Charlotte is Dead and Why That is Real

 Here is the first passage I read from my copy of George. It is the last statement of the FAQ (AOTAWTS). (It should be understood that Alex is talking explicitly as the author.) It is the last page of my copy before the About the Author section. I recommend reading all of this section.
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I'm so glad I understand transgender people now.

Okay. This isn't a question, but I'm adding it here anyway. George is only one story. It is the story of a white, middle-class transgender girl growing up near New York City, written by a white, middle-class genderqueer person who grew up on Staten Island, New York. Every transgender story is different, just as we are all different. Race, money, disability, and other realities further impact these differences.

I will add that you don't need to understand someone to respect them, so while I'm glad you have a greater insight into Melissa's experience, I hope you also learned from Mom, Kelly, Scott, Jeff, Rick, Ms. Udell, amd Ms. Maldonado about how to respond when someone you know tells you that they're trans, as well as some insight into how the things you say and do might affect someone in your life who you don't yet know is trans.
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I want to focus on this idea of "you don't need to understand someone to respect them". We have spent much of this semester talking about how showing children these books let them better understand the world. They can see and empathize with specific experiences otherwise alien to them. A horror of banning is the erasure of somebody else's culture and experience. The beauty of stories like Bronx Masquerade is how they let us learn about others (by letting them speak for themselves). I would argue that Gino posits here that reading a novel like theirs allows children to understand. But beyond that, I would say that there is an argument to be made that Gino wants to engender a fundamental respect in their readers. If a child is unable to read about a certain experience, and in our diverse world there are a whole slew of experiences, there should be some effort to at least instill with them a basic respect that would allow them to better embrace and move throughout the world. Theoretically, if a child is unaware of gay people, they should still have some skills that allow them to tactfully learn of gay culture and interact with its members. My most basic response to teaching these skills is to put a diverse array of experiences into the curriculum, so that drawing from a range from the specific students can make inferences of the general. But there might be something to be said about a discussion about "What is different shouldn't be mocked" separate from individual stories.

To hone in even further, one line stuck out to me on page 15. Gino writes, "Jeff and Rick mumbled apologies. George wasn't sure whether their halfhearted sorrys were meant for her, Ms. Udell, or Charlotte" (15). This line conveys that for Melissa, the real characters of her and Ms. Udell are as capable of receiving an apology as Charlotte, a fictional character. This distinction hits upon the tension of the book, where some would say that any distinction of gender is imagined while others would say it is purely tangible. As Paul Ricoeur says, "The symbol gives rise to thought". Charlotte cannot feel shame. She's a talking spider. But for Melissa she represents a tragedy of doing everything right yet not retaining the right to life, and she relates to this concept in the denial of her gender. Her dreams in the bathroom in Chapter 1 are more real and more true, even if imagined, than when society calls her a man. Some may point to arbitrary distinctions, but humans live in a culturally and societal-ly shaped world in which abstract observations must give way to human constructions. I found when reading that people call Melissa a boy/man more often than what I recall in fourth grade, and I would say that what literally happened is not less important but unimportant. What Melissa perceives is her reality (everybody's reality is influenced by perception). With this story I would argue that Gino's emphasis on characters misgendering Melissa is not solely a tactic to repeatedly draw the reader's attention to Melissa's conflict but also an attempt to portray that Melissa feels this pressure to conform constantly and consistently. Whether or not it is real is incidental as it is realistic enough to evoke meaning and thus useful understanding of our world (I wish to emphasize that people constantly calling Melissa a man may also be completely real and I may be the oddball for not recalling instances of gender assertions, but in the end the history is nothing compared to the symbol).

I would also like to draw focus to when Kelly says, "you should try out for Charlotte... Who cares if you're not really a girl?" (Gino 15) to which Gino writes, "George's stomach dropped. She cared. Tons" (Gino 15). When Melissa pretends to be Charlotte, the audience does not believe they truly see a talking spider. They see a kid acting as a talking spider. Melissa would not feel offended if Kelly had said, "Who cares if you don't have eight legs?" Being a girl is more real to Melissa than being a spider. As she reflects later "Playing a girl part wouldn't really be pretending" (Gino 32). We can put more credence into events where we blur reality and imagination than reality itself, and this statement is not unfortunate. Rather, it empowers us to realize that reality is more subjective, and thus more controllable, than what some may impose it to be otherwise. Melissa reveals that she picked a fight with Jeff because "He made fun of Charlotte" (Gino 131) to which Kelly responds, "Charlotte's not even real" (Gino 131). There is some power in icons that we relate to that by in which when they are mocked we feel mocked. Doing violence to fictional characters can impart violence onto real people. Gino describes Melissa's stint onstage as Charlotte as positively transformative and transcendent. They end it with the line, "Charlotte was dead, but George was alive in a way she had never imagined" (Gino 157). Melissa's performance as Charlotte let her interact with a part of herself she finds real but is otherwise unable to touch and embrace. 

The implications of this distinction between real, reality, imagined, true, and false apply to a meta level as this book is literally fictional. However, on some level it is true. Gino draws from their own experiences, from their own understanding, to impart understanding on their readers. If a real person were to misgender Melissa, even though she is fictional, I still would label it disrespectful. For at some level her experience relates to somebody's reality, and that somebody deserves if not understanding, at least respect. If I had to teach children about how to respect somebody else, I would tell them to respect the stories that they hold dear. For these stories and reality are inextricable.