Man or Woman?- Alison Bechdel

So....looking at the author's name on the cover of the book, I thought, cool, we can hear a woman's atory, written by a woman, change of pace. And then looking at how the character was drawn in the book, i was like, hmmm...that loosk like a little boy. then i dismissed it and thought that she was jsut in a tomboy stage as a child. But then I had to look up a picture on the internet....Is the author a woman or a man??? I cannot tell...and the story int he book is not too discriminatory, in my opinion. Unless I'm missing some key pronouns...I dont know.
Also...another coming of age, finding myself, this-story-is-all-about-my-life-and-childhood story....cooome on. Is that the only thing graphic novelists write about?