Become the Monster: Identity, Perception, and What it Means to be Inhuman

This collection of crocheted pieces illustrates what monsterhood is, how monsters are created, and what it means to become one. Following concepts from queer and disability theory, monsterhood is established as an externally constructed identity that is traditionally imposed on others rather than self-initiated. The pieces illustrate three significant steps in understanding and unpacking how monsters come into being: finding the language to name the monster, embodying that language, and liberating that embodied language from the systems of oppression that shape it. In applying these steps to my own narrative as a disabled transsexual graduating college mid-pandemic, I demonstrate the ways in which individuals who live in societal margins have taken the moniker of 'monster' and made it something to be revered and celebrated.