A transgender comic artist has developed a cult following on Instagram after she started distilling the complicated emotions and experiences of a person's transition into three-panel comics.
Julie Kaye, from Los Angeles, is the woman behind @upandoutcomic, an Instagram account that has recently become home to a series of comic strips about her own transition.
The strips, which are posted every Thursday, cover both the highs and lows of her personal journey, telling stories of joy when someone tells her she is looking more like her mother, as well as frustration when she looks in the mirror and doesn't see the person she wants to.
Although she only started posting the series to the Instagram account in October, Kaye told Mashable she had been drawing the comics since the start of this year.
"I found making them to be therapeutic," Kaye told Mashable. "It got me to set aside time at the end of my day to reflect on how I was feeling. And because I was making the comics for myself, I allowed myself to be more honest than I might have been otherwise."
In an interview with Buzzfeed, Kaye said she had received many messages of support and appreciation from other transgender people.
"That my story has given them hope for their future, or made them feel better about being themselves — it's really been heartwarming."
Fairfax Media