Jamie Q., from Silence, by E.L. McElroy

JAMIE Q. (they/them)

This is how I tell her.

We are alone at the kitchen table just into a bottle of merlot. Kids are asleep. I say I have to tell you something. 

OK, she says.

I don’t know how to say this.

Just say it.

I’m trying.

Just say it.

OK, I’m trying!

We go on like that for a while, back and forth, back and forth, until finally I do. I say it. After twelve and half years of marriage, I say it.

And this what I say:

I’m not a man.

Silence.

There is only silence. Almost like she was expecting it. But no tears. No yelling. No laughter. No anger. Just silence. It is the kind of silence that goes on too long.

You understand, right?

It is the kind of silence that, at first, is awkward. Then tense. Then louder than any scream.

It is the kind of silence that makes me doubt everything. That makes me think of what the priest told us about people like me. The sort of silence that makes me think about how I nodded my head up and down even though I knew better!

And this is how I tell her. This is how I tell her the person she married was someone other than the person she married, not a man, and yet still the same person, still me.

I expect her to explode, you know?

But, no, there is only silence.

Silence makes me nervous. So nervous. So I talk. That’s what I do when I am nervous. I talk. I talk to get rid of the silence.

I tell her I’m trans, OK? I’m trans. I’m trans. That is what I say.

I tell her this: I’m trans! I’m trans! I say it. Finally! I say I’m nonbinary. I say I didn’t ask to be, didn’t want to be.

If only I wasn’t, god, life would be so much easier. But, anyway, there it is, OK? I’m nonbinary. Do you even know what that means, I ask her.

I don’t wait for an answer. I tell her how it started a long time ago, before I can remember. I tell her I’ve always felt this way. I tell her I thought I was sick all those years ago. I tell her I thought that it would go away, and that maybe it did, kind of.

But, no, it did not go away, of course.

It never does, does it?

No, it doesn’t.

Believe me.

I know.

I tried.

I tell her I do not know why I am telling her this now, of all times, but that I can’t do this anymore.

I just can’t.

I can’t be someone else.

Silence.

I keep talking.

I tell her I dress up and put on makeup sometimes, like when I am away on business, when it is safe.

I tell her in these moments, finally, finally, finally, … Finally!

Finally, I am at peace!

I tell her the testosterone in me is as good as poison.

I tell her it is killing me.

Silence.

I tell her I don’t want to fully transition, that I am lost here, I am in the space in the in between.

But, I don’t tell her everything. Of course not.

No, I don’t tell her about the pain. No, I don’t tell her about the scars on my left arm. No, I don’t tell her about getting picked up by the cops on the railroad tracks.

No, I don’t tell her about the handcuffs pressed behind my back against the hard plastic seats in the back of a cop car.

No, I don’t tell her about the suicide attempt many years ago. And, no, I certainly do not tell her about my father.

Never that.

You understand, right?

I don’t tell her a lot of things.

Silence.

She stares at the wooden chest in the living room. The door is broken. I think she thinks one of the kids did it. Another secret.

But, no, it was me.

What happened was this: there was a jumble of paperwork — household clutter: Bills EZ Pass violations, misplaced, expired gift certificates. And it all spilled out onto the floor one day. So I shoved it back inside and shut the door. But the door popped open again. So I slammed it shut much harder this time. I don’t know why, but I was furious. The door splintered and broke. Everything tumbled out.

I tell her I’m sorry. I tell her I am sorry for everything. I tell her I am sorry. But then, I think to myself, no, I’m not sure I am sorry.

I tell myself maybe I wasn’t lying all those years. I tell myself to lie is to know the truth, and that, for the life of me, I have never been able to figure.

But maybe that is a lie, too.

I don’t know.

I just know one thing.

Here I am.

Finally.

Bio: E.L. is an aspiring writer living in Baltimore, Maryland. E.L. is on Twitter at @ELMcElRoy1.

On Your Island, from Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed, adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos

Letter Writer #3. Dear Sugar,

I’m thirty-four years old and I’m transgender.

I was born female, but I knew I was meant to be male for as long as I can remember. I had the usual painful childhood and adolescence in a smallish town because I was different-picked on by other kids, misunderstood by my family.

Seven years ago I told my mom and dad I intended to have gender confirmation surgery.** They were furious. They said the worst things you can imagine anyone saying to another human being, especially if that human being is your child. In response, I cut off ties with them, moved away, and made a new life living as a man. I have friends and romance in my life. I love my job. I’m happy with who I’ve become and the life I’ve made.

After years of no contact, I got an email from my parents that blew my mind. They apologized. They were sorry they never understood and now they do. They said they miss me and they love me. Sugar, they want me back.

I cried like crazy and that surprised me. I believed I didn’t love my parents anymore.

I have made it without them. I’ve created an island far away and safe from my past. I made it because I’m tough. Do I forgive them and get back in touch, or do I ignore their email and stay safe on my island? What do I do?

Signed,

Orphan

**The original letter read “a sex change.” The language has been updated in this post to reflect how the current vocabulary surrounding medical transition has evolved.**

Liv, from Great Big Sky, by Claire Gilbert Haider

LIV. (They/Them)

I’d already been living in the Bay Area for a year maybe when he died. And I was loving it there, I mean, I am queer as fuck and I look better in a suit and tie than any cis man I know. I’d been wearing blazers and button ups for about a year by then — my genderqueer calling card, as it were. I never added my dad on Facebook. He couldn’t even know I was queer, let alone genderqueer, that would have killed him faster.

I remember when I was in high school I had hair down to my waist. I was already wearing boxers by that time, but my hair screamed femme to most people so that’s the role I played. When I finally cut it short, after I got out of my secret queer relationship — my dad hated it. He said long hair was so attractive to men. Men liked it, and didn’t I want to be appealing to men? First of all, yuck. Saying that to your own kid — yuck. But secondly — and this I never got to tell him — why the fuck did he assume I wanted to be attractive to men? Who said my hair or my anything was a signal to cis men that I was looking to be their white picket fence, their vacuuming in pearls, their subservient flesh sleeve for the rest of my life? So Jane and I broke up, and I cut it all off, I went hard into the David Bowie look while in Oakland. I mean, three piece suits, pocket watches, the whole nine. I killed it.

Anyway, when he died I got his ties. I got his tie clips. I got his antique pocket watch that has to be wound, that has his dad’s name and his name engraved in the back. It’s all mine now. And when I wear it? I know he wouldn’t understand it. Wouldn’t approve. I’m carrying on the things I miss most about him and he’d think there was something wrong with me for it. Anyway, I still look better in a suit than he ever did. Take that, Dad.

More info: This monologue is from a play in progress called Great Big Sky by Claire Gilbert Haider. Liv and their friend Ziggy are hiking through the Yosemite Valley spreading Liv’s father’s ashes around the park. This monologue takes place in Tuolumne Meadows. For further information please contact clairehaider (at) gmail (dot) com.

 

Trans And Relative Dimensions In Space, by Ayla Sullivan

I’ve been telling myself for a long time there’s gotta be an easier way to come out to my family. An accessible way. No academic jargon. No easy to google slang, because I know for a fact y’all are too lazy to ever do work you can just push onto a Black person to explain for you.

My grandfather raised me on visual media, charted years of golden era kinda love. His favourite Doctor is Tom Baker and his undying, fanboy passion is a Galifrayian typa magic he has passed onto me. I’d redo my coming out with him in simpler terms. Tell him my gender is the TARDIS because it’s bigger on the inside. My queerness is powered by a tesseract. I am expansive in all dimensions, in every time, and fluid. This a queerness and a transness that cannot, ever die. A typa queer that never has to fear death, only trust in my own regeneration promise. Of course, though, what is gayer than fearing your friends’ death? Constantly trying to find joy in the danger of navigating your life, traveling so often because home is its own transformative property, and knowing, always knowing, solidarity is a threat and your companions endanger themselves because of their proximity to you. Of course it’s easy to feel like the last of your kind in a genocide.

Still, this why every queer out there is equipped with two hearts. We don’t let our heart break no more. We cuddle double the love, double the wound, and can repurpose any household item, especially a screwdriver, into a weapon, a saviour, a map, all purpose tool.

This queerness knows every language, speaks to every wave, trusts in the universe despite knowing we could easily be Gods of it as this point, know how to hide by whatever identification people need to see to believe us, always embrace the loneliness. Even if it is the only thing to stay.

I am not new, but an ancient force, still hopeful, still surviving. I’m the motherfucking Doctor and don’t you fucking forget it. Bitch.

More information: aylaxc.sullivan (at) gmail (dot) com

Jitterbug, from The Earth Room, by Marge Buckley

1:

JITTERBUG (they/them/theirs)
no you
shut up.
are you aware of what your father and I survived to get you here?
four times in a row your father moved west in search of a job that would pay him a living wage
and when he finally did, he worked six days a week at that job with no vacation for nearly ten years.
i stood across the street from my childhood home and watched the United States government burn it to the ground to make way for a military base that lasted for fourteen months before it was abandoned.
has your childhood home ever been burned to the ground, Ari?
does it have a radioactive stream in the backyard?
and you
and all of your peers
you get to grow up here
away from all of that
you get to build a new world for yourselves.
i’m not saying that this one is perfect
not by any means
but
we have worked and worked and worked
to give you and your sister and your friends this chance to build something
from the ground up
and it absolutely breaks my heart
to see you squander it like this.

Context: Jitterbug and their husband George have just caught their daughter, Ari, using simulated heroin in a virtual reality chamber called The Earth Room. The intended use of The Earth Room is to allow Mars colonists the opportunity to walk around outside on Earth, since it is impossible to go outside on Mars and the real planet Earth has become nearly uninhabitable. This monologue comes at the end of a scene where Jitterbug and George are lecturing their daughter and is delivered to Ari.

2:

JITTERBUG
is my family “falling apart”?
I wouldn’t say that, per se.
don’t look at me like that.
you and your high horse, i swear to god.
no, at this exact moment
I do not know where one of my daughters is
in the grander sense
and I also do not happen to know where either my husband or my second daughter are
in the smaller-scale sense
but
that doesn’t mean
house, do you know where anybody in this family is right now?
okay, the house doesn’t seem to know either.
alright.
it is seven pm and I do not know where anybody in my family is.
but i am not going to panic.
that is not the kind of person that I am.
i am a person with a level head.
a person with their wits about them.
i am going to breathe.
i am going to live in the present moment
and i am going to wait,
because there is nothing I can control about this situation except for myself.

Context: This monologue comes towards the end of the play: Jitterbug’s daughter Ari has stowed away on a freighter back to Earth, daughter Malia has joined a protest group committed to severing all of Mars’ ties with planet Earth, and husband George is secretly participating in an extreme sport that involves racing down Mars’ sand dunes on surf boards. Jitterbug delivers this piece directly to the audience and the “house” is literally their house, which has artificial intelligence.

Playwright: Marge Buckley

Contact: margot.m.buckley (at) gmail (dot) com

 

Guitarist, from ID, by Tristan B Willis

GUITARIST:
This is
This is an original
an original song
As much as anything can be original at least
What am I but a copy of my parents
who are copies of their parents
of their parents
of their parents
and perhaps this song is a copy of us
as we are copies of them
or maybe not
Maybe not
You know
there are painters
who spend their lives copying great masters
making reproductions of their work
and sometimes their copies are put on display
while paintings in museums are on loan or removed for cleaning
and no one’s the wiser, no one knows
and really
at that point you have to ask
does it really matter if no one can tell the difference?
There was a woman
you know this story I promise you’ve heard it
a woman in Spain who attempted to restore a detailed painting of Jesus,
covering the original in thick, eager brushstrokes.
And maybe that ruined the painting
or maybe she simply created an original and a copy.
Because this is art and this is life, isn’t it.
Our lovers are copies of the first,
our clothes copies of a pattern,
our work a copy of the one who taught us
whether it was a mentor or the ever-present weight of life,
and maybe this is wrong or maybe it’s okay

And this is an original song.
As much as it can be, at least.

CONTEXT: From the play ID, by Charles Mee and Brittany Alyse Willis, adapted by Tashina Richardson. This monologue is solely written by Willis. As we navigate the world together, we constantly have to juggle and struggle with how we identify ourselves versus how others identify us. In ID, identity, privilege, and more are explored at a dive bar through music, drinks, lively discussion and, hell why not, dancing.

WEBSITE: https://www.tristanbwillis.com

NPX: https://newplayexchange.org/users/8583/tristan-b-willis

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

 

Quinn, by Asher Wyndham

QUINN (non-binary, gender-fluid, trans) Yeah, it’s me, I’m back. Hellooo. I’m not waiting anymore in my car. I’ve eaten I don’t know how many tangerines. Let me see my grandpa. Please. It’s been almost an hour and I know he doesn’t take this long to get ready in the morning. Have you sponge-bathed him? Is he dressed in his purple suit?  Is he ready or not?! Why are you giving me the silent treatment, pretending that you’re on the phone… Today is our day, you know that. It’s the one day of the month he gets to see the sailboats and eat a BBQ-pork sandwich. He’s leaving with me in five minutes, and I don’t care if his dentures are yucky. Can you buzz me in? Stop buffin’ with that emery board and press that button. Ahh! It’s like Fort Knox here! Why, why are you looking at me like that? “Like whatttt?” If I had a mirror… Yeah, I got an attitude. You and everyone here at this Senior Citizen Home, you’re..not pleasant. No, you’re– I’m biting my tongue. *My pierced tongue.

 

(Sticks out pierced tongue.)

 

Let me through. When I need to see my grandpa, you shouldn’t make something up, like, “He’s not ready.” I know what you’re up to. And I’m not being paranoid. Look, it’s me, his grandkid. Yeah, yeah, I’m a bit different from the last time you saw me. Got some color. But I’m still his grandkid. He’s seen me like this before. My mother showed him photos on his phone. He’s from another generation, but he can handle it, unlike some people… For a Christian place, you lack hospitality! Ask yourself this, would Jesus buzz that buzzer? He would. He would get off that cross right above you, and he’d carry me like a baby to my grandpa’s room. Ahh! I’m helping my mom pay for his residence! So buzz the fuckin’ buzzer! Nowww!

 

*If the actor doesn’t have a pierced tongue then remove this line.

 

Context: This monologue was written for this website. Let me know when you use this for audition by emailing me at asherwyndham@yahoo.com. Thanks!

 

Pete, from Sensitive Guys, by MJ Kaufman

PETE. (gender non-conforming) I’m from wheat fields. Cattails. Rows and rows of trees. Long bus rides into the night. I’m from Dunkin Donuts Coffee Trees that lose all their leaves at once. No one ever said to me, what kind of man do you want to be when you grow up, I mean what kind of a MAN? I thought there was only one kind of man to be. That was my father. Who worked outside with power tools all day and wore plaid shirts. He and my mother would yell angrily and loud at each other and I really thought that was marriage. A symphony of yelling voices. My father would push and push and never let up and I thought that was being a man. A constant pushing. There was no one coming around to kindergartens saying this is how to be a sensitive man, someone who doesn’t push, who is not afraid to lose at a game or be small.  No one ever said that.No one. Ever. Except for you guys. Guys. Except for you guys. Oh man how I love you guys.  And Jordan, man. It was mostly Jordan who said it. Who said- what was it that you said that first day, man? Oh yeah. It was like it’s okay to be small. Like we are so small. And I’m still getting into that.  Really understanding that. Especially when I’m in a room with girls. Women, I mean. Women. When I’m in a room with women. I wanna impress them. I get like one of those birds with my feathers all puffed up. Those peacock-type guys? Yeah. I wanna show off all my colors. And I always make a bastard fool of myself  when I do that.

Context: Will is a freshman at Watson college. Jordan is a senior film major. Tyler is writing a novel for his thesis. They are all members of the Men’s Peer Education group. At meetings they spend hours unpacking questions like: “what is male privilege? And what can we do about it?” They love each other and the group. Until some accusatory posters start appearing around campus suggesting that a member of the group committed sexual assault. Could it be that even sensitive guys, guys working on their privilege sometimes turn violent or aggressive? In this play women and gender non-conforming people play men trying to understand the intricacies of masculinity and violence.

More information: https://newplayexchange.org/users/179/mj-kaufman

 

Merperson, from The Mermaid Hour, by David Valdes Greenwood

MERPERSON. (genderqueer)

Arise, my loves.

You are the children of beauty and light,

the gift of the heavens that cover both the land and the sea.

Never kneel before the earth,

never waste your tears on ground that does not welcome you.

Arise and be all that you are, all that I am.

I was a girl a long time ago.

I was a boy a long time ago.

I was a mortal a long time ago.

I am not mortal!

I am not land or sea!

I am heavens.

The secret of our kind is that we are not between, but above.

See how I shine!

See how I glow in the Mermaid Hour!

Glow, my children! Glow!

Context: For Pilar and Bird, navigating their tween daughter Violet’s transition is tricky as they juggle not only their own opposing parenting styles but her impulsive nature. Vi is just as concerned about her best friend Jacob, who she wishes was her boyfriend, and when nothing is going as she wants, she makes a YouTube video that pushes everyone’s buttons. As her parents wrestle with all of Vi’s choices, they confront the gaps between them as a couple–and which they’ll have to overcome to see them all through.

More information: https://newplayexchange.org/plays/6985/mermaid-hour