@ Firehouse Art Center
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The Vagina Monologues never intended to be a play about what it means to be a woman. It is and always has been a play about what it means to have a vagina.
In 2004, Eve Ensler wrote a trans monologue for a cast of 5 trans women. I imagine they had a wide range of genital shapes and sizes, but what do I know. I imagine the monologue for trans men got lost in the mail. [1]
That official trans-femme monologue is titled “They Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy… Or So They Tried” – which you can find online if you’re interested. It’s full of pain and violence, beatings, medical interventions, and eventually surgery. It’s based on true stories, but the 5-voice structure is very impersonal, and somehow still results in a singular narrative. [2]
But that story is not my story, so we agreed that I should write a new one. Here it is, my rogue monologue – performed as part of the brilliant production by It Grows Wild theater company. It was a real pleasure to work with such a great group of women.
Despite undergoing bottom surgery recently, I didn’t want to perpetuate a narrative that surgery makes us women. Instead, this monologue is almost entirely based on my pre-surgery experience of having an “inverted” vagina.
Parts of it (especially the opening) will be familiar if you’ve read my work. Most of it is new material.