The thing which frustrates and angers me the most about being perceived as a woman is the way I am treated and condescended to in my line of work. It seems to matter very little about me getting my professional mindset and my game face on, the mere fact that I might be female or womanish is enough to make what should be a simple and efficient task a crawl uphill wearing a ball and chain. Since I was a child I wanted to be a record producer and recording engineer, and with the wide-eyed wonder I had back then, I saw no obstacles to me achieving this goal.
Only once I’d gone to university were my eyes opened to the reality of what is expected from those ‘assigned female at birth’, and how it doesn’t matter what you do it will always be colored by these perceptions and misconceptions. I suppose I feel this frustration worse as I am trans, but have been living as a cis-female, because who I feel I am inside doesn’t match up with the way I get treated by customers.
I recently picked up a new client, who wanted to record his songs, make music videos and become a ‘social media star’. The contract was good for more money per day than I usually make in a week. I would have been high-level stupid not to take it.
The first couple of recording sessions were confusing, but he paid handsomely and I managed to stay professionally detached from the client and bite my tongue when things seemed a bit weird. However, there is only so much of that you can do before it starts to eat at you. The client is a very peculiar person, a staunch patriarchalist with extreme views on such things as feminism and BLM being a conspiracy funded by George Soros, abortion and a strange obsession with gang-land violence. If there is truly such a thing as ‘toxic masculinity’, this guy’s got the t-shirt.
He soon showed his true colours as a manipulative narcissist. My professional detachment became very strained when I was working with him alongside another far-right supporting colleague, and in my presence, they start talking about women ‘not being equal’ and how much they hate ‘gender neutrals’.
He insisted on using my full name, ‘because it’s pretty’ instead of respecting my desire to use my initials instead. Being pretty was never part of the deal. I’m not furniture.
After this session, I went home feeling drained. I do not like the buzzword ‘triggered’ but this is probably the closest I’ve come to it. I actually felt threatened, and I do not like that feeling in my professional life, and this is not the first time it has happened. It happens time and time again.
The reason I get contracts to do jobs like this by people like this is that they see me as a ‘female’ and therefore a ‘soft touch’. They think they can play me, and in the past, in similar situations they have. It’s always an imbalance of power, whoever has the money is the one in true control, and they can ask me to jump and I’ll say “how high?”
However much inside I’m thinking I’m a professional, they aren’t seeing that. They see a little girl they can manipulate. It tears me up because whatever I do, it doesn’t matter how clever I am, or how professional I am, I have no “authority” so I’ll just get pushed around. I had to get rid of two earlier clients who played exactly the same game, trying to suck me into their fantasies, making me feel like I’m losing my mind and losing myself. I seem to attract them, in a way my male-presenting colleagues do not, and do not see a problem.
I know that I made a terrible mistake as a teenager, listening to my doctor and to my Christian fellowship regarding my transgender status. I was wrong to listen to those who considered themselves ‘equalists’ or ‘complimenterians’ who told me that being a woman would be an advantage, I’d be an old man’s darling, their ‘favourite’ and get spoilt rotten. OK well, I do get bought presents, all the bloody time, it’s humiliating and a show of financial power meant to control me.
And being called pretty and a princess is not nice and sweet, it shows the total lack of respect, something my male colleagues never have to deal with. It really boils my piss when you consider the MRA types who are actually jealous of the women they consider ‘gold diggers’ because they get this kind of treatment, which in the most part is initiated by men as a form of control.
I’d rather have respect for my skills and professionalism than be showered with trinkets and compliments just for being pretty and malleable. But then, I guess I’ll just be called an ungrateful cow. I am of no sexual market value whatsoever, as an asexual anyway.
I really think that I’m being pushed more and more towards transitioning FtM. I know it isn’t ideal, and I should have done this when I was younger, but I really thought that we were living in a progressive society where these things didn’t matter anymore. I believed the Spice Girls propaganda of ‘Girl Power’. I had no reason to believe that I would grow up into a world which made every interaction difficult because I was being perceived as something I could not relate to.
I know the reason why women leave these professions. In the left-wing “liberal” echo chamber, you get to think it’s all OK, but in the real world you have to deal with clients of all kinds of political persuasions, and you have to do your job and get over it. You just get used to the baseline of discomfort and see it as ‘normal’. For me it’s a constant reminder that I’ll never be able to just get on with my job with authority and respect, I’ll always get treated as a novelty.
And that makes me very sad indeed.
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Originally Published on Naked Emperor Blog and is republished on Medium.
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