“What Peanuts taught me about queer identity”

There’s a lovely, sad piece in The New Yorker by Jennifer Finney Boylan about the famous cartoon strip Peanuts.

My favorite strip was “Peanuts,” which, if I’d been paying attention, contained some lessons for me about the world that lay ahead. “Peanuts” was just one broken heart after another. Charlie Brown loves the Little Red Haired Girl, whom we never see. Charlie Brown’s little sister Sally is in love with Linus (“Isn’t he just the cutest thing?”), whose affections, in turn, are reserved for his blanket. Lucy is in love with Schroeder, but Schroeder is in love with Beethoven. Marcie is in love with Charlie Brown, and with Peppermint Patty, but Peppermint Patty loves only Charlie Brown. And so on.

Boylan is a superb writer, both in fiction and non-fiction: her warm, wise and witty memoir, She’s Not There, is one of the best books ever written about transitioning.


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