I've been having a rough few days.

I've been in a local chorus, singing tenor.  I came out to them in June, and my transition (and the inner transformations) has been proceeding.  I hadn't decided how I felt about continuing to sing tenor because my vocal range hasn't changed, or whether I would feel better singing alto because alto is considered a "female" part (even though the range is not all that different from tenor.)  But I figured, there were very, very few tenors (at some rehearsals in the past, I was the only one, in a chorus of 50-200 people), so I'd support the chorus by continuing to sing tenor.

Well, I went to the first rehearsal of the season a few nights ago, my first rehearsal as "me," and I felt really accepted by the women in the chorus.  And I didn't mind singing the tenor line in the pieces.  But each time the director referred to the tenor and base sections as "the men," it was like a punch in the gut.  And when I found out that there was one piece that only the women's parts (soprano and alto) would be singing, it felt like I was being excluded from "the women."  I felt really weird when I left, but I couldn't put it together to say anything to anyone (I'm slow that way.)

By the next morning, I was feeling really awful.  I came about as close to crying as I'm ever able to do on and off.  I want to keep singing in the chorus, but the dysphoria from being in the men's section more than takes away any enjoyment.  I contacted the choir director at my church, who I know rather better than anyone in the chorus, but he wasn't able to say whatever the heck it was I needed to hear.  I spoke to one of the members of the chorus board, but he mainly said, "you need to adjust your attitude."  I don't think he meant it in a mean way, but it was a very guy-like response and alienated me further.  Also, in all this, I've gotten the impression that whether I can switch to alto might not be entirely up to me, but with my emotions in an uproar, it's hard to know whether I'm just making it up.

I haven't talked further with anyone in the chorus, especially not with the music director, mainly because I feel so tossed around by my emotions and unsure of my judgement about anything that I think I'd come across as crazy or a drama queen or something.  I'm going to try to find someone I trust to talk to who can help me find solid ground in the emotional tempest I'm in right now.

But one thing has come out of this: I have this real gut sense that I belong among the women, and not among the men, and not just in chorus.  Whether or not I am accepted as a woman by other women, that's where I feel I belong.  Being among men feels wrong, painfully so.  I still have trouble saying "I am a woman," (especially right now, when I'm in male drag for work -- I'm not out there yet), but maybe that's just my usual resistance to accepting the obvious.

So now I'm questioning my gender identity.  I've always said I have no gender identity, and this is why I call myself "non-binary" and I've always assumed that was why I feel most comfortable with non-binary folks.  But now I wonder if maybe I do have a female gender identity and have just been denying it.  (Or maybe I've changed.)  After all, I went 10 years insisting I wasn't transgender, I was just a guy who liked wearing skirts and dresses.

Do I have to give up my enbee card now?

Negative on giving up your card. You're a non-binary woman. Or whatever you determine you are. 

Hugs, Devlyn

Sorry, you'll have to keep the card...
This is where the Demi- classifications come in. I'm amab, but neutrois-demiwoman in role and expectation. Most of my friends are female, but there are times when I feel I am neither, if that makes sense.

Sno

I've been in choirs where there are women in the tenor section and men can do alto after all it's a masculine ending from when they used boys choirs or castrati and didn't let women sing in front of men. I'm sorry everyone is being so closed minded.

Quote from: AnxietyDisord3r on October 02, 2016, 10:41:50 AM
I've been in choirs where there are women in the tenor section and men can do alto after all it's a masculine ending from when they used boys choirs or castrati and didn't let women sing in front of men. I'm sorry everyone is being so closed minded.

I don't know that they're exactly being closed-minded.  They don't have a problem with treating me as a woman tenor.  There is already a woman who's been in the tenor section for  years.  And when I actually looked over the alto part for the program for the December concert, I can't hit half the notes at all (most of the pieces are really high for altos, I suspect some of the women in the alto section will have trouble), so my singing as an alto is out (barring some miracle.  Anybody got a magic wand?)

The problem is that the assumption soprano/alto = female, tenor/bass = male is deep within the mindset of the people who run the chorus.  The (other) woman tenor doesn't seem to care, but then she's had something like 70 years of validation for her femaleness.  For me, it feels like the proverbial first day of kindergarden where the child who's always felt like one of the girls is told she is really a boy and has to get out of the girls' line and into the boys' line.

I don't mind singing as a tenor in our church choir, but that's because there, we're just voices.  There's no attempt to associate a vocal part/range with a gender, and the choir director is very sensitive to these issues.  When I told him about my dilemma, he said it sounded like the chorus was stuck back in the '50's.  (I have the impression that a lot of the members have been in the chorus practically since the '50's.  No matter what the piece, it seems like half the people or more have already sung the it in the past.)

Anyway, I decided I simply could not deal with it and quit the chorus, especially since I'm having a really hard time with things (transition and the stuff transition has stirred up in me) as it is, and I'm still having to misgender myself for work, so I really don't need the stress of having to be, as it feels to me, misgendered for one evening a week on top of that.