Courtesy of Jay Sennett, an ftm artist can’t perform onstage because he’d take off his shirt. And we can’t have that!
Is it nudity when a guy takes off his shirt?
What if that guy spent the first 20 years of his life as a girl?
Then they’re breasts. End of discussion.
The answer was ambiguous enough to keep Scott Turner Schofield’s solo show, “Underground TRANSit” off the stage at Central Piedmont Community College.
The poetic monologue traces Schofield’s journey from a teenage lesbian and “almost-homecoming queen” to an adult man. Sometimes the performance ends with a brief glimpse of Schofield’s chest.
Which has breasts on it.
I was a teenage lesbian, and now I shoot hormones into my butt so that people will understand that I’m a guy: ho-hum. Like those belonging to half of the population, the fatty lumps on my chest have a name: horrors! Most people get freaked out when we get rid of them. You’d think Scott’s approach would be much more acceptable. Might as well let the twins out for air while there’s time.
For various reasons–most of which involve dithering, stalling, procrastinating, and vacillating–I have been on testosterone and pre-op for nearly two years. This is not exactly normal. While most surgeons recommend that transguys be on testosterone for a little while pre-op, most guys who can afford it obtain surgery sooner. I’ve spent that extra eighteen months and change working out obsessively. A couple of months ago, I had a consultation with a surgeon. He felt my chest* and took some measurements and said, “Uhm, you’ve got a fairly large chest, but…it’s pretty much all muscle.” He grabbed a wee handful. “This is what I’d have to take away.”
And he’s…right. Those protuberances on my chest–the hard ones that bulge when I flex–those aren’t part of my rack! Those are pectoral muscles! My rack is the smaller, floppier portion slightly below. Those are my breasts. They’re my breasts because I got them when I was a woman, and when women have soft rounded fatty lumps on their chests, they’re breasts, which cannot be uncovered in public. My pecs are not breasts. My pecs are my chest. In a couple of decades, they’ll also be soft and floppy, and quite possibly larger than my breasts are now, but they’ll still be completely different. I won’t have breasts. I’ll have gynecomastia, and I’ll be able to whip my shirt off anytime and anywhere, so long as I don’t also try to take off my pants.
But “nudity” is subjective. In a recent campus production of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the actor playing Jesus wore only a loincloth for the Crucifixion sequence.
“A man who has always been a man is different, I think,” Rentz said. “That’s my own personal take on it.”
Asked what audiences might have found offensive had Schofield exposed his torso on stage, Rentz said, “I try not to draw a (mental) picture.”
Well, I found some pictures for you.** Turner-Schofield’s chesticles look pretty good now, don’t they?
*With unimpeachable professionalism, I mean.
**Probably not safe for work. Aren’t they the cutest?
I wish we ALL could get over our bodies, accept everything we see on everybody as A-OK, and just be naked all the time!
Except in winter, when we could wear fur coats. Or fake fur coats. Whatever.
Bah. People are so uptight.
I’ve seen part of his act, and there was no exposure. There was a *hint* (where he removed his binder), but no breast was even remotely visible. It reads like fear of difference more than anything else to me.
Thank you, piny, for an immensely sensible and enlightening post — and a link that brought a smile to my face.
Thanks for the info.
I saw a performance piece about buying a dress for a coming-out ball, which involved no nudity, but wasn’t sure about this one. I didn’t get the sense that it would be remotely pornographic, though.
Too cute.
CHESTICLES?
CHESTICLES?
That’s possibly the best thing I’ve ever heard.
I didn’t come up with it. There are a couple of other terms, but I’m blanking on them right now.
bit off topic, but some dyke activists from my hometown got the New York State nudity laws changed to decriminalize breasts.
ahaha! those photos are great! ya’ know, they’re probably NSFW, but honestly, i’m not sure a person walking by would know what they were. it took me a moment – i was distracted by the googly eyes. :)
I have always thought it was unfair that men – trans or not – can expose their chests in public without fear, whereas if women – trans or not – do the same thing, they face arrest or at least severe sexual harrassment. Being able to bare one’s chest and have it looked upon as neutral (or at worst, mildly amusing) is a privilege that only men have, and I wish men would give it up.
I may have been in error; the show I saw was about the debutante ball, of which I assumed Underground TRANit was a part.
It’s interesting that in my observation, even women who have clearly had medical mastectomies will still wear full swimsuits. Habit?
At Emory, his show did involve exposure, but there were nudity warnings beforehand. So maybe he does different performances at different venues? I should have asked, but it didn’t occur to me. (he came to my class on gay history too. Uh..anyway, fan girlness aside, yes, I certainly viewed his chest as being well, breasts. It’s just that people with breasts should be allowed to show them in my opinion) (In the performance, he talked about dresses, but also about how he tried to get his name changed, how he went to new york and tried on a strap on,etc)
Chesticles — very amusing.
The fact that the only option born-women have, in order to go shirt-free, is surgery and hormones to look like a man — not so funny.
No, it’s a term that transmen use in earnest to describe their bodies. It’s not a joke.
Those people you’re referring to there are not women, nor “born-women,” nor do they merely “look like” men. They are men. And if I underwent a sex change for the sake of taking my shirt off at the beach, I’d be a fool.
Look: the post was meant as a comment on sexism used to cover for transphobia. I’m not trivializing any of this, but rather pointing out how ridiculous it is. These attitudes render women’s bodies unmentionable, and Turner Schofield’s body unacknowledgeable. But hey: feel free to dismiss me as a lightweight.
piny: The ability for people to reclaim and recontextualise their own bodies and other parts of their lives that don’t square with their identity never ceases to strike me as totally awesome.
Um, The weblink to his chest, takes me to something ELSE ENTIRELY!! Tranny postcards. Was quite unexpected let me assure you. Lucky I enjoy the unusual pictures. :) Otherwise I would be shocked.
I would like to see what the hubbub is all about, but I suspect it’s nothing as usual, just people who can’t seem to get over their own bodies muchless apprieciate the beauty of someone else’s, regardless of gender.
I have always been jealous of guys ability to take off their shirts. I also find it a turn on, because let’s face it, they have the same as us and some of us ENJOY seeing certain males remove their shirts. SO they shouldn’t be able to EITHER!.. however that’s just mho.
Loosely.
It wasn’t meant to be pictures of his chest–AFAIK, he hasn’t made those available online. It was meant as a response to, “I try not to draw a mental picture,” which is a pretty fucked-up thing to say.
By way of showing just how *****-ed up things can be, on one of the “educational channels” (non-PBS) there was a segment on some of the surgeries people go though to make themselves more a match to what they think they should look like.
One of the examples was of a man who was having breast implants done (I switched into the show late, so I don’t know if he was going through full reassignmwent or not), and, before the implants were done, you could see images of his chest. During the surgery you could see the nipples, which was the avenue used to put the implants in (along with some discussion from the dactor that it was more difficult because this was a guy and he had a really flat chest to start with).
After the surgery, they filmed a follow up in the doctor’s office, and pixilated the changed anatomical landscape.
There are some times when I think our society is really, *really* warped on some issues
Thank you, Piny: an excellent and informative post.