"Monster girls don't cry"

[Asche]

A month or so ago, I ran across mention of a story called "Monster Girls Don't Cry".  I read it, and read it again.  It's a story I go back to.

To me, it expressed so well what it is like to be trans, and especially non-binary in our society.  What it feels like to be a monster in the eyes of "normal" society all the time, to see others of your kind murdered or mutilated into a poor semblance of "normal."  And how you still feel like a monster even when you "pass."

On the blog I heard about it, I posted a comment saying how much the story resonated with me, and another commenter insisted the story was derivative and shrill and no good.  When I suggested that maybe as a cis person she might not have the kind of experiences that a trans person might have and thus might not appreciate why it spoke so well to some of us, she insisted that the word "cis" was a slur, at which point I gave up, and felt even more kinship with the protagonist of the story.

BTW, I loved the part where the protagonist says she thought it was perfectly normal that your mother would have a mouth in the palm of each hand, the better to kiss away your boo-boos.

[Sno]

I was the perfect person,
with the perfect life
perfection for a partner,
a clutch of perfect children
i spent my days looking
through the perfect window
the paint peeled perfectly,
the cracks glimmered in the sunlight
the chair I sat on, old and grey its sole reason comfort,
for each day I breathed perfectly
each breath the perfect knife
I swallow down delicious food, unable to taste at all, the finest always seeming to wash with razors thin and robbed the pleasure all
I dress the day, in smooth wool and fine linens, the harshness scrapes away, the slough of pain and feeling of a not so perfect day
To restore the gleam, I trim and prune myself, the perfection carriers carry cost you see, both perfect and well hidden
the outside is calm and rested, the inside torture bent - what would a perfect life be like without a perfect prison
I try to see the day anew, to rouse my weary soul
the perfect time to live, and yet the perfect torture lies, and deceit are all within. The perfect is perfection see, the pain of ground well trodden, the snip prune flash of blade, behaviours long forgotten.
The aim is simple, perfect even, our freedoms to confound, for within the perfect life you see, we are all perfect bound.
Flip through the pages of our books, and in our stories written, the trials to simply perfect,
blood, sweat and tears are tools with which we write our leaves, but our perfect life you see is perfect for ourselves
a touch to long, a touch to short, a smudge to big or proud, a snip a flash the razor bare, brings forth a character unfound
the contortions of our bending show strongly through the cage, but in our perfect life you see, each day will never age.
reflections of those who all around, lose cages from within, the transformation and the power, the rage, the fires, the kin.
The perfect storm a tempest, waves smashing all around, the splashing and the deafening roar of perfect howling wind.
The fringe we cry and in our quest, to find a place well marked, well suited for this perfect life, no barriers un remarked
The fringe again we push, the isolation grounded, near silence stills the soil untilled and quietude abounds. deep isolation soon comes and alien to the folk, in some ways the perfect is so perfect that they still think and broke.
yet deep within the monster hides, perfect lurking - hidden, the perfect shallow shell of life we live, to calm the storms within.
i spent my days looking
through the perfect window
the paint peeled perfectly,
the cracks glimmered in the sunlight
the chair I sat on, old and grey its sole reason was for comfort