woman's identity, it was a man's disguise. Those are not the same thing." -- Transgenderism

Drama For Cash

As of May 2017, Assigned Male is now the 8th highest ranked comic on Patreon . "A series of profane words phrased as a question," you ask? Here's what allegedly happened. (minor update, come '23, she had lost over a quarter of her patreons and was down to nr 36)

Sophie cancelled a book launch in May claiming she received thousands of death threats . Thousands . Supposedly, people offended by the child recruitment book she wrote went on some kind of crusade to "convince transgender people to kill themselves." It's unknown if there's any truth to this. Sophie would hardly be the first social justice retard to pull a Saarkesian to cancel on an event or to troll "allies" for money . It's also possible she did receive some threats and was stupid enough to take people on the internet seriously. After all, some of these people were Neo-Nazis because she says they are. Only someone who loves Hitler(!!!!!1) could have a problem with selling people afraid of GMO foods on the idea of putting their kids on hormone suppressants.

Regardless, the end result is the same. Sophie's raking in major sympathy cash. Assigned Male was making nearly $3,000 in mid-February before she hid the income level, which I suspect was to keep people from thinking she was getting enough money to draw wrinkled, flesh-colored sacks making strawman arguments . Since then she jumped from 663 idiot supporters to 1,367.

Author biography

I don't know much about Sophie and I don't care to look into her. It would just be fuel for her (or her fans') inevitable false claims that this valid critique of work - which she willing put on public display and sells - was somehow threatening or harassment. So instead of giving her lie fodder to cry victim with, I'd like to tell you about something from my past.

A few years ago, before "transgender" was a term, I used to haunt a forum that helped people with their problems. Most of the problems were emotional and some were psychological. One day, a man showed up announcing he was thinking of getting a sex change. There was some discussion - all civil, because that's what this place was for - about why he wanted one. He said that he loved women; how they looked, how they acted... really, just everything about them. He didn't hate being a man, he just viewed everything about women as being better. I asked if he was heterosexual (this was before SJWs started trying to convolute the meaning of the word, so there was no fear he'd been conditioned to overreact to communicating clearly). He said yes, that he was attracted to women.

Because of that, I convinced him that he would be better off if he just cross-dressed as a woman. My stance was that since homosexuals only made up 10% of the population (as was believed at the time; I know the CDC put it at less than 3% when they finally got around to looking), it would probably be easier for him to find a heterosexual woman okay with him being a transvestite than it would be to find a homosexual woman okay with him being a transsexual. Plus, it eliminated the risk of being disfigured by a bad operation and left open the possibility of having children of his own some day. He decided to take my advice. The same year I helped a forum regular pick a name for after he had gender reassignment surgery.

To put it another way: I am utterly indifferent to people's gender identities. I have no emotional investment in the topic. This comic sucked and its social arguments that made up most of the dialog were myopic, irrational, self-serving, and coming from a place of false entitlement.

It was recently discovered that Sophie has come out of the closet as a diaper fur fetishist - so not only is Sophie into portraying children of dubious gender spouting militant gender-politic bullshit, but now also portraying furry children in diapers, likely also filling those with shit, which may or may not be of the bull variety, depending on the species of the furry. That Sophie is this much of a creepy fucker should not surprise anyone.

The best thing the transgender community could do is distance themselves from this steaming pile of shit. Every part of this comic from the first page to the last is the worst kind of propaganda. I think I saw one convincing argument in the entire cesspool of the 68 pages I was required to read. There are multiple arguments on each page. Do the math. This comic is the last kid you should pick for your social movement kickball team. It's so bad at the game it scores most of its points against its own side.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

I was worried that maybe the reviewer was getting this wrong and a transgender person might actually think this is a good comic that properly represents the community's views so I asked a transgender friend of mine what she thought of it and she looked at one page and told me:

• This webcomic not only received a listing in the TV Tropes article on horrible webcomics, they even compared it to Billy The Heretic , albeit from the opposite spectrum
• Sophie Labelle's Twitter - which she publicly linked
• A video about the Youtube review of Assigned Male that got pulled off YouTube
• The video review - (mirror); take note of the extremely polite opening disclaimer that got it pulled for bullying
• Her online store - because apparently she wants children reading this bullshit
• The entry in Irregular Reactions for this author
• Reviews with Creator Reactions

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