Just as Paul's town is an idyllic place to be gay, it's an idyllic place to be transgender. Infinite Darlene is the only trans character in Boy Meets Boy, but she doesn't deal with any kind of transphobia in the narrative. She's so free to be who she is that she comes to school wearing a white pleather miniskirt, and when she's voted homecoming queen, she wears both her quarterback jersey and her tiara.
Levithan plays somewhat fast and loose with the terminology of gender, with Paul mentioning at one point that "the other drag queens" didn't like her. It is important to now however, that Infinite Darlene lives her life all the time as a girl, so she's not just putting on a wig on weekends. It's never made clear how she identifies herself, but her classmates all see her unquestioningly as female and refer to her by her chosen female name.
Questions About Gender
- Why is Chuck's crush on a trans person never questioned or even mentioned?
- You might think anyone on the gender-variant continuum would be supportive of others, but the drag queens refuse to sit with Infinite Darlene at lunch. Why? Because they think her football nails are an abomination. In exploring their identities as girls, the drag queens have chosen to be mean girls. Why?
- Why might Levithan omit any moments of Infinite Darlene self-identifying?
Chew on This
It is imperative that people be in charge of their own gender identification, and with this in mind, it is not okay that Levithan does not have Infinite Darlene ever self-identify.
So this Infinite thing… The words infinite and invincible are interchangeable when applied to teenagers.