I went off to the play audition for the FTM character last Thursday dressed in my college-years best: baggy khakis, full binding, gray t shirt with blue plaid button down and a black skater jacket. Incidentally, my college gf was in town visiting – her comment when I came out to leave for the audition was: “Whoa, does somebody have a cappella rehearsal or what?” because I had basically regressed ten years. (Not that I consider keeping in touch with my trans identity regressing, it’s simply a style thing. I don’t wear a lot of khaki these days, much less full binding.)
I was, as is usual when I go out for LGBT parts, worried that I didn’t look butch or trans (or old or young) enough. I needn’t have worried.
How do I say this? Friends, I was the ONLY women they saw for the part. Everyone else there was a cis-man. Straight up Male. And unless the two guys who came in right as I was leaving were fully transitioned FTMs who passed so well I couldn’t read them at all, there were no other queer or otherwise trans identified folks there, save for one excellent and flamboyant drag queen (isn’t there always one excellent and flamboyant drag queen?). I was the only butch in a button down.