"You have so many shoes. Who knew you were such a girly girl?"
"Who knew you were?" Kelly grinned.
-Alex Gino, George
Melissa's Story
A statement about identity, gender & bravery
George by Alex Gino tells the story of a 4th grader who was assigned male at birth, but knows she is a girl. When her class announces they will be performing Charlotte's Web, Melissa (her preferred name) knows that she must play Charlotte, she connected with the character immensely and it would give everyone a chance to finally see her for what she really is, a girl. After much preparation, Melissa shows off her skills to her teacher, who is not impressed and tells her that she cannot play Charlotte. This is devastating for Melissa because she believed her teacher would surely give her the part after she saw how hard she had worked to prepare. Throughout the book, Melissa struggles to navigate bullies at school, telling her Mother who she really is, and finding herself. As a reader, I unexpectedly loved Melissa's older brother Scott and his character. While he was a typical high school boy, he was accepting and non-judgmental. When Melissa told him that she knew she was a girl, he pretty much shrugged it off as making more sense and that he expected it. I also found Scott's character important to distinguish the difference between gay and transgender. He assumed his sibling to be gay, because she acted more feminine, so it was powerful for Melissa to be able to explain the difference to him and claim that she is not sure whether or not she likes boys or girls, but she knows that she is a girl. Melissa's best friend, Kelly demonstrates the power of a great friend and ally. Although Kelly is portrayed as cis-gender, she has unwavering support for Melissa and supports her in so many ways. The biggest of which being sharing her part in the play as Charlotte with Melissa. This is when Melissa really shows who she is, although it is unbelievably hard, she feels alive. This book makes a statement about the importance of being who you are and begins to derail society's idea of gender roles.
Classroom Implications
George is a book that some educators may initially shy away from using in their own classrooms due to lack of support from administration or personal concern for how some parents may react to this book. As a future educator, I understand and feel some of those same feelings, but I think those feelings are small compared to how it would feel to be assigned a gender at birth that you know you are not. As teachers, we have the responsibility to read books in our classroom that our students can identify with. We have to be willing to work through our own biases and beliefs which can be hard and emotional work (Stachowiak, 2018). What if we have Melissas in our own classrooms who are desperately seeking a story that feels that looking in a mirror as they read it? We owe it to all of our students to read books that contain characters that they can identify with. A goos starting point for hesitant teachers, according to the NCTE LGBTQ Advisory Committee is to begin with books that contain non-human characters. Books such as Red by Michael Hall, are a great place to begin discussions about identity with students. These kinds of books can push students to make text-to-self connections about labels and their own identity (Hermann- Wilmarth, 2015). Reading books that contain LGBTQ+ characters not only supports students who are LGBTQ+, but students who are cis-gender and straight. These students will have the opportunity to become allies by being informed about pronouns and what it means to question ones gender identity. In order to teach gender equity, it is important to integrate rather than separate (Stachowiak, 2018). Just as Alex Gino did in their novel George, it is so important to select books that integrate the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals and show that they have character traits outside of their sexual and gender identity, that is just one piece of who they are.
About the author, Alex Gino
Alex Gino wrote this book because it was the book they needed as a child. As they came out as a young queer, they could not find any books about transgender children. Alex makes it clear that this book was not written just for trans people, but also as a guide for how cis-gender people might react to a transgender individual. By reading this book, cisgender people could become inspired to be allies and to avoid some of the pitfalls that characters in this book had. Alex has been an activist and advocate for LGBTQ+ communities since 1997 and George was their first novel.
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In the back of George and on their website Alex Gino gives some great tips regarding pronouns. On their website, Alex discusses what to do if you call someone by the wrong pronoun. Their personal preference is to say "excuse me", move on, and remember in the future to always ask people their preferred pronouns to avoid awkward situations. They advise against long apologies because that may make the person feel uncomfortable and feel the need to express forgiveness. In the author's note of George, Alex gives tips that I found especially helpful in avoiding offensive language or labels in this blog post. For example, they discuss the importance of not saying, "trapped in the wrong body" because this fails to describe trans people and their bodies. They also say that phrases such as "feels like" or "identifies" are not great either because this makes it seem as if the transgender person is up for debate, it is better to say "is".