A North Carolina performance artist's show was cancelled (Link courtesy Violet Vixen) at a community college, but another nearby school let him do one performance. The problem? The performer, Scott Turner Schofield, is a transman, and at the end of the show he "sometimes" takes off his shirt.
The original venue had a problem with that, with a spokesperson saying "We don't allow nudity here." What about the recent production of "Jesus Christ Superstar," in which an actor appears dressed only in a loincloth? "A man who has always been a man is different, I think." Well, what was offensive about a man taking his shirt off? "I try not to draw a (mental) picture."
Precisely. What's behind this small incident is one guy who is so freaked out by the prospect of an ambiguous chest that he cannot bring himself to think the whole thing through.
You know, I sympathise with that administrator. People who fuck with gender are threatening in a way -- if they weren't, then their material would have no power. But someone in that man's job -- he is the facilities manager for the college's arts complex, which includes a 1000 seat theater, the 225-seat hall that Schofield's producer tried to rent, and a third 175-seat hall -- has to think about such things. It's his job to think about issues of art, censorship, what's offensive and what's not, first amendment issues and so on. Who else is going to think about these things?
It's like a librarian saying "Our library is not going to carry certain books because I can't bring myself to think about the terrible ideas contained in them." No -- that's your job.
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