About the Until I Love Myself Manga Volume 1 Journey Nonbinary Manga Artist (Mature)

A bravely blunt autobiography about confronting the tangled traumas of gender dysphoria and workplace sexual harassment.

Nonbinary manga artist Poppy Pesuyama is excited when forms offer the option to choose “neither” for gender and thrilled about their new job working as an assistant for mangaka X! But then he sexually harasses them, treating them first like a girl and then like something less than human. It only lasts a few months, but in some ways it never ends.

When they finally feel able to confront him about it, they get an apology but not really the closure they were looking for. It turns out his reason for upending Pesuyama’s life was simple. He just could.

Knowing that ugly truth really doesn’t help Pesuyama at all, and so now they begin a new step in their journey as a nonbinary manga artist—therapy! What will Pesuyama discover about gender, society, and loving yourself in this final volume? Poppy Pesuyama is a transgender (xgender, nonbinary) manga creator who feels safe when the gender/sex category on forms includes the option “neither.” Their debut work is Jitsuroku Nakumade Bokorarete Hajimete Koi ni Ochimashita (Being Hit till I Cried Was the First Time I Fell in Love: A True Story).