25 Comics By Sophie Labelle That Shine A Light On LGBTQ+ And Other Topics (25 New Pics)
Interview With ArtistSophie Labelle is a transgender cartoonist and activist from Canada. Through comics, she addresses the personal experiences of being transgender while also tackling social issues and injustices. Sophie uses humor and straightforward storytelling to make topics like gender identity, LGBTQ+ struggles, and societal challenges more relatable and accessible.
Her comics don't just entertain—they also encourage important conversations. Sophie’s work helps readers reflect on the world around them, whether it's about understanding gender or discussing social inequalities. With an honest approach, she’s not only normalizing transgender experiences but also shining a light on issues that matter.
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"After coming out, when I was a teenager, I found an inspiring community of queer, trans and gender non-conforming people. Very soon, as I have done all my life, I started making comics about events and jokes in my friends' group," Sophie shared with Bored Panda about her journey as an artist.
if living a life of sin makes me happy, I will continue to live a life of sin IMG_202502...9cfcb3.jpg
Sophie tackles serious topics with humor and irony. We asked her how she sees the role of humor in addressing sensitive issues like gender identity and social injustice in her comics. "If I weren’t laughing, I would be crying," the artist shared. "Which is a valid reaction in itself, of course. However, my goal is to empower queer and trans people, to give them courage. I think humor is very powerful in that sense."
The bathroom thing isn't about protecting women, it's about bullying trans people. If people have to use the bathroom of their birth sex, that means there will be MORE men in the women's bathroom. Because transmen will be forced to use the women's bathroom, because that's their birth sex. So you'll have even more male looking people in the women's bathroom! So if you're worried that a man will pretend to be a woman to get into women's bathrooms and harass women: that rule would solve nothing, because that guy could still just walk into the women's bathroom and pretend to be a transman. It would make it even easier for him, because then he doesn't have to dress feminine to do it.
Sophie shared that if she had enough hours in the day, she would create comics about every topic she feels deserves one! "My editing process can be quite long—I will write a dozen versions of a strip until I find the right angle. A lot of these topics get lost in the editing process. Sometimes—often, lately—I’m just too overwhelmed by everything and choose to talk about something completely unrelated."
And then you hit her right in her pearl-clutching transphobic face. With the coffee mug. Note: this is hyperbole.
Sophie’s comics are filled with creative elements—like interviewers and magical pond creatures—that bring her ideas to life in unique ways. We were curious about how she comes up with these imaginative concepts. "As a creator, I like to put characters in a situation and watch what might happen. It’s that electricity that fascinates me—when characters decide for themselves what happens. Curiosity drives me and leads me to do all these weird experiments. It keeps the writing process interesting!"
Creating comics that tackle deep, emotional topics can be both rewarding and exhausting. We asked Sophie how she navigates creative burnout and what keeps her inspired, even when working on such intense material. "This past year has been a lot, personally and politically, and it has certainly negatively impacted my energy. I had to delay and postpone so many engagements! I barely took any time off from work—the joys of being my own boss—but I usually spend a lot of time in the forest, cycling, hiking, camping, or foraging.
I've been working on a children's book since the pandemic, and it should be done soon. After that, don’t try to find me—I’ll be in the forest!
Speaking of cycling, I’m participating in a new queer and trans comic anthology by Stacked Deck Press about sports! It will include a bunch of very awesome artists, and I’ll be telling a story inspired by the time I cycled across Canada. The crowdfunding campaign will be live in a few days!"
To see more of Sophie’s work, you can visit her Instagram and Webtoon pages, where she continues to share her comics. Through her art, she hopes to inspire and uplift others, saying, "I hope my comics are helping people build strength and resilience to keep going despite everything."
I sometimes wonder - if you are talking about joint memories of pre-transition life, do you re-gender and re-name the individual retrospectively? How do you strike a balance between paying respect to their gender and identity now, with having loved the previous "them" too, and feeling that the history you shared with that person is being silenced or erased?
A close friend of mine is trans, and he is so much happier and healthier for it, and I absolutely support him and still love him. But sometimes it’s hard, because the person I was friends with when I was very little is gone, or didn’t even exist in the first place.
Load More Replies...Names can change, and so can people. But that doesn't mean that both names aren't correct. If I've known you your entire life by one name, and you legally change your name for ANY reason, I will respect that and do my best to call you by your new one. But I'm human, and I might mess up, especially at first. So this works both ways; please respect the people that are trying to respect you, even when we mess up. Intent matters.
I know lots of trans people and none of them ever blame someone for saying their deadname if it's by accident. They know that it takes time to get used to it.
Load More Replies...What it *is* “our turn” for is to be a specific focal point for hate.
I took a stand against homework when I was a kid. Never did it for years, aced every test anyway. Some of my teachers liked my moxie and let it slide, others were pissed that I refused to play the game their way.
It drives me crazy how many people don't know that intersex people exist. So many people haven't learned anything beyond 3rd grade biology, which is super oversimplified for little kids, and not actually factually correct at all. But they've never learned anything else and now think nonsense like "Having XY chromosomes means you are a man", which is just ignoring the ACTUAL biological facts.
Biologically speaking, all males are trans, because we all begin in the womb as female. It takes a precise application of a specific hormonal cocktail at a very specific time to trigger the change to male. So, if life begins at conception, we're all females.
I've been a landlord. No. We bought a house for us to live in, but we had to live somewhere else for work. So we rented the house out to a family for a year so they had somewhere to live. All that money was invested in the upkeep of the house. We made no profit. Not all landlords are evil
The majority of trans people realize they're trans between the age of 3 and 7. Even in the 80s, when no kids had ever heard of the concept of transness, trans kids at that age would start saying things like "why do people keep saying I'm a girl? I'm a boy, I just look like a girl" or "I wish I had a boy body like all the other boys, why was I given the wrong body?" or "when is my body gonna turn into a boy?" This is even true for trans kids who didn't know any trans people and had never heard about it, and who had parents who did not support them being trans at all. Most of those parents also say that their kid started saying it at a young age. If you think that a young kid cannot have these thoughts and feelings themselves and were pushed into it, that means you have absolutely no knowledge of the topic and you should learn more about it.
Human rights should never be debatable, that includes transgender rights. Fear, bigotry, and misinformation are tools for hate. Being transgender is not up for debate, there is no argument to be won or lost. Only lives and humanity. Think it through.
These were wonderful. Thank you, Hidrėlėy, for having the courage and the humanity to post these. ❤️
I think that I do not have to deal with someone else's drama, and therefore categorically refuse, for my own peace and well being.
Human rights should never be debatable, that includes transgender rights. Fear, bigotry, and misinformation are tools for hate. Being transgender is not up for debate, there is no argument to be won or lost. Only lives and humanity. Think it through.
These were wonderful. Thank you, Hidrėlėy, for having the courage and the humanity to post these. ❤️
I think that I do not have to deal with someone else's drama, and therefore categorically refuse, for my own peace and well being.
