the uk folkscene and sex changes

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 08 May 10 - 05:59 AM

Am not sure the naming of anyone serves any purpose whatsoever other than to maybe make their lives that little bit more awkward with the idiots and fools out there that have their own issues.

If they choose to name themselves then that is different but no-one has the right to do it for them. Perhaps a certain post could 'go missing'?

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Smedley
Date: 08 May 10 - 02:53 AM

Thanks for responding anon - your honesty does you credit. As for the bigots, both in Mudcatworld & more widely, fuck 'em!

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:02 PM

andddddddddd, I missed a bit.

No I did not care about how good I looked as a male. I never have been in the good looks brigade. Though, I confess, as a woman I wish I looked better in honesty. Anyway, I don't. It mattered not then but it does now. Makes no difference anyhow. I'm stuck with what I have.

If this helps at all. I would sooner be an ugly woman living the life I do than a handsome man who is rich with all the trappings of success. If I were a rich handsome man I would use the money to have the same surgery I have had plus have my face done too! I doubt I would stay in a male role for long.

This is who I am. This is me.

another poem

Crazy

Thoughts of turmoil sounding loud inside of my head
Wrestling upsets and confusions as I lie in bed
Inside out and outside in, thoughts rising up and down
Heart a pounding, racing ever more, but no-one hears a sound

My private world of chaos turning, turning every way
East and West, South and North, spinning every day
Try to grasp a single strand, one thing at a time
Deciphering all that's going on, within this world of mine

A messy whirlwind of increasing tides
Overhead and over sides
Where does it end? Where does it start?
Inside my head? Inside my heart?

Sounds of fear and of alarm
Will there be storms or there be calm?
Every day and every night
Have I got the strength to fight?

Sometimes it's all too much to take
But carry on I must, to make
A life where fears are overcome
To find a place I feel at home

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 07 May 10 - 06:49 PM

Smedley writes "One question I'd like to ask, however. Why is the issue of attractiveness so important to you now you've transitioned ? and did you care so much about your looks when you were still inhabiting your previous identity ? (that's two questions!)"

I brought attractiveness up because it was raised in the thread. The comment about being ugly and being better guided by a hard psychiatrist rather than a skilled surgeon. The point I was trying to address was that I was not good looking as a male either. Would that have meant I had no rights to be treated as a male? Thus. I am an ugly female. That's just tough really but I still need to be able to live.

For many 'transfolk' it is imperative they 'pass' in their acquired gender. I stopped worrying about it a long time. My physicality would give me away all the time that I had a different history than how I present myself now. So I just binned it and got on with having an 'ugly' life. Not being physically more femanine is certainly a drawback as it opens me to the ridicule of fools far more than if I looked more female. But we all have to suffer fools often, male and female, so why should I expect to be treated different? I would like to be prettier though, there is no doubt, but I have to work with what I have.

Murray again raises interesting points and issues. I cannot answer for the person he makes mention of. I can only answer for me. He could do worse than ask them how it happened if they are approachable.

As for me. Yes, I transitioned quite late. Many do as they try to adhere to societal 'norms' and stereotypes. Try to fit into what is expected of them as a man. In my case I knew something was very wrong but had no idea just what. I thought I was a freak and a pervert of some kind (many still do! lol). I really did try to be a good man. Beauty aside I am a lot better woman. Finally there comes a day when a threshold is reached and passed. The genie pops out of the bottle and, in my case, there was no putting her back. Here I am. Those that knew me beforehand and have stayed with me all say that this is me. They prefer me this way and can see how much happier I am and relaxed. My daughter prefers me this way too. I am, as I have said, blessed by those in my life.

My contributions to this thread are not in any way designed to get a sympathy vote. I merely want to try and explain some of the things that I know people may struggle with. It's not sympathy I need. Just be yourselves (though I appreciate the kind comments I admit).

*waves to gloria* Sorry. Way back I had missed you out somehow. Good luck to you too.

Anyone have any more glaring and honest questions then ask openly and I will try and answer openly.

Thanks again

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,cg
Date: 07 May 10 - 06:19 PM

Murray, I think you are confusing gender dysphoria and intersex. Perhaps you could get a little more information before issuing instructions on how to live their lives to people you don't know with a condition you don't understand

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:58 PM

Anon, you do indeed talk a lot of sense, and I wish you all the best.

The point which I was trying to make earlier is that it is easier for a nontransgendered male (such as I) to understand the transformation process when it involves a "male" who has quite obviously from birth been cast in the wrong body. I would cite April Ashley as a case in point. She was quite obviously destined to be a woman, and there is another famous transsexual (whose name escapes me) who was, obviously, a similar case. Stephanie something ?

What I do find difficult to understand is when a hitherto normal male, apparently happily married with two children, with broad shoulders, an Adams apple you could ski-jump off, and hands like shovels, suddenly announces to the world at large that from now on he doesn't wish to be called "Andrew" he is going to wear a dress and be known as "Andrea".

This isn't a figment of my imagination btw. This is a description of what has happened in a small Highland village recently, involving a public official, and it has caused no end of undercurrents in the local populace.

I just have difficulty understanding it, that's all. It's got nothing to do with cuteness, or attractiveness, it's just that I can understand that when nature goes wrong and sticks a pair of balls onto an otherwise female body, then the mistake has to be corrected. It's when there are no other signs of blurred gender that it becomes problematic for me, but as I said in my earlier post, what I think doesn't matter.

Anyway, I wish you every happiness in your new life.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Smedley
Date: 07 May 10 - 10:12 AM

Anon, thanks for taking the time, care and trouble to post here. I have no doubts that anyone who'd never really understood the complex and difficult issues you're talking about will learn much from what you've contributed.

One question I'd like to ask, however. Why is the issue of attractiveness so important to you now you've transitioned ? and did you care so much about your looks when you were still inhabiting your previous identity ? (that's two questions!)

The reason I ask is because some of what you've said could (no doubt unfairly) be interpreted as suggesting that it is somehow a woman's role and/or responsibilty to be 'pretty', much more than the issue of looks is ever seen as important for men. That, to my mind, is a rather conservative view of sexual politics.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Gloria
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:55 AM

thanks Dick - i was beginning to think that I had achieved the status of complete invisibility there - like that sketch they had in the Fast Show where the woman is regarded,literally, as a nonentity by the lads.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: buddhuu
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:50 AM

Anon, cuteness of face is overrated. Any adult with more depth to them than a puddle of pee should have learned that cute doesn't come too near the top of the list of important stuff.

Ugly is as ugly does. Meanness of spirit is ugly, bigotry is ugly.

You may be no oil painting (me neither!) but, going by the calm, good-humoured and tolerant tone of what you've shared here, you certainly ain't ugly.

All the best to you.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:49 AM

Here is a poem I wrote way back that may give some insights as to how my life was to me while transitioning and still not fully in my life:

What Cannot Be

The world around me is closing in
Because I choose to see through these eyes of mine
A world I want so much to be a part of
But probably never can be

I look out on a golden meadow
And see a world how it could be
In glorious sunshine and wonderful shades
Of life that never can be

Others think they know me well
They do not see this world as I do
If they knew all there was to tell
I doubt they would even want to know the truth

Yet I can still be the person they want to know
And I can do the things expected of me
But I have to keep myself hidden from view
They only see half and not what cannot be

Inside I am alive and well
I mould the world I need to live in
But remain, half exposed, so others never really get to know
They never get the best from what cannot be

I'm judged upon a standard set by others
They fit me into how they view the world
But just because they are the majority of people
I still remain secluded by what cannot be

Oh, I know, how difficult this double-act becomes
When I am both parts on the stage
But only one part of me gets applause
Its not the other part that cannot be

If people saw with open eyes
The real person that I am inside
Their and my world would be the richer for it
For they would meet what cannot be

**** (me)
26/3/2001

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:45 AM

In honesty, Good Soldier Schweik, I think most people have a problem truly understanding the deeper aspects of gender dysphoria and the need to have your body changed to be congruent to how you feel you are. Obviously, for the majority of people, they are quite happy being the man or the woman they know they are. They may empathise with my situation but how could anyone not feeling the same truly know what it was like?

I have no idea what it is like to have cancer. I can empathise with those who do, but I cannot pretend to begin to understand exactly how it feels. That is why I say I can only comment on what it feels like to be me.

I have had men say to me "OMG! I would die if I had to have that done (have their willy removed)". Of course they would. They are men who need to be attached to their genitals. I could never understand why men were happy being men before all this came out in me. I always was flustered and confused by male bonding and 'boys being boys'. All that has gone for me now as I am in my right space.

Try to imagine getting up in a morning and each time you look at the mirror a stranger is staring back. Having to shave your face and hating every second of it as you get ready to spend the day living a lie and hiding the better side of you from everyone. Imagine not being able to be yourself and having to be what everyone one wanted you to be.

You are a man. Imagine having to dress every day and go out into the world and present as a woman - a woman everyone adores but whom you hate being - and still having to remain functional in your job and with your family and friends. In the end something would give.

I have so much respect for those transsexual people who do not do what I do. Those who stayed around and suffered for the sake of those around them. I was not that brave and I took a selfish route to 'become myself' so that then I could deliver what I needed to others. My love came with conditions therefore.

I am not proud of what I have done. I know I am not a bad person but I often do not feel I have been a good person either. I chose to be me over staying with the three people who loved me as I was. They loved me unconditionally.

All that aside. If you imagine the above happening to you then maybe it will give you some idea of some of the driving forces as to why I did what I have. I think most sane people would feel similar.

We all seek to escape lives that are bad for us. Some are lucky enough to be able to manage it. I do not feel cursed by what has happened to me. I actually feel blessed in many ways. My life has taught me far more about life generally than I ever would have experienced living as I was.

For what it is worth. One of those three people who stood by and supported me is now dead. She was a remarkable woman. If I manage to be 25% of the woman she was then I will be a great woman indeed. The other two are still in my life and still love me unconditionally. I can now love them so much easier than I used to. I can forget about me far more now and deal with other's issues rather than mine. I am now in my proper niche.

Regrets? I have a few. But, then again, too few to mention (lol)

I do not have a single regret I am who I am. I do regret that some got hurt in my process. I now work on trying to make that up to them. I also regret to find that I am capable of being so selfish too. It's not a trait I like. However, I have to be honest and take my life as it is, and that means accepting the 'bad' bits of me as well as the good. This is who I am.

Hope this helps a little bit more to put some perspective on it

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:19 AM

anon,and gloria,
thankyou for contributing to this thread,I find changing sex a difficult concept to understand,but reading your posts is helping me.
I certainly do not begrudge you,and wish you happiness.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:02 AM

I could never look that cute! No amount of money could make me pretty. As they say in the song "If": "If a face could launch a thousand ships (mine could sink a few)". lol

All I can ever do is to try and do justice to my gender. That starts with doing justice to me, which has felt quite selfish at times through decisions I have made, so that I could move forward and get on with doing what we all do. Live! I know some genetic women who are far more masculine than I am, or ever could be, but they are still women. See beyond my shell and you see the real me. I am forunate I do not have to look at me and others do. I truly wish I could just merge and not be seen when out and about. That will not happen. I spent far too long in the shadows and, whilst I have no wish to be in anyone's face, I do come out in daylight. Try not to begrudge me, and those like me, that. Just get on with your life and I'll get on with mine. Sorry about the face!

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Emma B
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:43 PM

a final thought

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:19 PM

I think it must be God with the sense of humour. First he created the Duck-billed Platypus and then he created me! How confusing that has been for science for so long! No wonder society has trouble with it as an issue.

In reality it's not important what, who or how I am. As I type this there are election results coming in that will change people's lives in the UK far more than anything I have done. People can ignore me. They will not be able to ignore changes that happen tonight. They really will affect us all.

[Totally said with no animosity to any religion, including atheism, or agnostics] The Platypus is far more beautiful than I lol

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Emma B
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:09 PM

LOL - anon you are a woman after my own heart :)

add sense of humour (that's with a u folks) too :)

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:07 PM

Emma

I wish!

If I were nicer I could be a bitch



anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Emma B
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:02 PM

I take it back anon - courageous, modest and empathic.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:58 PM

That is kind of you Emma but, in honesty, it is not really courageous.

Reading posts about people fighting cancer, losing loved ones, supporting those less fortunate, etc., I think them courageous.

Seriously I am nothing special whatsoever. The sooner that the mass of people see it as nothing special the better it would be for all sides. People have their bodies changed every day. They do it for all sorts of reasons but, mostly, just to feel better about themselves (though I am fully aware of those poor folk who have major burns and injury that need plastic/reconstructive surgery that is not elective).


The remarkable thing... isn't that they [stink bugs] put their tails up in the air - the really incredibly remarkable thing is that we find it remarkable. We have only ourselves to use as yardsticks. (John Steinbeck, Cannery Row)

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Emma B
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:46 PM

Thank you anon a courageous and, hopefully enlightening, post for some.

Please let this die Dick I honestly don't see who this really 'helps' apart from the prurient

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:17 PM

If I may be so bold as to take some of the points that Murray makes (as I believe he is not being malicious in his writings but maybe is a little misguided about the psychiatric process). I am not singling him out in any way but he does raise issues that need addressing.

For general information therefore and certianly not in any attack on him:

I am not pretty. I consider myself ugly. But then I was not a 'hansome man' either. As a 'man' I was dysfunctional, deeply unhappy, typically gender dysphoric and often wanted to be dead. Once I started living as the female I consider I was/am, life became very difficult initially, but then I became so much more functional as a person, work and pay my taxes, engage mankind and womankind - society generally - and have a life I never knew I could manage.

The psychiatrists are there not to judge my attractiveness. Damn. If that was a criteria they would have put me down a long time ago. The two psyichiatric appraisals are to show your sanity (that there is not underlying pschotic illness that is leading you this way or that you are not a transvestite or suffering one of the paraphilias that could lead you to want to be female). Once your sanity is 'proven' only then will a surgeon even see you let alone do the surgery. Many people have plastic surgery and have no psychiatric appraisal or counselling. The psychiatric and counselling saide can be quite arbitrary and cruel. No woman or man has to go through such trials to have to prove who they are.

I'll be always be ugly. So what? Is that a crime? I still have to live and survive - the same as all other people - and at least being ugly gives me no pretentions that my life will ever be fully safe or easy. But then many women's lives are not safe and easy either. There is no easy route to being a woman. I had to 'earn' my rights. I do not think that gives me any monopoly on the genetic women who suffer in their lives. Our history (herstory) may differ, but our struggles are similar. Some men do not have it easy either, I know.

So, to try and tidy the 'ugly' argument up, it's not a criteria for being a man or a woman (thank heavens). I am happy for anyone who is better looking (about 99% of the population), can sing better, play better, and be better than I am.

I am just a woman with a slightly different past trying to make her way through a life I would have never managed as a man. I do not like being ugly but it is a fact of my life. It that offends anyone I can only apologise. You think I like seeing the lovely women around me in the world and give it no thought? I envy them as I do those with good voices. But I do noty begrudge them. It's not their fault they are pretty. It's not mine that I am ugly. I will not walk round with a brown paper bag on my head though!

Firm psychiatrists used to lock up girls who had the misfortune to get pregnant from an encounter with a man not too man years ago. Firm psychiatrists were plugging gay men into the mains less that 4 decades ago (aversion therapy) to 'cure' them. It's not a firm pschiatrist I need. I simply want to be able to live and breath in the world as you inhabit.

Once again I am NOT singling you out. You have probably just said what many may think. I hope the above addresses some of that faulty reasoning. I am keeping an eye to the thread and trying to respond to those posts that are not mocking. However, I stress, I can only speak for me and not for other women who have travelled this route.

For what it is worth I do know that most people do not deliberately say horrid or malicious things. They are simply ignorant, in the true sense of the word, and are maybe looking for explanations.

Forgive the length of this

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:11 PM

Thanks for clearing that up. Just like a bad flavor in your mouth, that kind of thing can color your thinking and leave you in a poor humor.

Spaw

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Gervase
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:06 PM

It's humor, Dick; just humor him.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:00 PM

rumour, is the correct spelling not rumor.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 May 10 - 06:51 PM

Is it true that in the UK all of the English Concertina players are transgendered or is that just a rumor?

Spaw

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 10 - 06:47 PM

it is not patronising drivel,it is fact.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 06 May 10 - 05:57 PM

FWIW, (which isn't much) my take on the matter is that there are indeed truly gender displaced persons, and those persons will be able to live their new lives with a minimum of complications, hopefully.

Howsoever, even in the course of my relatively sheltered life, I cannot help having come in contact with some plug-ugly M/F "transgendered" persons, who have about the same chance of ever passing for female as I have for passing as Tommy Emmanuel.

These persons, I cannot help but feel, would benefit far more from the attentions of a kindly but firm psychiatrist rather than a ready and willing surgeon.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Continuity Jones
Date: 06 May 10 - 04:13 PM

Yes Dave I mean Dick I think you have to take that nail on the head I'm afraid I think Ms Lister is quite right and yes Ms Lister you are right once more there's the chance the woman in the chip shop may have been happily single but she was very pretty so I doubt it. Where did the Sainsbury's man drive btw (by the way) perhaps I have seen him up around these parts.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Anne Lister
Date: 06 May 10 - 03:55 PM

As long as we also remember that just because some men are bad drivers it doesn't mean that all men are bad drivers. Some can even read maps - just imagine! I met a man in Sainsbury's who drives for a living. Fancy that! I bet he does a reasonable job, even though he's not a woman.
Good grief - what a load of codswallop to be reading in the year 2010. Guest Continuity Jones, if your post was meant to be ironic it sadly missed the mark. Oh, and you also missed the possibility that the woman in the chip shop may have been happily single.
And yes, Dick, we have had the vote for less time than men, and it must be harder in some countries than others, but do we really need this kind of patronising drivel?

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Continuity Jones
Date: 06 May 10 - 02:14 PM

Yes and also to remember that although some women aren't good drivers it doesn't mean they are all bad drivers and thus should be banned outright or deported as has been suggested. I met a woman in the chip shop who drove for a living fancy that I bet she does a stirling job though and more power to her and her husband or huswomand if she's a woman's woman.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 10 - 01:18 PM

Thanks ,Bob Coltman,interesting comments at the cross dressers forum.
at this time [of a general election] in the uk,it is important to remember how relatively recent the womans right to vote is,and how much more difficult it is for women in most Muslim Countries.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Continuity Jones
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:22 AM

Nice one Dick, I was wondering where this had gone.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 10 - 08:07 AM

refresh.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 05:52 PM

Finally, a thread where I can talk about this. I was born on July 9---and when I was told I was a Cancer I hated the ominous sound of that.

So I had a sign change operation.

All is well now.

Art

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,glueperson
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:40 PM

"Whether the surgeon's knife changed my gender or not does not really affect me. It allowed me the chance to get my body some way toward being congruent to my mind."

Which is all that matters.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:34 PM

Worry yea not! I took the gist of what you meant and did not take it in any 'masculine type' way. I figured all you were doing was showing that some singers have made it big time even with 'flawed' voices?

Alison Moyet has a wonderful voice, of course, and I so love it. So do all the men you mention too.

I took no offence at all as none was intended

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: buddhuu
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 03:50 PM

I just realised in my clumsy (but well meant) post above all the examples of success with iffy voices are gents. Apologies. Most of the lady singers I am familiar with can actually carry a tune, unlike that list of geezers.

However, I am aware of female singers with fairly deep, even slightly masculine voices who have had great success. Not folkies particularly, but generally.

Alison Moyet comes to mind.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:47 AM

Sadly, for male to female (M2F) hormones do very little to the voice. All the work has to be done in one's throat and head. You raise your voice into your head and take it out of the chest. For Female to Male (F2M) then the hormones do drop the voice, just as testosterone does to pubertal boys who were soprano.

All the work you can do with your voice to raise it (not falsetto as the stereotyped male to fe,ales are shown on television) takes considerable skill. In my case chronic sinuses have severely limited me, but very acceptable 'feminine voice characteristics' are achieved when medically able. Trying to sing, while sustaining that, is very hard and I suspect that is why the person you speak of Richard has a non convetional delivery. That said, many women I know have very low voices and some men quite high ones. They enter into a very androgenous area. As long as the voice is pleasing then it matters not to me. I envy those who can thus move their voices when singing too. I am never jealous though. I am pleased they are able to get where they want to be. It all adds to overall richness of sounds and some songs need very different deliveries.

Sometimes it can be really hard work being me and I am sure it is hard for others. With more acceptance and encouragement though, support and enthusiasm, it does get a lot easier. But that goes for singing generally don't you think? We all need the gentle prods and guiding. We all need the smiles and the encouragement. We need to know our songs are reaching out. One of the biggest thrills of singing publically is to be able to share. Not having an audience/like minded folk around would make it so less meaningful. It's also nice to listen too. We all have our hopes and aspirations, our dreams and ambitions. Some are lucky to get a good shot at them. Some manage to achieve them.

If my life has taught me anything it is: Never give up hope

To quote a well known song

"Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you"

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:45 AM

Some interesting takes on this topic appear at

http://crossdressers-forum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=132112#132112

where some of the posters appear to have been reading this thread and responding to it.

Bob

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:34 AM

Why the hostility, irrelevance and dismissal evident in so many of the posts above? I can only conclude that the insulters and dismissers are finding it an uncomfortable topic, and so unthinkingly savaging the questioner and those who are expecting intelligent answers. Better not to post anything than force us to read their bile.

Not a very good advertisement for mudcat, which is ordinarily a more tolerant place!

The question at the top of this thread is not pointless, it's not theoretical, it's not prurient or any of the other names called above. It's a genuine topic of interest to quite a few people, even some of us who aren't considering a sex change.

Certainly any performer uncertain in her or his gender and wondering about the consequences for a performing career is entitled to a fair and thoughtful answer. Granted, that's a very small percentage of us. But not smaller than the percentage of interest in a good few other thread topics on this board.

Thanks to all who answered informatively and fairly. The others' poor excuses for posts only show up their own ignorance.

Bob

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 11:16 AM

I am acquainted with one person who once male now passes as female but I don't know whether she has been surgically re-assigned. I only mention that in that surgery and large doses of hormones might I imagine change voice timbre.

She plays a lovely guitar (fitted with hipshots for speedy drops into Drop D, Double Drop D and DADGAD) quite well and has a wonderful speaking voice: so wonderful that before I knew the facts (or at least those of them that I do know) I asked her why, with such a lovely speaking voice, she did not sing. Well, I have now heard her sing, and her voice is not conventionally female, but not delivered as conventionally male either, and is very musical. Given the laws of supply and demand I don't know if she would "make it commercially" as a contemporary/traditionalstyle singer songwriter but she is plenty good enough for support slots and as likeable to listen to as many semiprofessional folkish singer/guitarists.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: buddhuu
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 09:22 AM

Yep, what Gail said...

Except, be a singer *and* a writer!

If Ronnie Drew, Tom Waits, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan and Neil Young can make a success of 'singing' with that array of gloriously individual voices that would scare the pants off a mainstream singing teacher, then there is hope for us all.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 06:22 AM

GUEST Anon - if your singing really is c**p, maybe you could become a writer. Your posts on this thread have been a pleasure to read.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 06:10 AM

Thank you for your kind comments and respect. Thanks, Joe, for allowing the posts to stay. For some reason my first post came up with no text in it so here it is again.

If you take two axis and cross them, male/female and totally straight/totally gay, then we all sit somewhere within the confines of the areas made. Because everyone is so very different bilogically (even twins to a great degree) and have very different influences on their lives as they grow up, we are all so very finely individual. Transsexuality is formly fixed on the male/female axis, somewhere along it, though it does often get included within the sexualies of straight, gay male, gay woman. I think that is because, historically, the gay community have allowed us within it's ranks, so to speak, and because so many brave gay people took stands it all made it a little easier for people like me to survive. However. Transsexuality is most definitely about Gender and not about sexuality. All transsexuals have a sexuality like all other individuals.

I have read all the papers and books I can on the subject of transsexuality. Some I have agreed with. Some I have totally been against. Some just reflect the confused state of the research and many scientists mixed up thinking. Some are complete twaddle. The reality - of being transsexual and living as the gender you truly feel you are - can be very different from the writings of people whose only interest is from an experimental perspective. Being seens as some freak of nature is never helpful. I am just as individual as the next person and that is all that seperates us all.

I am not brave. It would have taken me bravery beyond heroism to carry on living as a man. I took my cowardly way out and chose to be the me I felt I was. It was selfish at times too. This is what I needed to do to feel whole. And now I can just get on with my life. It can be a hrash environment to live. Some people are cruel (though I reiterate that on the folk scene so far I have not been treated cruelly).

Fighting cancer is brave. Caring for someone with Altzeimers is brave and far more heroic than anything I have done. Losing a child and having to bury them is cruel. So many many things are far far worse than the life I have had and am living. It has taught me things I would have never known about nor encountered ever. I am lucky in so many ways.

I am blessed with those I have had in my life and those who are still in it. I am fortunate to have found out something about myself that had hindered me all my life, to get it corrected, and to now feel real contentment. Of course it could all be easier. But it will get there for those that follow because the more we all mix and it is talked about the more understanding there is. It is not really all that hard to understand. Just like or loathe the person for WHO they are, not WHAT they are.

If we ever meet out there just engage me as you would anyone else, or not. If my singing is cr*p, which I think it is anyway because my voice is not how I would like it to be, then tell me so. If you think I could improve by doing something with a song, tell me. Clap if you enjoy it. Just be yourselves around me and I will be myself around you.

I know what 'normal' feels like. I know what being treated 'normal' feels like. I still cannot define 'normal' but I sure know what it is. It's what all you make my life feel when you just treat me like anyone else.

I am not saying it's been easy. Nor that it is easy for others. But whose life is truly easy? I have a good life, I feel, and it is only good because of those in it. Welcome to my world... it's the same one you are in!

anon

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 05:13 AM

Interestingly, Monash University appears to differ from our learned fly-by

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: buddhuu
Date: 23 Apr 10 - 04:45 AM

Another thanks and respects to our anonymous Guest.

Good on ya. :-)

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 10:40 PM

I gotta hand it to you, Richard. Most of the time, you're a grumpy old battle-axe; but you have moments of charming self-deprecation.
[grin]
-Joe-

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 06:28 PM

I think Anon's posts are admirable. I am not favourably impressed by the visiting scalpel. It is universal to refer to a "sex-change operation" and to insist that it be given a different name is a pedantry to which even I will not rise.

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: GUEST,anon
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 06:02 PM

It can be harder on those around you than on you yourself. You have to cut people some slack to re-adjust. I have rights. So do they. I am the one living it every day. I do not live in a vacuum. My life has affected many people in very positive ways. But I also know some people were hurt because of some decisions I made and went through with.

My life, without thought for those around me, would be very much a sadder place. I give people time and space. For those who have only ever known me as female it is easier. For those, like my family, who knew me prior my gender realignment surgery, it has been harder for them to adapt.

You simply have to remember that not all who get it wrong mean it wrong. I know the difference between a mistake and maliciousness. Most folk do not deliberately hurt you. You have to keep that in mind too.

anon

(thanks Virginia Tam)

Subject: RE: the uk folkscene and sex changes
From: stallion
Date: 22 Apr 10 - 05:50 PM

I first thought I had nothing to offer this thread in that I have a very liberal outlook on life. There are some things that I am uncomfortable with but that is my problem and I deal with it, we are informed, from a very young age, of social norms and sometimes it is difficult to re educate yourself, I don't have a problem with strangers but one of my friends son had the gender re assignment op, I have known him since him he was born and try as i do to use her new identity I keep forgetting myself and using the name i had been using for twenty five years, it isn't intentional and i think he/she had a lot of courage to do it but I do get the impression that when I do slip up she thinks it's on purpose which it isn't. I think it needs a lot of re adjusting and it aint easy