Maddox, from Just The Way It Is, by Rory Starkman

MADDOX: Ugh. What am I doing? Okay. Dear Mom. I’m writing this letter to tell you something very important that’s going on in my life that you might not understand. To be fair, a lot of the time I don’t understand myself, but I know we haven’t been close and you want to know about my life. So, here goes. Do you remember when I was younger and I wanted to be a boy? Sure, you indulged me by shopping in the boys section every now and then, but you never really gave up on seeing me as your beautiful little girl. I was always forced to wear a skirt or a dress at fancy occasions and you always bought me tight pink shirts that I hated. But I thought you’d love and accept me more if I maintained a certain degree of femininity. I know it’s not your fault; it’s the social construction of the gender binary. Let me explain. The gender binary says you can be one of two things only; male or female, boy or girl. But it’s a social construct. We made it up! It isn’t real, but we don’t think to question it! You didn’t and I didn’t either. So I’m not blaming you. I understand that we are all just humans working with what we’re shown, how we learn, and our experiences. So Mom, what I really want to say is that I’m not a boy or a girl. I’m not your daughter. I’m just your kid and I don’t want to be gendered as a female anymore. I’m also changing my name to Maddox now and I would appreciate it if you would start calling me that. This has been slow to change and very hard for me, but the process has certainly begun and I know now that it will never end. Love you. (to Maggie) There. Now what do you have to say for yourself?

Context: Maddox is a non-binary trans identified person who spends the whole play recounting their life as assigned female at birth; trying to be a girl named “Maggie”, while discovering their own gender identity in all of its complexity. In the play, Maggie is another character and is present during this monologue to argue with Maddox’s points. The letter is equally to Maddox’s mother as well as their past self, Maggie. The monologue occurs in the show as Maddox realizes the moment when they began to have control over the body that they share with Maggie.

More information:  rorystrongman (at) gmail (dot) com

 

Luna and Zodiac, from The Interrobangers and the Mystery of the Foggy Bluffs Monster, by Sloth Levine

LUNA: I’m learning that there’s an interplay between being queer and believing in magic. In monsters, aliens, ghosts. Look, I’m real. I’m not a girl and I’m not a boy, which people don’t believe. But I live in, I am, this in-between space. Everything’s built on the facts of gender. But I am my own proof that those rules mean nothing unless you want them to. It’s a secret I get to keep to myself. But I feel like I’m a goblin inhabiting a human body. And sometimes that starts to hurt, and sometimes the world feels like it’s falling apart. I’m the opposite of those crazy people in rubber costumes, the ones we investigate. They dress up like horrors to scare people away or feel powerful, but underneath it’s always a human committing a crime. I’m a human, but not in the same way. Or maybe exactly the same way. But I know that there is more to being a human than being a boy or girl, or straight or just gay. And that’s a kind of magic. So if I exist, then who is to say that some monsters aren’t just costumes? Maybe all the way through, there are animals that aren’t human, that aren’t strictly flesh and blood.

Context: Playing off of tropes from tv series like The X Files, Scooby Doo, and Twin Peaks, 4 teenagers and a dog investigate a monster that may or may not have kidnapped one of them six years earlier.

Luna is a non binary person who has relied on science and reason to make it through high school. They are the valedictorian, but not well liked by their classmates until Zodiac moves back into town. Zodiac introduces his study of aliens and the supernatural to Luna, and they bond over their uncertain queer identities.

*****

ZODIAC: It feels like I’m not here. I can hear you but it feels like you’re on the other side of a window holding a walkie talkie. Like when you’re looking through binoculars and you suddenly become aware of the sides of the lenses. And you’re not holding them right up to your eyes. But you can still kind of see through the glass. I think it’s the aliens. It’s like. Sometimes they check in on me. And they push me out of the way a little bit. You know, I think they just wanted to study human beings. And for some reason they chose me. But they chose wrong. Because I’m not a human being. I’m just not quite there. And it’s their fault. Maybe I was a human being until they decided to look at me. If they didn’t do this, I could, I could probably just. Be alive. And not feel like I was trapped inside of this.

Context: Zodiac was abducted when he was 12. The police insist he was abused by a man who worked as a janitor at his school. Zodiac is now 18 and believes he was actually abducted by aliens and dealing with a government conspiracy. In this monologue he experiences dissociation as his friends try to help him find his lost dog, the one constant in his life since the abduction.

More information: slothlevine (at) gmail (dot) com

Shay, from Current, by Samantha Vakiener

SHAY. I liked tracking your story.  You were so… (Can’t describe it.) but ultimately endearing.  I got like a high from listening to you.  Like, I meant so much— No, something I created meant so much to someone.  And that made being a fish, wearing a stupid costume for a stupid fish fry restaurant, mean something.  A reason to stick around.  After it hadn’t meant something for so long.  I would listen to you.  And listen to you.  And listen to you.  I would have kept on listening to you.  Because… I thought I was helping you.  And then that one day you… you asked who was in the suit.  And I wanted to take off the head and talk to you.  Finally talk to you.  To someone.  Have a conversation.  But I was scared.  And it turns out I had every right to be.  It’s just been days, but.. The things you’ve said to me.  The things you’ve done.  You wish you had never asked.  Because you don’t want to know me.  No matter what you say.  What’s appropriate at this stage of acquaintanceship is “What’s your favorite color?”  “What kind of music do you like?”  Not “What are you?”  Not “Will you heal me?”  That’s too much to put on a person you just met.

Context: From the full-length CURRENT.  Monologue occurs during the final scene.

More information: https://newplayexchange.org/users/2282/samantha-vakiener