Trans Moments?

[Wayfarer]

12 hours ago, nerdperson777 said:

And then holidays are coming up.  I'm told that we're going over to a friend's place for Christmas Eve.  I haven't seen them in two years.  They don't know about my haircut, and I don't want to explain.

Maybe you could just say 'I felt like it', or 'I wanted a change of style, and it agrees with me' or something. That's usually what I do when people ask me why I cut my hair and I don't want to go into detail.

 

And yeah.. holidays coming up. I did come out to my parents last year, but I don't think they really understood. I'm currently living abroad, so going home over Christmas will be the first time back with them for an extended period of time since August. Anyway, when we were packing my bags then, my mum saw me packing my binders and said something along the lines of 'I hope you will realise that you don't need to wear them to be yourself'. The implication was that my 'natural' *cough* self, is my 'real' self. I'm pretty sure that she thinks I'm exaggerating and will 'grow out of it'. I'm not looking forward to being limited in my expression. 

 

Speaking of expression: I recently played a concert, and as concert dress I wore a suit with a white shirt and (red) bow tie. And I felt amazing (and looked it too ). Everyone commented on my tie, said they really liked it. And people were generally complimentary of how I looked. The 'big deal' is that for all orchestra's I've been in, women can wear suits, but dress code for them is always 'black', so as woman I'd wear a black shirt with my suit. And I wore a white one! It's over a week ago now, but it still makes me ridiculously happy. It was a Christmas concert, and dress code was slightly less formal, but still, you've got to start somewhere. I'm seriously considering staying with my suit for the next concert (with black bow tie), but not sure I'll be brave enough to go through with that.

[Mezzo Forte]

2 hours ago, Wayfarer said:

Speaking of expression: I recently played a concert, and as concert dress I wore a suit with a white shirt and (red) bow tie. And I felt amazing (and looked it too ). Everyone commented on my tie, said they really liked it. And people were generally complimentary of how I looked. The 'big deal' is that for all orchestra's I've been in, women can wear suits, but dress code for them is always 'black', so as woman I'd wear a black shirt with my suit. And I wore a white one! It's over a week ago now, but it still makes me ridiculously happy. It was a Christmas concert, and dress code was slightly less formal, but still, you've got to start somewhere. I'm seriously considering staying with my suit for the next concert (with black bow tie), but not sure I'll be brave enough to go through with that.

Being a musician is basically what allowed me to experiment with masculine formalwear for years before I came out to myself. I know exactly what you mean about the concert black dress standards, how that little bit of white becomes a masculine statement in that situation. I bet that bow tie looked awesome too.  (I take some pride in my bow tie collection, even if I'm too damn proud to wear anything other than the self-tie ones.)

 

I remember being so scared of being out of uniform for wearing the men's dress code that I asked permission before the concerts, and the directors basically said "yeah, sure, whatvever," like it was no big deal. Ironically, the conductor decided to let percussion just wear all black like the women's attire, so I still haven't had a chance to wear true men's concert black.

 

[Wayfarer]

2 hours ago, Mezzo Forte said:

Being a musician is basically what allowed me to experiment with masculine formalwear for years before I came out to myself. I know exactly what you mean about the concert black dress standards, how that little bit of white becomes a masculine statement in that situation. I bet that bow tie looked awesome too.  (I take some pride in my bow tie collection, even if I'm too damn proud to wear anything other than the self-tie ones.)

 

I remember being so scared of being out of uniform for wearing the men's dress code that I asked permission before the concerts, and the directors basically said "yeah, sure, whatvever," like it was no big deal. Ironically, the conductor decided to let percussion just wear all black like the women's attire, so I still haven't had a chance to wear true men's concert black.

 

Ah yes. Because it was a Christmas concert, the dress code for men was 'white shirt, black dinner jackets, black suit, black shoes, any colour bow tie/accessory of choice', whereas for women it was: 'smart dress of any colour', so I chose to interpret that as 'white shirt, black dinner jackets, black suit, black shoes, red bow tie'. I didn't ask permission, but figured it would probably be okay. I had a black shirt with me though, just in case.

Unfortunately, my bow tie was one of the pre-made and pre-tied ones, but I will probably get more, and they will at some point be self-tie ones as well.

I also just remembered, my aunt always wore white tie during her time in a (professional) orchestra, same as the men in the orchestra. She never wore dresses, and just wore that instead.

 

[Mezzo Forte]

2 hours ago, Wayfarer said:

Ah yes. Because it was a Christmas concert, the dress code for men was 'white shirt, black dinner jackets, black suit, black shoes, any colour bow tie/accessory of choice', whereas for women it was: 'smart dress of any colour', so I chose to interpret that as 'white shirt, black dinner jackets, black suit, black shoes, red bow tie'. I didn't ask permission, but figured it would probably be okay. I had a black shirt with me though, just in case.

Unfortunately, my bow tie was one of the pre-made and pre-tied ones, but I will probably get more, and they will at some point be self-tie ones as well.

I also just remembered, my aunt always wore white tie during her time in a (professional) orchestra, same as the men in the orchestra. She never wore dresses, and just wore that instead.

 

I have a lot of pre-tied bow ties as well. (Honestly, most people use those.) I've met people who would get judgey over that sort of thing, (though I got way more flack for wearing skinny ties than pre-tied bow ties,) but most people don't think much of it one way or another. Learning how to self-tie can be frustrating at first, but once you've got it down, it sticks with you. 

 

Honestly, all the power to people who can preform in dresses, but I just don't think I could do it even if I liked wearing them. I could see too many things going wrong wearing a dress while playing percussion, and it also introduces issues for instruments like saxophone and likely instruments like cello as well because they take up space between your legs that the instruments often occupy. Maybe that's why I felt so much more free to explore my masculine expression in such a setting, because practicality is such a good excuse.

[KRae]

4 hours ago, Mezzo Forte said:

Honestly, all the power to people who can preform in dresses, but I just don't think I could do it even if I liked wearing them. I could see too many things going wrong wearing a dress while playing percussion, and it also introduces issues for instruments like saxophone and likely instruments like cello as well because they take up space between your legs that the instruments often occupy. Maybe that's why I felt so much more free to explore my masculine expression in such a setting, because practicality is such a good excuse.

Agree x1000. I've had friends in percussion with me (in which we were mostly on djembes, which for those who are unaware, are often held between one's legs) who attempted to play while wearing a skirt. It never ended well. No one wants to see undies, thanks. I don't think anyone ever attempted it more than once. There's a reason my director always dictated that we wore pants for all performances, except that one time it was 80 degrees out, so he let us wear shorts. That class was a place where I felt really comfortable in my masculine expression - there was an unusually high percentage of males in the group compared to my other classes (the school as a whole is 75% female, my percussion group was closer to 40-50% female), and as you've said, practicality has its place.

 

For choir, unfortunately, I had to wear a dress for most performances. A floor length black dress that was a little too big in the chest. Let's just say that several of us had to find creative ways to avoid flashing the audience during choreographed movements, and tripping was always a concern. To quote a favorite book of mine, "Dresses are an imbecilic invention."

[Dodecahedron314]

6 hours ago, Mezzo Forte said:

Honestly, all the power to people who can preform in dresses, but I just don't think I could do it even if I liked wearing them. I could see too many things going wrong wearing a dress while playing percussion, and it also introduces issues for instruments like saxophone and likely instruments like cello as well because they take up space between your legs that the instruments often occupy. Maybe that's why I felt so much more free to explore my masculine expression in such a setting, because practicality is such a good excuse.

Have had to play an alto clarinet in a floor-length concert dress before, can confirm it's not a great situation to be in. Thankfully, now that I'm not in a high school band anymore I can wear pretty much anything I want for concerts as long as it's appropriately fancy--I really liked my outfit for my most recent concert because it was one of the first opportunities I've had to wear a tie, and the combination of that with the somewhat lacy vest I'd been using for my concert blacks before that made me feel like the whole thing was just the right amount of gender-flouting. I'm still rather annoyed that I had to pick an instrument that means I can't bind while playing it, though--curse you, wind instruments and your need for large lungfuls of air!

[Mezzo Forte]

@KRae, I never thought anyone would have actually attempted to wear a dress and play djembe at the same time.  The big one I normally cite is timpani, because if you wear a dress, you're going to basically flash your underwear to the audience every time you need to tune multiple drums at once. I am also really paranoid about tripping or having some of the dress get snagged on the marimba or vibraphone. (Plus, secure shoes are essential if you're going to play vibraphone, timpani, drum set, or anything with a pedal, so the heels that people wear with dresses are an even bigger hell no for me than the dress itself.) I still remember years ago when a fellow percussionist asked me what I was going to wear to my junior recital, and I got so excited to talk about the nice waistcoat my mom got for me. My friend's reaction: "…no dress?"

 

I know those floor-length black dresses that schools enforce for concerts. We affectionately called them "potato sacks" where I'm from. I even tried to get the band director to make an exception for percussionists to be allowed to wear the men's concert dress, but I was the only percussionist who wanted it. I couldn't believe how everyone could hate the potato sacks, but that they'd still take that over a suit. I didn't get why anyone would choose not to wear a suit. Guess that should have been a sign.  

 

@Dodecahedron314, even when I used to play Bb clarinet, the dress felt like it was in the way. I could only imagine it was all the more annoying on Alto. Funny how high schools are so strict about concert attire, and then college is basically "use your best judgement." Honestly, no matter what instrument you play, I think binding finds ways to be obtrusive. I own gynecomastia compression shirts rather than true binders because I feared that percussion required too much movement for binding to be safe. (Plus, I'm on campus 12+ hours a day, so when exactly could I take it off?) Maybe it's viable for string players?

 

Oh and relevant fun fact: Female cellists used to have to hold the instrument "side-saddle" because the leg-spread position of normal cello playing was too scandalous for women to do.  (Instruments and gender is actually an interesting topic; too bad that a lot of the writing on the topic come from second-wave, often TERF-esque feminist perspectives.)

[ChillaKilla]

Spooky

[butterflydreams]

31 minutes ago, ChillaKilla said:

Spooky

Lol... @Mezzo Forte, is there something you maybe need to tell us?

 

(Fun fact: at my job, the IT on call extension is "666". Whenever I pick that line up I always have some fun greeting.)

[Mezzo Forte]

@ChillaKilla, @Hadley167, I guess that either means that I am indeed the evil twin, or that I sold my soul to the devil so I could play percussion.  (or maybe that I'm one hell of a swell guy.)

[Mychemicalqpr]

I'm a bit confused.  The title is "trans moments". I figured that didn't include me, but Dodec is here. Are agender moments welcome too?  

[butterflydreams]

7 minutes ago, twilightstarr said:

I'm a bit confused.  The title is "trans moments". I figured that didn't include me, but Dodec is here. Are agender moments welcome too?  

Absofreakinglutely

[dissolved]

It's basically "not cis moments" but that doesn't sound as nice...

[ChillaKilla]

20 minutes ago, dissolved said:

It's basically "not cis moments" but that doesn't sound as nice...

And that might hurt their feelings and then what would we do?

 

So I just came out to the teacher who runs yearbook and she agreed to let me change my name in the yearbook, so by the time I come out in March, the yearbooks in Mat will be accurate!

[Mychemicalqpr]

It's just, we have AgenderProblems specifically for agenders, so I think it would be reasonable for the transgenders to have something just for them.  

 

Well then, on the topic of concert dresses, it took me way too long to figure out why I didn't like them.  One of the the best things that I can't believe I actually did was, in my last semester of high school, talk to the principle about why they should allow non-cis band/choir students to wear what they feel right in.

15 hours ago, Dodecahedron314 said:

curse you, wind instruments and your need for large lungfuls of air!

 So being someone who sings constantly would be an issue with binders, I take it.  Maybe I won't try to get one then.  

 

One time in my media technology class, when I still thought I was cis, I was the "cameraman" in a group project, and a guy in my group, trying to be polite, corrected himself to "er, camerawoman".  I said, "cameraperson." Then he said, "So you don't want to attach a gender to it?" and I explained that it shouldn't matter because a cameraman and a camerawoman do the same thing anyway.  It seemed like it should be obviously irrelevant to me.  That moment was one that got me to start wondering if maybe it wasn't usual to think that way.  

[dissolved]

When you're eyeing up acne products, grumbling to yourself about testosterone and effectively being a teenage boy, and someone in the shop goes, "don't worry, it'll be gone by the time you're 20".

 

Dude I'm nearly 31

[butterflydreams]

2 minutes ago, dissolved said:

When you're eyeing up acne products, grumbling to yourself about testosterone and effectively being a teenage boy, and someone in the shop goes, "don't worry, it'll be gone by the time you're 20".

 

Dude I'm nearly 31

Eh, I have a friend who's pretty much exactly your age and he's still pretty acne-ridden. I'm sure transition has its own component, but it's not unheard of to have it at your age. Though he seemed to finally get it cleared up much better recently. I'm not sure what he did.

 

If I had a nickel for all the times I've told my friend, "I'm like a 14 year old girl except I'm head of a critical tech department at work. I get tired, very moody and sometimes my boobs really hurt."

[dissolved]

I don't know whether my main issue is the acne, or the fact that people think I'm a teenager!

[nerdperson777]

The music stuff, my middle school required us to wear a tie and cummerbund.  I don't even know what that really is.  I've barely seen anyone use them.  It's been a while since I've been in orchestra, but I believe we had to wear all black in middle school.  Fortunately I wasn't in choir because they were mandated to wear skirts for the most part.  I think in high school the guys wore suits.  I only wore concert black in just about every fancy function I went to before.  In fact, for my Chinese school, there was the senior graduation banquet (11th and 12th grade was one class because not many students continued that far so I went twice).  So the Mandarin and the Cantonese classes had to go up and perform something.  My teacher made us sing a Mandarin song those years.  I was the only "girl" not in a dress and someone said on stage I looked like a nun.  I'm not actually sure how I looked like a nun, but okay.  (Also my first year there, we were terrible.  The two solos were given to the teacher's pets and the girl who did it was practically tone deaf so I looked at the person next to me and decided just to smile through it.)

[butterflydreams]

@dissolved, as someone who's approaching 30 (still only 28, dangit!) I'm extremely flattered when people see me as younger. And HRT will do that on both sides of the coin I think. But I can understand how it would be annoying as well  My brother is 4 years younger than me, but I think I look about his age, maybe even younger. I definitely look younger than my sister who's only 2 years younger than me.

[dissolved]

It's probably more a genetics thing than directly hormone related... My sister is 38 and looks like she just hit 25, so.

[Mezzo Forte]

Heh, I was just getting comments about how young I look at my dentist appointment just earlier.  I still get carded whenever I buy M-rated video games, so I don't even look convincingly 17 to a lot of people. I haven't tried since HRT, but I get comments nowadays about how I don't look a day over 16. (My height doesn't exactly help matters, but looking at my family, our youthful appearance is genetic.)

 

The one thing that was cool about the dentist appointment (apart from them being chill about using my chosen name) is that the person who cleaned my teeth also does my brother's, and she saw the resemblance immediately. I don't think people really compared me to my brother growing up, especially because of my large age gap with him and my small age gap with my twin. Go figure that last month, my first thought when I saw my new passport photo was "wow, I look a lot like my brother did when he was younger."

[Toothlesss]

On 12/12/2016 at 5:58 PM, nerdperson777 said:

And then holidays are coming up.  I'm told that we're going over to a friend's place for Christmas Eve.  I haven't seen them in two years.  They don't know about my haircut, and I don't want to explain.

I'm not even visiting that many people Christmas weekend- But so far everyone in my immediate family probably knows about my haircut by now. All I'm going to say is that "I felt like it." because- it's the truth. 

[Wayfarer]

3 hours ago, twilightstarr said:

 So being someone who sings constantly would be an issue with binders, I take it.  Maybe I won't try to get one then. 

I sing with my binder on. I was in a choir last year. I had to really work on my breathing, making sure it stayed low, but I could still sing everything I thought I was able to without. At some point I noticed that the way I breathe while singing with binder and without is slightly different. I think I can sing everything I'd want to with a binder on, it maybe took me slightly more practise to get the breathing down. I couldn't get away with sloppy technique.

The way I understand it, is that there's a difference in breathing techniques for singing and for wind instruments, so couldn't compare that. Next to singing I play the viola. I noticed there I have to pay slightly more attention to my posture, make sure I'm sitting completely straight (which would be good to do anyway). Other than that, it doesn't affect my playing.

[Dodecahedron314]

Re: the age discussion, apparently it's physically impossible for most people to pin down my age to within 3-5 years of what it actually is. The year I started college, I got mistaken for a high school freshman and a grad student in the same month, and last summer I managed to unintentionally convince someone I already had my Master's or Ph.D...as a rising second-year undergrad.

 

3 hours ago, twilightstarr said:

It's just, we have AgenderProblems specifically for agenders, so I think it would be reasonable for the transgenders to have something just for them. 

This thread is older than the #AgenderProblems thread, so I started off posting here before that thread existed and then just kind of...never left, though I do post over there a bit as well. Also, many people use "trans" as an umbrella term to encompass everyone who's not cis, including all varieties of nonbinary people, rather than just binary trans people. I generally post things that could apply to anyone who's not cis here, and things that are more nonbinary- or agender-specific in #AgenderProblems. (There also used to be an Incredibly Agender Moments thread, but I think that's so old that bringing it back might constitute necro-ing it at this point.)

 

 

[nerdperson777]

33 minutes ago, cowgirl326 said:

I'm not even visiting that many people Christmas weekend- But so far everyone in my immediate family probably knows about my haircut by now. All I'm going to say is that "I felt like it." because- it's the truth. 

When I first cut my hair, one of my apartmentmates (who I wasn't out to) asked why I cut it rather than anything else she could've said.  I did say that I felt like it, but to make that big of a change kind of makes it feel like I need a better explanation.

 

9 minutes ago, Dodecahedron314 said:

Re: the age discussion, apparently it's physically impossible for most people to pin down my age to within 3-5 years of what it actually is. The year I started college, I got mistaken for a high school freshman and a grad student in the same month, and last summer I managed to unintentionally convince someone I already had my Master's or Ph.D...as a rising second-year undergrad.

I look 15 even though I'm 22.  I'll probably grow in some acne eventually with T to look more my age.  I found it amusing that I was at Panda Express in my school one day and the girl packing my food kept calling me Ms.  I think it was because I was wearing a club jacket that had my old name on it even though it was partially covered.  Then when I got to the cash register to pay for my food, the guy called me sir.

 

One apartmentmate I had was only 5 feet tall and she has a bigger buffer younger brother.  When the brother told people that she was a freshman (at the time), they thought high school.  She's now in grad school and will probably still be mistaken for a high school freshman.  At the end of our first years, we went to Yogurtworld and the guy ringing us up asked if we were visiting.  Ha, we'd been living here for a year.

[butterflydreams]

@Mezzo Forte, woot for you at the dentist! I actually went to the dentist today, been going there for years, and I'm not very assertive, so kept getting birth name, and "he". But on my way out, I spoke to the woman at the desk and was like, "can you update my name in your files?" So, at least it's done now.

 

And it's funny, people treat me just fine, birth name and all, even though I'm clearly wearing makeup...and a dress today. They're not even awkward about it (which is cool in a certain way). But then half an hour later, I go to the drug store for some decongestant, and I get ma'me'd by the guy behind the counter. 

[Emery.]

"No, I'm not showing you my old photos in which I had beautiful waist long hair"

[Lightning Blue Ray]

On 12/15/2016 at 4:01 AM, Hadley167 said:

@dissolved, as someone who's approaching 30 (still only 28, dangit!) I'm extremely flattered when people see me as younger. And HRT will do that on both sides of the coin I think. But I can understand how it would be annoying as well  My brother is 4 years younger than me, but I think I look about his age, maybe even younger. I definitely look younger than my sister who's only 2 years younger than me.

@Hadley167 I totally understand. During a recent trip, people thought that I was either a 15-year-old twin since my bro is the same age, or a 13/14-year-old because there was a 12-year-old on the trip and I'm not much bigger than her. Imagine their surprise when I said I'm turning 18 soon! Also, one of my music friends dared me to sneak into the new cohort of students in my secondary school next year since she thinks I look 12 and could pretend to be one of them, when actually I'll be 19 at the end of the year!

[Mezzo Forte]

Barista: "Hello ladies!"

 

Me: *turns around to face barista, probably unintentionally giving him a look*

 

Barista: "...erm, lady and gentleman."

 

(At least that went better than when I got she'd at the gas station by two different people the other day. I tend to pass near 100% of the time, so I don't know what's up with these past few days.)