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thematically, i think in a play about the social vulnerability of women, having a character be a trans woman just makes sense as a way to provide depth to that idea. specifically, i love the concept of beatrice's view of men being informed by her own experiences as a closeted trans woman (it's amazing what people will say in front of you when they think you're one of them) and as someone later facing sexism and transmisgoyny.

usually when someone does a trans reading of this play/character, they look at beatrice's famous speech about wishing she was a man and interpret her as a trans man, which is perfectly valid! but this idea started for me with the simple thought that i wanted an out and accepted trans character to play with rather than a closeted one who cannot transition, just as a matter of personal preference at that particular time and with this particular text. but then i kept thinking.

as above, the concept of beatrice reading men for filth in the context of having lived among them is great. the "oh god that i were a man" speech is extremely disparaging of men and what they claim to be vs how they actually wield their power. what she wishes is that she had the power that men have automatically in her society--felt all the more keenly because there was a time when she was able to wield that power and she gave it up to be happy, to be herself, to be free in a different way. (here is where i sometimes imagine beatrice regretting ever transitioning, believing that her own happiness and health is less important than having the power to protect hero's happiness and health, because i love angst.) but now that the worst has happened, she is reduced to begging a man for help and it's demeaning and infuriating and tragic.

i also love turning on its head the line "i cannot be a man with wishing, therefore i will die a woman with grieving." being a trans person, dealing with internalized transphobia, knowing that transitioning will put a target on your back, wishing you could just be the gender you're born as--but no amount of wishing will make her not a woman. i think she loves herself and her gender but the play is focusing on points of conflict so that's what i'm talking about here.

in a play about misogyny, the vulnerability of women, and the hypocrisy of men, a trans woman has a unique perspective on both masculinity and femininity both as genders and places in society. (in the ideal version, i think john would be a trans man to mirror this experience, but that would require him to be rewritten to have actual depth and personality and all that is a different essay). there is also just a particular kind of strength that comes from having to carve out and defend your identity in that way which i think fits her very well.

lastly, a couple of other miscellaneous things from the text that can tie in:

beatrice recounting "a double heart for his single one" meaning both "i loved him twice as much as he loved me" and "i loved him as two people: [birthname] and beatrice"

'Not What You Saw' [2024-ongoing] by Keerthana Kunnath

Shot across beaches, fields, and village edges in Kerala, India,

Sometimes the path appears only when you start walking —

a soft curve of light, a little fog, a breath of colour guiding you forward.

I painted this piece with heavy impasto and very fine graphic lines, letting the tulips glow as if the morning dew is still holding onto them.

A quiet road of spring, where everything is waking up at once.

Thank you for wandering here with me. 💗🌸

— A.Trusova

they were so adamant about "you HAVE to make a new schedule every week" that our director of ops basically had to say "just send me you permanent schedule every week and I'll say you're doing it"

always know when you're scheduled because it's the same every week

easy to track your hours because they're the same every week

don't need to worry about being scheduled when you're not available because it's the fucking same every week

easier to get time off and shifts covered in advance because you always know what days you'd need off ahead of time

easier to schedule around school

easier to have a second job since your availability here won't change

if you need to change your schedule you can just talk to one of the managers ahead of time

and from the management side:

pretty much all of the above makes our lives easier

always know how many people you have working

so we generally know ahead of time if we're gonna be short staffed and need to ask for extra help

we know if we should start hiring again/how many people we need to hire based on how many shifts are open on the schedule

also, it's strongly incentivized not to run low on staff since we have to be in the stores running them all the time, so if we're short it fucking sucks for us too

and, since we're in the store all the time, we can tell which shifts don't need any more people too

With inconsistent schedules, it's harder for employees to coordinate and communicate grievances against the company.

With inconsistent schedules, it's difficult for employees to make time to apply for and interview for other jobs, which means they are more dependent on staying at this job, which means they have less to negotiate with when there's a problem (such as wage theft or, indeed, inconsistent scheduling).

With inconsistent schedules, it's also difficult for employees to hold multiple jobs, because of the possibility of overlap leading to issues at one or both jobs.

With inconsistent schedules, they can make sure that they don't need to have people to cover every possible shift; they can thus underhire and have the current employees do the work of multiple people while stretched across the active hours of the business.

With inconsistent schedules, they make it difficult or impossible for employees to plan time off or use sick days (if they even offer them), because there's no easy way to predict and plan around these days. You cannot plan a three day trip if you don't know what days you'll be off.

With inconsistent schedules, employees are more likely to have bad work/life balance, which disrupts their ability to organize against capital.

With inconsistent schedules, the workplace can also short employees on hours whenever possible without disrupting an established status quo.

With inconsistent schedules, they can create an expectation that every employee is "on-call" 24/7, without having them actually be on-call (because if you're on-call in a white collar job, you're meant to be paid for that time). If no one's schedule is concrete, then any scheduling choice by management is justified regardless of inconvenience to the worker.

In summary: keeping hours inconsistent and unreliable creates an atmosphere of desperation and insecurity in the workforce, allowing the workers' labor to be exploited more efficiently. It doesn't matter if it's less profitable or makes the business run worse, because to a capitalist, any amount of money spent on keeping workers in line is going to still come out to less money/power/influence they gain from having far more control over their workforce.

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