Organic Transitioning and Queer Topophilia in Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

Abstract

Abstract: Andrea Lawlor's (2017) historical picaresque novel Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl tracks the ephemeral embodiments and identifications of Paul Polydoris, a gender-fluid, shape-shifting anti-hero who adapts to queer environments across the United States during 1993–1995, a time when gay hedonism, lesbian feminism, punk anti-homonormativity, and LGBTQ responses to AIDS combined to make a complex heyday of queer culture. Paul exemplifies "organic" transitioning in that his gender processes complicate the culture/nature binary, resist anthropocentrism, emphasize empathetic interrelation with other organisms, and privilege understanding of the complex involvement of biology, culture, and individual will in transition. Paul's body is an enchanted site of meaning that is created in situ and in which he is then positioned to participate in local culture, moving the concept "sense of place" from green trope to queer fantasy of limitless engendering. Approaching the novel from a queer ecological/ecofeminist perspective, this paper argues that as a magical, marginal bricoleur who assembles performative selves from biological forms and cultural references via passionate liminal engagement with queer spaces, Paul inhabits a self-directed transness that challenges conventional understandings of the "natural" and the "human," modeling a dynamic, queer topophilia.