George

George’s best friend Kelly has light brown skin, “wore her hair in braids and smelled like oranges and pencil shavings” (20). While George is used to the sight of Kelly in pants and slogan t-shirts, Kelly actually has a wardrobe of skirts and feminine shoes. She says that she hesitates to wear skirts, because “boys are dirty and try to look up them” (180). In the safe space of the zoo outing with Melissa and her Uncle Bill, Kelly is also permitted to display her femininity in public.

Extroverted and theatrical, Kelly encourages George to audition for the role of Charlotte–initially because she thinks it is refreshing for George to be going for the role she wants, regardless of her gender. While Kelly is kindhearted, Gino makes it clear that she does not automatically understand George’s motivations for being Charlotte or what it means when George tells her she is really a girl. When George finally confesses her truth to her friend, Kelly is distant for a week. She finally approaches George and asks, “So you’re, like, transgender or something?” (104). Kelly has taken the initiative to research transgender issues (211). And from then on, she handles George expertly, calling her Melissa and lending her girls’ underwear without batting an eyelid, as well as creating opportunities for her to be herself by offering her one performance of Charlotte and inviting her to the Bronx Zoo with her Uncle Bill.

Kelly, who overall has the best response to George’s news, is an important figure in the book. Through her, Gino shows that the most receptive person to a transgender child’s identity may not be a family member.

George’s mom is “beautiful” and “tall, with a kind, genuine smile, and […] the same bright-green eyes as George” (44). George notes that “she preferred jeans to skirts and didn’t wear makeup” (43). George loves her mom deeply and thinks she is a good person, but George fears that Mom does not understand her and worries about how to tell her the truth about her identity.

For her part, Mom has been aware that her son is different from the time George was three years old and wore her clothes and shoes. She thought that such things were “cute” in George’s infancy, but George’s more recent behavior of looking at girls’ magazines concerns her (105). While she is fairly confident that she can “deal with” George being gay, her son’s believing she is a girl is entirely different (128). Mom expresses her concern and ambivalence with “a stony face and rigid movements” and even finds herself unable to make direct eye contact with George (96). After seeing George as Charlotte, in the play, Mom finally expresses her admiration for her child’s courage in showing the world who she really is; however, she remains tearful and admits they both need “someone to talk to […] someone who knows about these things” (171).

Gino gives the young, intended reader enough of a happy ending, by showing Mom coming around to the truth; however, the sense that she is still getting used to the truth about her child, rather than ecstatic about it, is a realistic rather than fairytale conclusion.

Gino positions Scott, George’s older brother, as the heterosexual, cis-gendered counterpart to queer George. A typical teenage boy, with his “mop” of dark brown curls, wrinkled t-shirt, questionable personal hygiene, and fascination with bodily functions, Scott mocks his younger brother for being different (7). For example, he protests that Gee-gee—a childhood nickname for George that Mom still uses—“sounded like a girl’s name” (44).

However, Scott shows “surprising tact” after directly questioning George about whether she is gay and learning that she is really a girl (148). Rather than being upset or judging George, Scott looks at her as though “his sibling made sense to him for the first time” (142). George, who appreciates Scott’s acceptance and lack of drama around the situation, “had never been gladder to have an older brother” (142). Gino thus provides Scott as an example—that trusting people at their word is a good approach to take when one’s friends or family come out as transgender (211).

Ms. Udell, who “wore her shiny black hair in a loose bun and wooden earrings,” is George’s teacher and a primary representative of society’s gender expectations throughout the novel (11). Formally-spoken and almost severe, Ms. Udell uses wordy phrases such as “some of us take death very seriously […] it is a solemn topic, and I hope that you will respect yourselves, your classmates, and life itself by treating it as such” (14-15). She respects George and is concerned about her wellbeing but initially shows this by affirming her identity as a boy. For example, when the bullies tease George, Ms. Udell cites George’s “compassion as well as imagination” as qualities that will turn her into a “fine young man” (15). Ignorant of George’s true situation, this well-meaning teacher has sent her pupil into further turmoil.

Ms. Udell then plays the instrumental role of forbidding George from playing the role of Charlotte because of her assigned gender and hastening to terminate the audition before George can explain why Charlotte is the only role for her. However, on the day of the performance, when Kelly and George have transgressed expectations, Ms. Udell does allow the show to go on—at Principal Maldonado’s insistence.

The chief bully in the novel, tall Jeff with his “spiky hair,” is a displaced, angry child from California (12). He is the first one to point out George’s gender queerness, stating repeatedly throughout the book that George is “close enough” to a girl (12). A flat character, who does nothing but bully George both verbally and physically, Jeff represents the narrow-minded, mean type of person who is “a jerk” to people who are different (170). When Jeff recruits George’s once-friendly classmate Rick to his side, he spreads his brand of aggressive and prejudiced masculinity to the classroom. However, by the end of the novel, Rick does not subscribe to Jeff’s methods and leaves George alone.

George’s dad, who left her mom to marry a woman called Fiona, lives in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. George believes he “made a better part-time father than a full-time one” (26). George does not consider this largely absent man part of her family and as a result feels closer to her mother, who she tries to protect. However, George’s father makes inroads when he charges Scott with looking after his brother, once he suspected that George was “like that,” meaning gay (138). Arguably, George’s father’s absence is symbolic in a novel that expresses disillusionment with traditional models of patriarchy and family structure. With their single-parent family, Mom and her children are already creating a new model, and George’s change will only further that.