u/clowntrousers

I have been watching this recording a lot recently and notice that instead of saying slut when Janet is mentioned, the audience say 'Weissss'. I think it was taped in New Jersey (at least based on this being where the audience say it is still a crime to give yourself over to pleasure).

I know that callbacks are very regional but this is interesting to me since now Asshole and Slut are seen as THE main callbacks - most shows I go to now will teach the audience these before the show starts. When/where did shouting Slut instead become so popular? Are NJ based folk still shouting Weiss instead of slut? Was this a substitution just for the TV recording?

I would also be interested if anybody has any more information about this recording, would love to reach somebody that was there!!

I've been going by a semi-gender neutral but femme leaning name for about 2 years now (initially as a 'nickname' that I increasingly enforced on people), and have been on T for just over a year but still never passing as male or even non binary. Pretty consistently people assume I am a cis lesbian.

Honestly, it's getting really difficult. The name I go by currently is pretty unusual, and also has sounds in it that don't really exist in the language of the country I live in. This means it is often misheard and people will assume a common very American male name instead. I hate the name that people assume, but just go with it because it's still better than the feminine name I'm actually going by. But this just leaves me feeling like I don't have a name of my own at all.

I have a name picked out that I think I want to go by, it's what my mum would have called me if I was amab, but I just can't bring myself to ask people to start calling me it. I am completely paralysed by fear and shame and embarassment. My fear of regret and fear of being visible synergise and stop me from being able to do anything. I'm finding this so much more difficult than even the decision to start T or schedule surgery.

It feels like the name change is a HUGE commitment. I think in part this is because I've gone back and forth for so long about where I sit on the they/them to they/he to he/they to he/him spectrum (lol). Having a more gender neutral name let me comfortably move around in that space without other people being involved, but now I am just so exhausted from not being seen as male/transmasc/whatever by people around me. I want people to see me as a guy more than anything, and my chosen name could give me that, but I'm still so frightened.

Changing my name is admitting to myself that I really am trans, that this is my life. It's outing me to other people around me in a way that my medical transition still can't do. It feels so so vulnerable to ask people to call me something that my body doesn't back up yet (aware this is internalised transphobia).

It feels embarassing too. I work in a large office with a lot of people that won't have ever met a trans guy before. I'm 5'2" and gay and very effeminate in my mannerisms. Being visible here feels unprofessional to me somehow. I'm already obviously queer and people should know I'm non binary, but it just feels so huge to ask everybody to use a new name for me. I don't want my transition or my transness to attract attention. I wish it could just quietly happen and nobody notice. But the reality is that once I align myself with masculinity more than femininity, my personality becomes so much less 'normal'. I am already visibly queer, but in a way that is palatable to cis people. I'm read as a masculine woman, but my femininity means I'm quite digestible to the cis gaze I think. I fit into a 'female' role in a lot of ways. But if I change my name, outing myself as a queer man, I think my queerness will be more marginalised, in a way that makes me frightened.

I think I wanted to just start passing on T, and then change my name after this, but things are taking so long, and more and more I'm realising my current name is the thing that is stopping me from being read as male.

All of these fears about everybody elses reaction also make my worries about regretting it so much worse. If it's this hard to change it once, imagine having to do it again? Imagine going BACK to my old name after making such a big deal about changing it in the first place, and becoming so embarassingly visible as a result of that. I feel like it will discredit me professionally and make me look unstable to the people around me.

Why am I so afraid of what other people think? Why am I okay with physically transitioning, but find the suddenness of a name change so impossible? Any tips on overcoming all the internalised transphobia and homophobia that (reading back) are playing into this? Can anybody relate at all?