Re: Females with Male Persona

[Brent Kellmer <kellmer@u.washington.edu>]

Greetings to those clustered here in the Merry Rose!

Daffyd said something to the effect that he would only recognize a woman
in a man's persona as such if HE decided that the individual's reasons
were good enough that his own persona would accept them.  (Please forgive
the paraphrasing -- I deleted his message before I decided that I really
had to say something.  Please forgive (and correct) me if I am mistating
Daffyd's words).

'Faith, but by this logic, you must therefore say that any caucasian who
is doing a non-european persona must therefore be seen by you as someone
who is masquerading as a samurai, or a moor, or whatever, and treated as
such. Or any asian who has a european persona, etc.  By extension, you
must necessarily treat any 20th century person who is doing a medieval
persona as someone masquerading as such, which blows the entire reason for
the logic of judging the person as your persona might.

Why shouldn't we simply take a person as what they wish to be seen
as -- if someone is dressed as a man, they should be treated as such,
not as a woman masquerading as a man (unless that's their persona).  True,
it isn't always easy to do this sort of thing with a straight face, as
when one gentle showed up at an AnTir 12th Night Coronation, with full
samurai accoutrement, which also included a rather unfortunate bald wig.
A bit hard to keep a straight face, but most of us managed.  The point is,
that he was trying to do the persona, and it was obvious that he was
trying, so to us, he was japanese, NOT a westerner playing dress-up.

It's not always easy, of course, to tell if someone's persona is different
than the way they were born (a female with a male persona, someone born
irish but with an italian persona, etc.), especially when the person is
wearing, say, a generic t-tunic.  But once they make it known how they
wish to be treated (as a man, as an italian, etc.), to do otherwise
INTENTIONALLY is the height of discourtesy.  And to excuse such behavior
simply because it's the response that your persona would give (as if your
persona could be in a similar situation), is logically equivalent to
condoning a pogrom simply because your persona might.

I, for one, should I ever encouter milord Lyon filsHenri, will treat him
like a long-lost _brother_ and invite him back to my camp for merry-making
with myself and my wife, and treat him as he wishes to be treated.  To do
otherwise would not be courteous.

My apologies, good gentles for speaking out perhaps too loudly about this
-- I actually hadn't inteded to come into this fair inn to take potshots
at a bee's nest -- I actually stepped in for naught but a touch of good
conversation and a drop or two of madeira on my way to my new home in
Isenfir.

Sincerely,

Rodrigo Ramirez de Valencia,  soon to be Isenfiri
kellmer@u.washington.edu







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