Figuring it out: ‘confusing’ non-binary gender in Runaways and The Order of the Stick

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we engage with the representation of non-binary gender in two sci-fi/fantasy comics (Runaways and The Order of the Stick), and metatextual discussion surrounding them. In our analysis we focus on how non-binary gender is represented, and ways in which the comics reveal implicit anxieties around non/human characters who are non-binary. The idea that non-binary gender is ‘hiding’ a true, binary, gender is present within and beyond the text: rather than accepting these characters’ non-binary gender as a fact of their species within the narrative, it is treated a puzzle to be solved. We explore how texts, and fans, focus upon the body and subsequently sexuality as a locus of gender ‘truth’, even though as drawings these bodies cannot be further revealed beyond the page or screen. We argue these comics ‘confuse’ gender in different ways: at times by purposefully confounding the possibility of pinpointing a ‘true’ binary gender for non-binary characters, while at others taking a more conservative path of displacing such ‘confusion’ onto the non-binary characters themselves to imply that it is they who are ‘confused’ – while reflecting broader social patterns, this characterizes non-binary gender as though it were not a valid way of being.