Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Is How It Always Is, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Binaries
Secrets and Misunderstanding
Violence and Discrimination
Storytelling
Family
Summary
Analysis
At school, Marnie Alison and Jake Irving approach Poppy and ask her if she is a boy. “We heard,” Jake says to Poppy, “you have a giant dick.” Poppy is shocked and doesn’t know what to say. She runs off, but Aggie brings it up at lunch. Everyone is talking about Poppy being a boy, and someone even asked Aggie if it was true. Kim asks if she told them it wasn’t, but Aggie said only that it is “none of [their] business.” Natalie can’t believe it. She should have just told them the truth, that Poppy is a girl, and then everyone will leave them alone.
Aggie’s response that Poppy’s gender is no one’s business suggests that perhaps Aggie knows, or at least suspects, Poppy’s secret. The vile language Jake Irving uses again illustrates the extreme hate and abuse the LGBTQ community faces. Poppy is only 10 years old, but that doesn’t save her from having to endure such hateful and offensive language.
Themes
A boy slides under Poppy’s seat in the cafeteria and starts screaming: “I see it! I see her thingy!” Poppy kicks him, but she is fairly certain he hasn’t seen anything—her tights are too thick and she had her legs crossed. Later in gym, one of the girls says Poppy should line up with the boys, and another girl in sex education says she isn’t comfortable with Poppy in class. In math class, when Poppy’s teacher starts talking about “long division,” another student pipes up and makes a joke about Poppy in front of the whole class. Poppy runs out of class and immediately calls Rosie.
Poppy is sexually harassed, insulted, and alienated by her peers simply because she is different. It is precisely this type of cruel bullying, Frankel thus implies, that leads to the high rate of transgender teen suicide that Mr. Tongo mentions earlier. Frankel also implies that had Poppy herself been able to control the way in which her gender was revealed, it likely would have been less traumatic. Frankel doesn’t imply that Poppy wouldn’t be harassed that way, but at least the abuse wouldn’t be condensed into one traumatic day and come out of the blue like it is here.
Themes
Later that night, as Penn and Rosie try to figure out how Poppy’s secret got out, Ben walks into their room. He was the one who told Poppy’s secret, Ben says. He told Cayenne over the summer, he confesses, but he doesn’t confess that he told her to make her love him or that they had sex after. Just as Penn is about to say that perhaps Poppy’s secret can’t be kept, Roo comes in and says he was the one to tell Poppy’s secret. He told Derek McGuinness once while he was beating him up. Derek said something awful about transgender people, and Roo said: “That’s. My. Sister. You’re. Talking. About. Asshole,” as he beat him up.
No one seems to be able to keep Poppy’s secret, which again suggests that Poppy’s gender shouldn’t be a secret in the first place. Again, Frankel doesn’t mean to imply all secrets are damaging, as Ben keeps some of his secrets to himself, but the big secrets, Ben believes, must be shared. Roo’s slip of Poppy’s secret again underscores how much Roo loves her. Roo won’t let anyone say anything bad about Poppy, even indirectly.
Themes
Then, Rigel and Orion come in. They told Poppy’s secret, they say, after Orion let it slip at Frank and Marginny’s barbeque. A kid overheard Orion, and he told Orion and Rigel that he was “just like Poppy,” so they told him in case he needed someone understanding to talk to. After hearing each of the boys’ stories, Penn and Rosie are no longer surprised that Poppy’s secret is out. The only one who doesn’t come into Penn and Rosie’s room that night is Poppy.
Rigel and Orion’s betrayal of Poppy’s secret, the book suggests, is another prime reason why Poppy’s gender shouldn’t be a secret. If more people know about Poppy, she would likely learn that there are a lot of people like her. Rigel and Orion are clearly advocates of the transgender community. They are committed to supporting Poppy in large part because she is their sister, but it is clear they want to be supportive in a broader sense as well.
Themes
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