In a couple weeks I will be performing a part in the Vagina Monologues, a sex-positive feminist play which encourages women to have a healthy view of their body parts.

I will be playing the part of a transgender woman and reciting a very powerful speech about my character's experience of being transgender. I'm really excited and looking forward to this.

I am being given some leeway by the director about how I present. I am trying to decide between two choices:

1. I normally wear a wig to cover my pattern baldness and straight forehead and de-emphasize my eyebrow ridge. Wearing this wig, I normally pass visually. I'm almost never clocked in public. I also speak in a very sweet feminine voice that is totally artificial. That voice has never, ever been clocked anywhere.

2. Or I could forego the wig and show myself in all my transgender glory. I could, just for the duration of the performance, revert to my normal voice. I'm still perfectly capable of using it, I just never do. I.e. make no effort to hide any physical evidence that I'm trans.

Thoughts?

It kind of depends on the audience. 

If the audience is all knowledgeable about trans and trans friendly then you could go either way depending on what impact you want to make.

If the audience is mixed then I think the wig and voice sends a more positive message about what trans is.  It will be a teachable moment for them.


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interesting , I live by a college and there was a girl I saw for four years who was bald on half her head and never wore a wig then the last year at school shave her head and never wore a wig. Then you have the well known Cait.

Quote from: Deborah on November 08, 2015, 06:26:37 PM
If the audience is mixed then I think the wig and voice sends a more positive message about what trans is.  It will be a teachable moment for them.

This is the direction I'm leaning. They've probably been exposed to the non-passing trans woman, whereas the passing transwoman is rarely sighted (due mostly to superior camoflage  )

Is there a dramatic moment where tearing your wig off would make sense?

Quote from: Deborah on November 08, 2015, 06:26:37 PM

If the audience is mixed then I think the wig and voice sends a more positive message about what trans is.  It will be a teachable moment for them.

I'd second this