Zoe Estelle Hitzel

Gender Flytrap Zoe Estelle Hitzel

Gender Flytrap is an authentic portrayal of the constant hurt that a trans experience in a toxic, hegemonic culture entails. Hitzel's collection delves into the multifaceted nature of prejudice from the gendered stereotypes instilled at a young age from a broken healthcare system to the realization that everything--including transness--is filtered through a cisnormative lens. In this world, trauma is inherent to the trans existence. To see and be seen begets presumption and therefore is an act of violence, a violence that dictates how a person should look, act, and even perceive the world around them. In this collection, bodies are their own entities--moldering temples furnished by others that forsake those locked inside. Here, trans identity is rejected by a world that weaponizes bodies to reinforce a binary of gender. These gripping poems explore the pain of confronting what could have been, how a rush of hormones in the womb determines the fate of a person. Here, we can ruminate on the suffering delivered at the hands of those who abide a prefabricated notion of sex and, absurdly, circumscribe what is possible for the person inhabiting a gendered body.