My dilemma

[DawnL]

In the past few months, I have started going out and jamming at a local club and in a couple of nearby towns.  I have been accepted as a woman which is great but that acceptance is something that also feels like a ticking time bomb.  I'm a decent player and in an area where there are zero female players, I stand out.  Sooner or later, someone will recognize me and I have no idea what will happen then, but I doubt it will be good.  Most of these places have plenty of guys drinking plenty of alcohol and I doubt they'll react favorably to a transsexual guitar player.  Further, lots of women have approached me and told me how cool they think it is to see a woman on stage.  I feel the truth will let them down (not my problem, I know, but that's me, always worrying about stuff that isn't my problem).  I should quit while I'm ahead, but I love doing it.  Any thoughts?

Dawn

[Kimberly]

> ... but I doubt it will be good. ...

Given a sufficient number of people that is pretty much guaranteed.

That said hiding at home is no way to live, but it is prudent to not make yourself a target.

What I would do in your case would depend on what the general attitude of the people in the area is like. Perhaps I'd look at LGBT friendly places to play. (presumably safer there?)

> ... I feel the truth...
What? That you're a girl who had to grow up the hard way? Yea, the meek die in this setup, it's no wonder you can do what others fear to do.

For what my thoughts are worth.

[Dennis]

I would be careful, watch yourself, always know where the exit is, or help is. Otherwise, carry on with it. You may be pleasantly surprised by some rednecks' reactions. Just try and avoid being alone until you know what's going to happen.

Dennis

[DawnL]

Thank you both for your advice.

This didn't play out the way I imagined.  I went to the local place to jam on Thursday and had a great time.  I have never played better.  When I was tearing my stuff down, another guitar player came up to me and said, "Some of us have been wondering...", and I'm thinking, gee, they want to know if I'm dating...or if I'm a dyke.  Wrong.  He hesitated then said, "well, you play amazing well and you have kind of big hands and some of us were wondering if you are really a guy".  I turned and said, "you have got to be f@#king kidding", grabbed my stuff and left.  He tried to backpedal away from what he's said, but the damage was done--in my head anyway.

This upset me on so many levels I don't know where to start.  The obvious sexism is infuriating.  It wasn't that I look like a guy, it's that I play well and have big hands.  My physical stature is typical for a female so I don't think that was an issue.  There was no certainty in his voice, he was fishing.

Then there is the simple rudeness of asking a woman that kind of question.

Then comes the worst issue of all.  In some sense, it's true, at least that's the way they'll see it if I explain my situation.  It doesn't matter that in my heart I've always been female.  No one will understand it.  I enjoyed feeling acceptance as a woman; I am not interested in being seen as a transsexual guitarist or some kind of freakshow.  It has taken a long time to remove that F word from my own vocabulary.  I refuse to be seen as a guy in drag.  I just like to play but will my playing now be seen through that filter?   

The final insult?  The guy then asked me to have dinner with him!

WTF!  How did men gain control of the world?

> ... I feel the truth...
What? That you're a girl who had to grow up the hard way?

I like that, but as I implied above, it seems I'll be the only one who knows the truth.   

Dawn

[stephanie_craxford]

Hey there Dawn

I can sympathise with the way you feel dawn.  For me it's getting away from the trans word.  Men can be jerks though, it just comes naturally.

Now keep in mind that I'm a romantic so don't take this the wrong way, but I was just wondering that when this guy asked you the question how was his tone?  Was it friendly, serious, joking, off the cuff?  After all he may have been asking for his own interest and may have used the line "Some of us have been wondering..." as a cover.  He did ask you out to dinner.  Remember that guys can be dumber than dirt and about a subtle as a bag of hammers

By the way did you go for dinner?

Steph

[Teri Anne]

There's a presumption with many jobs that, if you do it well, you must be a guy.  In the old days, of course, female writers would use male names when they'd send in their manuscripts.  Maybe we haven't, as a society, gone very far.  You said that the toughest part was that they were right - you were a guy.  I've felt that, too.  But as others have written in other posts, it only matters if it matters to you.  So much of transition is learning coping mechanisms.  Mine, suggested by a TS therapist, is to think of the word "control." Military people have to learn to not care about hurt and death because they have a job to do.  I would suggest that you not give that guy control over you by letting your feelings get hurt.  As Steph intimates, that guy's question displays him as a jerk for asking ANY woman that question.

The offer of dinner, I admit, is confusing.  Maybe he's more supportive than we think.

Teri Anne

[DawnL]

Steph...the dinner offer was for a future date and I just said I'd think about it.  His tone was more bumbling than anything and I don't think it was malicious, it was just thoughtless.  Maybe he wanted to resolve an uncertainty before asking me out.  But he's also introduced me to his girlfriend.  I don't get it.

Teri Anne...I knew the sexual bias would exist.  I guess I was upset because I thought I was pulling it off.  I tend to be naive.  There are very few female musicians of any sort in this area so I was bound to stand out.

I've concluded there are two issues here.  One is the sexism which I have always depised in any form (I now understand why).  Women here take the attitude: " that's just the way it is so accept it and deal with it honey."  I hate that.  It may be true now but how does anything change with that kind of attitude?  One women told me that women have to give on some issues because men won't. 

What?   

The other issue was personal.  He questioned my femininity which is still a bit fragile and still developing (I'm not talking fru-fru here, just my concept of being female).  Some women say my image is part of the problem which is often jeans, a hoodie, zero makeup, and zero jewelry.  Oh well, I refuse to become a stereotypical woman.  The internal sense of female confidence, that's something I have to work on.

Dawn

[Kimberly]

...I don't get it....

I do.
He's a nincompoop trying to cover his tracks.

...Women here take the attitude: " that's just the way it is so accept it and deal with it honey." ... One women told me that women have to give on some issues because men won't. ...

My eye.

But then, I've never been one to bow to the masses.

... a stereotypical woman. ...

No such thing this day and age. At least, I don't think so.

Just go with what you are comfortable with (making sure your brain is engaged) and let the world try and figure it out ^*wink*. That said though the more you deviate from the norm the more flak you'll receive, if history is any lesson anyway

FWIW

[Leigh]

Teri Anne...I knew the sexual bias would exist. I guess I was upset because I thought I was pulling it off. I tend to be naive. There are very few female musicians of any sort in this area so I was bound to stand out.

Did you mean sexual bias or gender bias?  These are two different things Dawn.  If you were seen as TS that is a sexual thing from a mans point of view.  Watch a mans reaction when you tell him that you are going to remove the one thing that is at the core of his identity.  Hello? You couldn't drive a thumb tack between his knees with a sledge hammmer. 

If you were truly "pulling it off" then gender bias would be almost an everyday occurance in one form or another whether you see/experience it or not.  I see it at work all the time--newbies by virtue of being male assume that they are automatically granted some higher power because they have seen it demonstrated all their lives by societial mores.

I've concluded there are two issues here.  One is the sexism which I have always depised in any form (I now understand why).  Women here take the attitude: " that's just the way it is so accept it and deal with it honey."  I hate that. 

 

When human beings were created/evoluted/designed the male body was physically stronger, made that way to protect the female.  It takes one female 9 months to produce a child but one male can impregnate many females so the male role was to protect the child bearing female so the the race could continue.  That male dominance/power structure has continued for so long that women are still viewed at weaker and not as worthy as men.  Its not all the males fault either.  To many women have let the status quo continue.  It was fine with grandma and mom therefore that is the way life should be. HORSE APPLES


Leigh

[beth]

Hello Dawn,

                My advice is a bit different than most others.

                I know a certain fact. Gender is all visual. No one is doubting your gender because you play well. If the best quarterback in the NFL looked like Jennifer Aniston not one man would doubt her gender. If someone "threw like a girl" but looked like Joe Nameth in a dress not one man would believe she was female. Gender in this society is 100% visual. No one is doubting your gender because of the way you look, because you are beautidul. I would assume someone from your past has started a rumor and that is bringing your gender under scrutiny. It isnt fair, but the rumor will not die until it is addressed. If you value the freedom you have to play how and where you want, you will have to be truthful IMO. I would say something like  "I was born with a birth defect and it has been corrected. It is in the past and a dead issue so I wont be discussing it."  If life were fair you would never have to do such a thing. If life were fair we wouldn't all be here.

beth

[rana]

Dawn, I have seen your web page, and your "after" pic - there is no way anyone could see you as other than an attractive woman.
Yet looks are only part of it and while I would bet that you would be indistinguishable from a GG normally, you mentioned that you were playing well, "really tearing your stuff down".  I am wondering how you were coming across - Chrissie Hynde,-- Linda Rondstat -- Jimmy Barnes. 
If you were putting your heart & soul into your music maybe you were sending out conflicting signals (turning beths example around, looking like a girl but throwing like Joe Nameth).
As far as peoples behaviour, you know the effect of alcohol on peoples social graces.

PS A female version of Jimmey Barnes singing is Linda Ronsdat I reckon

[DawnL]

Thank you all for your comments.

Leigh, I did mean gender bias of course.  By "pulling it off" I meant passing though I knew I would draw more scrutiny simply because I was female.  I am still learning the many sublte ways in which women are discriminated against. 

Kimberly, where I live, women (and men) deviate very little from accepted styles of dress tied to age and social status.  I like a particular hoodie which has "Lucky 13" on the front and a number of women have told me they wouldn't get caught dead in one.  Why?  Because I bought it at the Buckle and those clothes they consider too young for them.

Beth and Rana, firstly, you are both too kind.  I have no confidence in my appearance and it may take some time for me to do so though I do seem to pass well enough.  The comments about body language are very appropriate and I'm not sure what the answer is.  I have practiced in front of a mirror to try and eliminate any male postures.  Problem is, there aren't a lot of female role models so I can't say with much certainty that I don't have male posture when I'm playing.  As for style, I play lead and am more of a cross between Bonnie Raitt and Joan Jett. 

As to telling the truth about who I am, I see it as inevitable but know I will be judged after that as a guy who looks and dresses like a woman.  I'm not sure I can handle that.

Dawn

[Peggiann]

Hi Dawn,
There are some things that you can do that a female entertainer would do naturaly. It just come with being. I don't know if you have read the involvement I have had in stage presence in my posts but it's there for your reading.

1.) If you pick a foot up as you are raising a knee in jamming the foot goes naturally under the knee pointing to the stage floor with the toe pointed too.

2.)When you stand up straight it would be with legs together or maybe one foot heal in front of the other at the curve of the arch in the opposite foot. You can come out away from it a few inches say maybe 5 to 8 if you want but ladies don't usually show straight on looks at the legs or spread leg looks.

3.) Ladies would also watch where the strap of the guitar fell more to the outside of the shoulder not so close to the neck. The curve of the guitar side would fit just under the breast and touch the body there. the guitar would not lay so flat to the body all the way to the bottom where the other curve is, it would be out way a little in order to fit the curves of a female body. I was holding Leah's guitar and that's where it fits the body best.

4.) Ladies bodies at the shoulders are straighter from side to side across them. Try this exercise. Stand with your body against a wall. Roll your shoulder back till you can feel the intirer back of you against the wall, this will cause your breasts to go forword and appear pert. Your shoulder blade bones will be flat against the wall. Your rib cage will raise too. Keep the small of your back against the wall too and the hips, (HIps push the pelvic bonefroward naturalland tuck the bottom under at the same time you hold in your tummy) on down the body the back of the thigh of the leg and calf to the heals of your shoes would be touching the wall as well. Now that you have the proper female standing posture be aware of how it feels. Take a step away from the wall and switsh your feet to what I explianed in 3.) Keeping all in aline. Know try practicing walking this way where ever you go.

5.) Most professional woman that are presenting themselves as proper as possible take smaller steps never opening the leg past the knee up as they walk. Exposing the inner thigh is a no no.

6.) Dance videos is you use steps at all might help with a female look there. Joe Tramane might be ordered through a regular dance studio or even on line. Although he is a mna he teaches for the female student most of the time. On some of his dance convention videos he has female coriographers too. It would give you a general idea of graceful body movments.

I have not looked at your website but will as soon as I've posted this.

HOpe some is helpful.

Smiles,
Peggiann

[DawnL]

Thanks Peggiann, it all helps.  I think the dance videos and videos in general are a good place to start.

Dawn

[Peggiann]

Morning Dawn,

No problem. Anytime I can help I'm glad to. Have a great day.

Hayley Mills had a part in an movie that required the guitar and her playing it of course. I think it was parent trap. She was a teenager in the movie  You might rent it and check out her posture.


Smiles
Peggiann

Smiles
Peggiann

Leigh:  correction of a deletion I made

[Teri Anne]

Hi Dawn,
You wrote, "I guess I was upset because I thought I was pulling it off.  I tend to be naive."

Me too, on both aspects.

Teri Anne

[BFKate]

Hi dawn,
Nothing I say is useful.  With that in mind let me start with a thought, well it's a phrase really. 
Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes.

Your post(s) put something into words in a really good way that has bothered me for a while.  That moment when some total stranger looks at us and reads something that hints at our history.  There have been quite a few similar incidents in my own life that have left me in a tailspin.  Doubting ones self is a process of giving away your authority over yourself,  which will always leave you vulnerable to the kinks in other peoples world view. 

Is it possible his enquiry had no malice attatched?  Is it really so bad to ask 'the' question?  This is purely personal so I apologise in advance if it doesn't fit.   When I walk into a room full of strangers I assume they are going to guess, or read me or whatever it is that happens.  I also know it doesn't matter if they do.  You can't really be sure about someone's motives for asking until they reveal more of themself.  Sometimes I've had 'the question' and then it's been followed by a positive and even affirming conversation.  Sometimes it hasn't.  It doesn't matter.  I firmly believe that as a person of difference, a Woman of unusual lineage, I have a job to do in educating non trans people about what we really are. i.e. Human Beings.  That guy probably has no idea of the trauma that goes with being ts.  Thats why he acted the way he did. On top of everything else TS people have got a role, We know something that nobody else does.  The whole world's ideas of who is and who isn't a Woman or a Man is wrong.  Our lives are the proof of that, and it's a slow slow process of telling each and everyone of them (the doubters that is) Why they're wrong, one by one.

You're Amazing, We're Amazing.  Nothing should stop us from amazing the world.
So much  more I wanted to try and say but the words are fleeing and hiding from me tonight. Told you I was rubbish.
BFK

[Shelley]

Enough of the negative BFK ,

Nothing I say is useful.

You made some good points particularly

That guy probably has no idea of the trauma that goes with being ts.

It may not be an excuse but certainly is likely to be accurate.

Shelley

[Northern Jane]

As a woman in a non-traditional field for over 30 years I know that "profile" attracts attention, some of it unwanted.

I was VERY passable when I had SRS at age 24 - even in a bikini. In the first year after SRS my cover was blown in my job by someone who had known me casually in my prior existence. My employer backed me 100% and told my co-workers if they didn't like working with me, they could find another job. The issue wasn't brought up again and nobody left.

Within a few years, I was off on my career path and my confidence in my femininity and my femaleness was high.

Some 20 odd years post-op, a leak from a medical facility made my background the subject of gossip in my rural community. These people had seen me at my worst (coveralls, work boots, dirty, etc) and at my best (dressed to the nines) and nobody said a word to me. Only recently I discussed the rumors with a friend and found out that the rumors had been "written off" largely because I didn't "respond" to them and my natural carriage and behaviour didn't fit the TS stereotype. Being "true to myself", even in coveralls, carried the day.

Your response to that question was similar to what mine would have been, only it wouldn't have shaken me. (The benefit of so many years post-op.) I would probably have been equally rude and asked "Why? Which are you for?" or "Why, are you a girl in drag?" or "Not fxxking likely!" or "God no! I'd kill myself. Men are such a@@holes!" Throw it back on the questioner, make THEM uncomfortable and they will back off.

It is you choice whether to be out or stealth. If you are going to fly stealth, you will have to develop your self confidence so that you react instinctively as a GG would react - otherwise you will give yourself away.

If you are going to live "out", then things are more simple.

[Joseph]

Hi Dawn,

The obvious sexism is infuriating.  It wasn't that I look like a guy, it's that I play well and have big hands.

I think everyone else has already covered this quite well but just wanted to add a few things from my perspective.  Even though I am not male genetically, for all intensive purposes I experienced an average boy's childhood.  As you probably already know, from a young age boys are told (usually indirectly) that girls should never be able to be compete with them (and win) in anything, whether the competition is strength-based or not.  You should be rescuing the girl and providing for her, not the other way around.  You grow up thinking that boys are just inherently better than girls at everything, with the exceptions of childbirth and nursing.    It's so stupid, but there it is!  And no matter how many examples they have to the contrary, many men stubbornly adhere to this myth because the superiority it implies makes them feel more significant in this large universe.  Capable women are threatening because they shatter the perception of their higher rung in the pecking order.  I am sure I threaten a lot of guys because I'm as good or better than them in certain male-dominated areas.  But I'm almost positive that if they found out about my TG/TS condition they'd feel better - "oh that explains it.  you're a guy."

That male dominance/power structure has continued for so long that women are still viewed at weaker and not as worthy as men.  Its not all the males fault either.  To many women have let the status quo continue.  It was fine with grandma and mom therefore that is the way life should be. HORSE APPLES

You're funny, Leigh.  I agree sexism should be challenged - but that targets should be chosen carefully.  It's probably not worth wasting your time on certain thick neanderthals out there.

Joseph