The Argonauts is an autobiographical confrontation of the realities of existence for women, mothers, and transgender people. It explores themes of motherhood, pregnancy, family, the body, and gender, through the re-telling of Nelson's real-life experiences.
Nelson uses a non-linear narrative construction to parallel certain life experiences. For instance, she details her labour with son Iggy alongside the sickness and death of Harry's mother, to reflect the beginning and the end of life – which ultimately reflects the futility of discrimination based on inherent differences between people, as 'it is idle to fault a net for having holes'. Nelson further parallels the physical bodily changes she experiences during pregnancy with the changes her spouse Harry experiences during their gender-affirming hormone treatment and surgery. In particular, she describes 'the summer of our changing bodies', when Harry gets top surgery and Maggie is four months pregnant; together, they are an 'inscrutable hormone soup'. This comparison indicates the physicality of gender identity, as well as the inherent queerness of motherhood.
Inkeeping with the book's auto-theoretical approach, Nelson analyses ideas from multiple theorists of gender, sexuality, and family studies. This includes work exploring queerness and gender/sexuality studies from notable authors such as Judith Butler and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, as well as significant feminist scholarship from authors such as Luce Irigaray, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich. Nelson ultimately combines theories and experiences of gender-queerness with feminism and womanhood, to create an auto-theoretical trans-feminist approach to social justice and academia.
