I recently got on a Steam Powered Giraffe kick, and have been going through some of their interviews and extra videos... and today I finally got to watch Bunny's "Rabbit Reimagined: The Gender Game (YouTube Companion Video)". And one thing she said made me think. At about 37:50, she says this:

QuoteThe dual life gets exhausting. I can't decide if I'm a boy or a girl... On stage, it's different. On stage, I choose to be the robot, and now I choose to be a woman. There's no doubt; it's not going to come into question that I'm portraying a woman. It is a robot that has been retrofitted, and tweaked, and turned into a woman, and so it is a transgendered character. But it is a robot, so it doesn't really matter. It's different pieces put together, it kind of makes sense. As controversial as that is, as new of ground that we may be treading, there's a comfort in being on stage in a dress, and having people applaud, like it doesn't even matter.

I can't really say "that part really resonated with me" because so many other parts did too, but that part captured my attention the most. I am not an actor by far; what small acting experience I may technically have comes from panels at conventions, in front of an audience of geeks just like me, very relaxed and low-pressure, just answering questions as a character completely improved and having fun with it. But my character, Matthew Williams, is always male. (I have been asked to do panels as a female character before, but I either declined or they fell through... I have never done a panel as anyone other than Matthew Williams.) And in a way it is freeing, but I never really questioned or tried to articulate why that is. I cannot truly say that it's because I believe the audience perceives me as male while I am playing a male character. In truth, I know they don't. I go back to the recordings of the panels on youtube and scour the comments, and if there are any which hint at gender at all, they do not use the character's gender; they say things along the lines of, "Who was that Canada? She was really cute!" Every time, without fail.

So I suppose the question to chew on is this: If the comfort of playing a character whose gender more closely coincides with your own is not the fact that the audience automatically defaults to seeing you as that character's gender (because if it were that easy all we'd have to do is throw on a suit or a dress and automatically pass, right?) then what is it that actually makes the stage seem so comfortable? Is it that the audience is so heavily drawn into the illusion that you ARE that character, that you are content with BECOMING that character for a short time, and that is how the audience actually "perceives" you as that gender by default? Or is it something else entirely?

Oh golly........ The quote you took from the youtube vid fits it very well and is almost exactly what I used to feel like.

I used to "Roleplay" a lot on computer games with communities who share the interest. It is basically acting without a script, improv or what ever and it's fantastic.

Made a female character once for ->-bleeped-<-s and giggles and I enjoyed it way too much, and eventually over time it became harder and hard to play a male character well or come up with a good back story and personality for that male character. And easier to make a fantastic female character with a background everyone adores and a personality everyone adores.

Re wording the quote you used. I used to feel "The dual life gets exhausting. I can't decide if I'm a boy or a girl... During roleplay, it's different."

I used to get a lot of praise about my female characters and people felt I played them out fantastically. Every single bit of praise was beyond fantastic to me, and what I was getting praised for came very natural to me, it was a female body (Avatar) with my personality. People felt it was very feminine, they wouldn't guess I was actually a guy unless I told them because they found it so convincing and people just always loved both the character and admired the skill they felt I had to create her.

In real life I get almost the opposite. My personality matched with my gender - male seems to confuse people. I've never really been bullied and always had a good group of friends but I get the same comments, questions and so on from strangers, and not just a few times over. But like 80% of strangers I meet seem to make the comments  or questions about how they get gay vibes off me even though I'm not gay, the way I stand, walk. This or that is womanly bla bla bla bla. If they aren't stubborn, old fashioned knob heads as soon as they get to know me they get used to it and we get on well.
But! Even when I do get praise in real life for being my self, it's never matched the level I used to feel when I received praise about my characters in the role-play thing.

It's very hard to explain to some one who doesn't act or role-play, but it's much more than a game or a computer screen or what ever. You really put your heart and soul into this person and become them and follow them along on a amazing journey. It really did feel like two separate worlds and lives. One the role-play, the other my real life.

In the last year or so the more I came to terms with this trans thing, and accepted my self instead of felt shameful and the further I ventured down the path like seeing a doctor about feeling this way. The less I've wanted to role-play. I didn't notice I was trans BECAUSE of the role-play but they are absolutely linked at least in a minor way. I really think I used to enjoy it so much because there was no other place I could pretend to be female but there I could do it easily...... And I enjoyed it. And the closer to starting my transition I'm getting the less I want to role-play so yea, I just think thats interesting.

But in short! Cause thats all way too long. The "Stage" (role-play) felt right, felt good, felt natural But most of all I felt whole!. Real life was similar but there was always something missing.

I also apparently sent out "gay vibes" as a child/teenager.  Unfortunately, this did result in my getting bullied a lot...and I honestly had no idea why people kept thinking I was gay and hadn't really accepted myself as trans either.  Eventually, I learned to do a really good impression of a cisgender male and to this day I'll tend to emulate the crowd of people I'm in almost as a reflex.  Kinda getting tired of all of that in my old age and really just want to be myself and "get away with it".

Of course, along the way I've made a lot of decisions....a lot of people need me to keep playing the role.  Transition is not an option for me....but it would be nice to start being who I am instead of who I'm expected/needed to be.....

These days, I do some amateur semi-improvisational acting with masks (Commedia Del'Arte) and have a lot of fun with it, but it's just characters....over the top characters usually....a good outlet I think.

Quote from: Josie M on May 04, 2014, 09:19:13 PM
I also apparently sent out "gay vibes" as a child/teenager.  Unfortunately, this did result in my getting bullied a lot...and I honestly had no idea why people kept thinking I was gay and hadn't really accepted myself as trans either.  Eventually, I learned to do a really good impression of a cisgender male and to this day I'll tend to emulate the crowd of people I'm in almost as a reflex.  Kinda getting tired of all of that in my old age and really just want to be myself and "get away with it".

Of course, along the way I've made a lot of decisions....a lot of people need me to keep playing the role.  Transition is not an option for me....but it would be nice to start being who I am instead of who I'm expected/needed to be.....

These days, I do some amateur semi-improvisational acting with masks (Commedia Del'Arte) and have a lot of fun with it, but it's just characters....over the top characters usually....a good outlet I think.

Thanks it really means a lot to know some ones been through a similar experience. Although it really does suck that you feel like you're forced to be who you're needed or expected to be rather than who you just are.

Playing a character is easeyer, firstly your not bound by the restraints of society, you choose to play a girl, boy, robot, then you doing just that playing. But being a boy, girl, robot then unfortunatly we hold the wait of exsoectation on our shoulders and this makes things harder. When one is acting your pretending to be somthing, no matter what it is, and pretending is accepted because you seen in some to accept that you not what you acting like. But in real life its not acting, and your not pretending your saying this is who I actually am. And when a character has differing qualities to how people see and/or exspect you to be its accepted as a perrformance, but when its you yourself that has different qualiities to the exspected some people can't of don't want to accept that its not an act. So yes its definatly easeyer to act then by youself when you don't fall into the illution of normal, even if only through mutual acknowledgment that you not the character.

You know you've been on facebook too long when you have an urge to "like" every one of these posts, haha. And Blue Rabbit, your icon is precious.

That's what I mean, though... It would make sense that playing a character on stage that more closely coincides with your gender would just be like a tease, or would only remind you of what others will not allow you to be unless you are pretending, but it's seems that isn't the case, at least in any case I know. Roleplaying is obviously different because over the internet literally nobody can even begin to guess who you are unless you post pictures (unless you're referring to LARPing, Blue Rabbit, but I don't think you are) so you can pass on the internet as anything you want to. There's no doubt that the internet is extremely freeing in that way. But then again, it could theoretically follow the same concept: why would the internet be freeing if it could, theoretically, only be a constant reminder of what you're not allowed to be? The most sense I can make of it is that while you're already pretending to be another character it becomes easier to add another layer of pretending on top of that, that is, pretending that the audience is not thinking of you as an actor (which comes automatically with the internet since contradicting assumptions are rarely made). Because if they didn't, then that really would be freeing.

Or maybe I'm just being pessimistic and over-thinking things.

I played women's roles during my transition period, most notably in a production of Vagina Monologues before I had that physical body part. Inhabiting the role gave me a lot of insight into the kind of woman I wanted to be so it definitely transferred over to the rest of my life. So it was super-helpful for me.