{"id":39,"date":"2021-12-17T15:32:46","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T15:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/?p=39"},"modified":"2024-01-28T09:40:29","modified_gmt":"2024-01-28T09:40:29","slug":"charlie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2021\/12\/17\/charlie\/","title":{"rendered":"charlie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the first chapter in Jimmy Hollis i Dickson’s work in progress about a 10-year-old non-binary, Charlie, and their friend, Alex (the narrator). Feedback would be appreciated, especially<\/strong> from<\/em><\/em> (but not limited to) readers of that age (more or less), non-binary readers of any age, and writers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jimmy<\/em> can be followed on Twitter<\/a>: @JimmyHiD1<\/em> and on Bluesky<\/a>: @JimmyHiD1.bsky.social <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My<\/strong> Friend Charlie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie is my best friend. They\u2019re very smart, very funny, and very, very brave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know, I know: I had trouble with this at first. Why am I saying \u201cthey are\u201d when I\u2019m talking about just one person?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s because Charlie is “non-binary” and they’ve decided not to use “he” nor “she”. They\u2019ve decided that they\u2019re not a \u201che\u201d nor a \u201cshe\u201d: they\u2019re a person. That\u2019s just one of the ways in which Charlie is brave, because they\u2019re always getting teased by other kids\u2026 and even the teachers have problems with Charlie\u2019s new identity. I could never be that brave!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charlie has been my best friend since Year Two, and now we\u2019re in Year Five. It was during the last summer holidays that Charlie decided to \u201cdefine as non-binary\u201d. That\u2019s how they talk. Charlie uses bigger words than I do, partly because they\u2019re so smart, and partly because of their parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to have to look up all the strange words (I was a bit shy of knowing so little), but now I just ask Charlie or their parents and they\u2019re all really nice about explaining them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Ms. Parker, Charlie\u2019s mum. Although she\u2019s married to Mr. Brown (Charlie\u2019s dad), she didn\u2019t change her name to Mrs. Brown. Because, she said (I wrote this bit down), \u201cI refuse to be defined by a patriarchal society!\u201d She said that it\u2019s nobody else\u2019 business whether she\u2019s married or not (so she doesn\u2019t use Miss or Mrs.) and also \u201chow are my old friends going to find me, if they\u2019re looking for Liz Parker, and here I\u2019d be Liz Brown?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told me that LOTS of women lose contact with old friends because of changing their surnames to their husbands\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd some even lost their FIRST names, because they started calling themselves Mrs. John Wilson, or names like that! Silly newts!\u201d (Charlie\u2019s mum uses some funny insults.) \u201cI\u2019m not Mrs. Lawrence Brown: I\u2019m Ms. Liz Parker. Even Larry doesn\u2019t call himself Lawrence Brown, so why should I?\u201d And then she made a funny, cross-eyed face and stuck out her tongue, tipping her head to one side, exactly like that emoji!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you know what else? They, I mean Charlie\u2019s mum and dad, always liked the name Charlie, but when Charlie was born, they decided that they, I mean Charlie, shouldn\u2019t have to grow up as either Charlie Brown or Charlie Parker, but they found out that it\u2019s possible to give your kid a DIFFERENT surname from yours! So they\u2019re Charlie Donnelly. (I knew who Charlie Brown was, but I had to look up Charlie Parker on the internet.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, since I\u2019ve been best friends with Charlie for over three years, I know whether their name used to be Charlotte Donnelly or Charles Donnelly, but\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019M NOT TELLING!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first chapter in Jimmy Hollis i Dickson’s work in progress about a 10-year-old non-binary, Charlie, and their friend, Alex (the narrator). Feedback would be appreciated, especially from (but not limited to) readers of that age (more or less), non-binary readers of any age, and writers. Jimmy can be followed on Twitter: @JimmyHiD1… Continue reading charlie<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/la-granota.com\/blogs\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}