Petosky came out as queer prior to coming out as trans. When she did start to identify as trans, gay men she was romantically involved with would ridicule her for it. She started seeking therapy around age 24, primarily surrounding her transness. She describes it as taking place at a time in the world when "it was a really popular....it was popular to think that if you were trans and you liked men, you were just a self-loathing homosexual, so I believed that hard-core, that, like, I was just...I...I liked boys, I knew I liked boys but I couldn't imagine myself...I had to picture myself as a woman to be able to have an intimate relationship with a boy." Eventually, Petosky began subscribing to radical feminist ideology and "got really into trying to, like, break down gender and completely eradicate it from my mind." In September 2015, Petosky was detained at the Orlando International Airport when a full-body scanner scanned her penis, which a Transportation Security Administration agent marked as an anomaly. When Petosky explained to the agent that she is transgender, the TSA agents, including explosives specialists, detained and questioned her for 40 minutes. They also gave her two full body pat-downs and searched her luggage. Petosky asked if they had a protocol for dealing with transgender people, and the agents replied that they knew what they were doing. She was released after the TSA established that she did not present a danger, though she missed her flight, and spent an extra day in Miami. In 2017, Petosky stated that she is still learning and questioning everything about her gender, even divorcing herself from labeling herself as a woman: "In allowing flexibility and not having rigid thought is, like, a new concept that I'm working so hard on...to just let myself be flexible. But the world's not that flexible. Like, you know, every article is like, 'This is a show created by a transgender woman,' or, like...I don't call myself a woman. It's just assumed. I don't, but I also don't, like, call myself agender or non-binary or anything like that, because I am pretty binary in a lot of ways. I just say 'trans.' I just like 'trans.' It's just, like, a wide enough ."
Career
Petosky was a programmer before meeting Zander Cannon and helping Cannon to co-publish The Replacement God. With both Cannon and Kevin Cannon, Petosky formed the comic art studio Big Time Attic in late 2004. The three illustrated the graphic novelBone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards for science writer Jim Ottaviani. They are currently working on a genetics graphic novel with writer Mark Schultz for Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Top 10. In January 2007, Petosky and Vincent "King Mini" Stall, along with the employees of Big Time Attic, formed a "convergence media" studio called Puny Entertainment, which went defunct around a decade later. They have created video games and animation for Cartoon Network and created animation for the Nickelodeon/Nick Jr. television showYo Gabba Gabba!. Petosky and Stall opened the Pink Hobo - Geek Art Gallery in 2009 to showcase art work inspired by pop culture, digital media, and lowbrow art. In June 2017, Petosky launched the Amazon Videoanimated seriesDanger & Eggs, which she co-created and provides voice work for. Shadi Petosky co-created a Nickelodeon pilot called Ugly Mutt with Dan Hagen, and is the executive producer on the Netflix series Twelve Forever.
