So in a probably not as record-breaking display of poor timing as it feels like to me for realising I'm probably trans, I'm going through the earliest stages of trying to pre-everything sort of pass, and I'm also starting to look at applying for Drama schools. There's plenty of people various places online talking about applying to university/schools/whatever with preferred names and so on, maybe without having to have any official name changes/medical transitions etc. the difference with auditions is 5 words that are giving me panic attacks.
Speeches Must Be Gender Appropriate
(and I'll add: often specifically NOT neutral)
On a form that only offers 2 boxes, and has no space for explanations. I feel like at this point I'd be lying either way. I check F and give my birthname, then the paperwork matches up and they can get referrals and so on without a problem, but I'm expected to audition as female when I know if all goes to plan I want to fully transition (Top & T) over the three years I'd be at school and therefore want to train as male. But if I tick M and give my new chosen name, nothing matches and I don't want to get "caught" or told that it's unreasonable to apply as a guy when I don't even remotely pass.
Dunno if anyone here will have a clue where to start with helping me out here, but so far the sum total of my ideas is contacting the LGBT officer of the student union at one of the schools I'm applying to before I fill in the form. Anything at this point would be great. I'm not ready to make the call to rush into official name-changes in the next 6 weeks and I don't want to make my chances of getting in worse by either feeling fake, or looking fake. It feels a bit of a no-win right now.
I hate myself for dropping out of my audition to drama school. But as you say, one of the major reasons was looking at the routine and how gendered it was. At LIPA, they didn't seem too strict as they kind of hinted that you could select from a variety of speeches male or female if you really wanted to do a particular one badly, but that was an audition. Pretty sure it wouldn't have extended further than that.
If I HAD got past that stage I probably would have enrolled as female at the time until transition's tells and a legal gender marker change was on the cards. Then I would have explained to the staff and asked for it to be changed and gone with the male parts after. It seems unreasonable to have asked for more.
Like you I wanted to train and act as male but I didn't see any way that was possible without transition at the time so I blew my chance. But any aspiring drama students with this problem can always contact the staff and just ask. I'm sure someone would be helpful if you sought advice from them. It seems a little pointless to enrol in school for the wrong training and the wrong parts otherwise.