Growing up "assigned male at birth" ("AMAB"), my main exposure to Judy Blume's work was through her contributions to the genre of children's books. "Freckle Juice" was a body positivity book for people who freckle easily (before freckles became a novelty that people synthesize with cosmetic pens). Then there were the Fudge books, the 1995 telefilm, and the movie's accompanying 24 episode Saturday morning TV series. Her books famously in the "young adult"/"YA" genre were works that I hadn't heard of until a Jack McFarland made a joke about a lesbian's coming out in Will & Grace. That's when I noticed the homage in the "Popular" episode titled "Are You There God? It's Me, Ann-Margret". In that early Ryan Murphy series, a character's battle with cancer led to a dramedy version of "It's a Wonderful Life" with Ann-Marget representing God.
It was when Kelly Clarkson hosted guests Judy Blume, Rachel McAdams, and Abby Ryder Fortson that I started to realize how important "Are You There God? It's Me, Margret" was and continues to be. Even when I was growing up, most "coming of age" stories Were depicted through the perspective of filmmakers and TV showrunners. Between strict Catholic teachings of sexual abstinence and parents who distantly gave me pamphlets on puberty, my guide maps were mainly Everwood, 7th Heaven, and X-Men Evolution. Dawson's Creek got cancelled in my house because of the pilot's mentioning of masturbation, and the Literotica website made provided more narrative substance than Baywatch or my classmates' copies of Maxim. I would've loved to have a film on the level of "My Girl 2" or "Now and Then", but it may have been too controversial for me to see such content as a teen in my house.a
Digressing, It was even more scandalous for Blume to publish "Are You There God? It's Me, Margret" back in 1970. The counterculture had only done so much to impact how tweens and teens leaned about there bodies, and Norman Lear was a year away from pushing the cultural envelope in Sitcom-Land. I imagine that short of Anais Nin, it was horribly taboo for a female whiter to write about female adolescences from a female perspective that at the same time wasn't repressed. 53 years later, LGBTQ YA are often getting banned, and tweens are being forbidden from learning about any form of gender identity that isn't cisgender.
This is what brought me to seeing the film "Are You There God? It's Me, Margret" at AMC Boston Common 19 last month. Much of the story is timeless and relatable for a large swath of the targeted consumer demographic, but the viewing experience was also an opportunity for me to perform some comparisons. What was going on in the 1970 setting was similar to what I experienced in mid-90's Boston. Seeing Margret hang out with peers, was something pretty foreign to my experiences. As a compound result of different circumstances, I was feeling very alone through my middle school days and high school days. I had some friends (usually, they were female), but it was difficult for me to be close with anyone. Something that I'm finding to be common among closeted teens, is that I had I was part of a phenomenon where several of us had gravitated into one loosely connected social group in middle school. As id it wasn't a strong sign of my gender identity that one classmate told me that another (who eventually came out as lesbian) had a crush on me, a male friend asked me "What? So, you're a dyke?". Some members of that friend group know today that I'm trans. There was this one girl in my class who I had a crush for years, and I was too self-conscious to accept a dance with her in... I think either 1998 or 1999. I found out in high school that the attraction was sincere, and reciprocated. Even as platonic adults, I still are about her being happy, and wonder if in some alternate reality, our theoretical chemistry would've continued through and past my coming out. Preparing for middle school gym class (behind the curtains of the stage in the auditorium), there wasn't so much of a ranked competition in pubescent development, but some of us did have more muscle tone than others. The competition was more in a phys. ed. class taught by an Amazon (by the best and worst definitions) who was like a badass cross between Xena the Warrior Princess and a soft core dominatrix while wearing cute little running shorts.
Despite the title, I wasn't expecting spirituality to have such weighty part in the film's narrative. At the age of 12 or 13, I'm not sure how someone made enough of an independent sense of identity to have a deeply critical analysis of religions. In the mid-90's, I was mainly going through the motions because my family was very Catholic, but in 1970, I doubt that I would've understood any more of a Catholic liturgy in Latin, than Margret understood the Hebrew service when attending Temple. At the age of 17, Confirmation class gave me more of a sense of ethics and responsibility, but it was my time in college that left the biggest impression on my spiritual life. I started wondering how a religion could believe so much in a duality of spirit and body in one's self, but be so hung up on the physical when it came to marital rights. The death of John Paul II got me questioning if the election of popes was more of a political matter, and if the biblical cannon was more the product of selective listening. By the time that I graduated, I was exploring yoga and a few meditative practices that come from outside the Abrahamic faiths.
The last point of comparison involves what trans or nonbinary can experience as a second puberty. One during transition. Aside from hormone therapy, transitioning helps one to further develop and recognize their sense of self. Regardless of how young or old the person may be, transitioning is as "coming of age story for them at least as individuals. Not unlike Margaret, You're rediscovering your body with a new sense of it's definition. There are new friends, and some friendships falling out. You "find your tribe" as people say, when for some, that may happened earlier. There's likely even more comparisons hormonal level for those who experienced HRT. Me? I see Margaret imagining herself with breasts of a different size, and I'm picking different outfits to wear with my A cup or C cup silicone inserts. I must point out that silicone breast inserts are also for cis women, given certain medical circumstances and comfortability with their body shapes.
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