Tranny for Money

Last night I performed as the local act with the Tranny Roadshow, a "trans person performance art extravaganza" that was coming through town. I played four songs: a Mag Fields cover that seemed especially pertinent, the always-a-hit Unicorn song, the Presidents song, and Party and Bullshit. It was the debut of Pegasissy with "male vocals," which was interesting and a little more frightening than I had anticipated. I found myself getting really nervous before the show, and involuntarily so. I'd practiced the Mag Fields song plenty, and was really excited to be singing it in the real live Stephin Merritt key, but I was nervous and I basically lost those few notes at the bottom. But people seemed to like it. I got a really good response for the Biggie cover, where I change all the n*ggas to faggots (or breeders, in the case of "when breeders wanna flex, who got the gat?) and bitches to butches and honeys to homos, but after that my set was over.

I realized that this is was the first time that I'd performed at a specifically trans event, or, really, any kind of explicitly queer event, or even (correct me if I'm wrong) with other overtly queer people, now that I think about it. I think I was a little disarmed by it. Everyone in the audience was there to see trans people perform, and EVERYONE IN THE ROOM KNEW I WAS TRANS, which I don't know, was a little frightening, or embarrassing. As I've said before, it's not because I'm ashamed of being trans or anything. It's nerve wracking enough to play a show in front of 150 people, but, I realized, the situation is kind of made psychically worse when the audience has a special interest in what your genitals look like, and is probably scrutinizing your chest for lumps.

I also got asked to play at Out/Loud, the UO's queer womyn music fest. It's kind of a last minute thing, but I guess I made such an impression that they just *have* to have me. I'm playing right before Bitch, of Bitch and Animal. I'm sure all my middle school dyke friends circa 2000 would shit their pants. I'm also playing at a queer neighborhood happening called A Gay In The Park in June,

I feel kind of odd about the timing of all this. Was I not queer enough before I transitioned? Do they just need a transfag to round out the bill? Not that I'm complaining; it will be totally wild to play in front of an actual audience on an actual stage (note to self: bring a flask and/or a couple of valium.) There's also the whole "Queer Womyn" thing. Apparently Out/Loud is for "queer women and allies of queer women's music," and I suppose I am the latter, though it hasn't been my scene in years. I've never really felt comfortable in queer women's spaces. When I was first coming out a bisexual with long hair and goth makeup, none of my older dyke friends were really taking me seriously. I remember a group of butch 17 year olds actually saying to me, "You'll never be a real dyke." Not that I am a real dyke, but maybe I'm still nursing the bruise of that first exclusion and dismissal. It's just funny to finally be enthusiastically invited into the queer womyn club now that I'm a man.

Pure Hilarity and Fashion Blogging

So at work I somewhat frequently, maybe every few weeks, have strange homeless men come the door and try to talk to me for no real reason. They always kind of look at the signs around the doorway and say something like, "Yeah, peace and justice, I'm all about that!" Sometimes they want someone to listen to their stories, or their conspiracy theories, but mostly they just want someone to pay attention to them. This is all well and good, but it's not my job. I'm a goddamn office manager.

Today seemed like it would be one of those days. The guy called me "babe" when I opened the door, though I thought I was beyond that. Ugh, I thought, here we go again. He asked me about some flier on the bulletin board, and as I was explaining he must have rethought his "babe" position, and asked me "So, you're a woman, right? You're a girl?" I said no. He said, "You're a man?" I said, yep. He said my hair made me look like a woman and it was confusing, and I shrugged and said I guess so, though I think my new haircut is more masculine if anything, if pretty faggy. Then he said, kind of slowly backing away, "I mean, I believe whatever it is you do, consensually, is your own business, I mean hopefully not your business, but your own affair." Then he gave me a little Asian-style bow, said, "Best to you, brother," and left. There's a certain power in being able to frighten grown men with your gender.

Further on a personal note, I'm single again, which means I'm learning, yet again, how to flirt with people, or rather with whom I should reasonably flirt. Strangers at bars are becoming more likely to think I'm actually for realz a man, which is in most ways good and in some ways bad. My solution so far is to flood all concerned parties with whiskey until all gender is incomprehensible.
Also, I had the thought to add some style/fashion element to this blog, or at least to draw attention to Trans Style Icons. I'm going to call this segment "X_dressing", as in "cross-dressing," though the Style Icons won't necessarily be cross-dressing, just being trans people with wicked style.

I think there's an assumption that trans people, and especially trans men, are bad dressers. It's true that we face certain unique challenges. When I, and a lot of people, first came out, I felt pressure to wear undeniably masculine clothes to give myself an undeniably masculine image. This translated into unflattering pants, too many t-shirts at once to disguise my chest, and, I'm a bit sorry to say, trucker hats. For transmen with girlish figures (and statures) it can be hard to find men's clothes in the right size--I'm usually exiled to the little boy's section, which is good if I'm wanting to buy t-shirts with motocross racers on them, but bad if I want quality dress shirts, or anything not Mom-approved. And so, any trans man who moves beyond the valley of the over-sized dress shirts and chinos deserves special recognition in my book, or in my blog.

And so here is my love for Dean Spade of the Sylvia Riviera Law Project and Seattle University and what he does with clothes. Look at that cardigan. And those shoes. And the shoes-tie-glasses hat trick. The portly butch in the background is taking notice. Are you?

It's a persistent challenge, especially without the aid of standard male hormone levels, to put together a look that gets you read as both male and a total fox. Dean Spade does this, and does this consistently (to say nothing of his amazing activism and for low-income/POC trans people.) If we could all be such babes.