Creepy Censorship of Trans Performer

Turner Schofield, my favorite queer performance artist that I know personally, recently had a run-in with some pretty icky censorship at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. The details are reported here at Homofactus Press and in the Charlotte Observer.

While I suppose it's a good step that the Charlotte Observer attempts to use male pronouns for Turner and generally posits him as male, their real emphasis seems to be on the "former girl" part of the headline rather than his masculinity (and note the use of the word "girl" instead of "female" or "woman"). And I like that the ostensible emphasis is on the conundrum of whether a transguy with his shirt off falls under the nudity standards for men or women, which is I suppose a valid question IF there were an explicit and consistent written policy for the venue communicated at the time of booking as opposed to

"there are no written guidelines. ... We have standards we have followed over the years."

Administrator Kim Rentz does come off as pretty transphobic with quotes like:

"A man who has always been a man is different, I think," Rentz said. "That's my own personal take on it"

and

Asked what audiences might have found offensive had Schofield exposed his torso on stage, Rentz said, "I try not to draw a (mental) picture"

(all quotes from the Charlotte Observer).

I've seen Turner perform, and all I have to say is that any *partial* nudity there may be is in NO WAY offensive. It is important, and political, and perhaps challenging, but it is not sensationalistic. I do want to emphasize that this is ONLY Turner taking his shirt off - it's not like he's trying to remove his pants, though I've seen some pretty good full nudity performances recently, too. I wonder if the people making this offensive decision had seen/read Turner's work before the incidence of censorship, then would they perhaps have come to a different conclusion? Is it perhaps the very failure to "draw a mental picture" of the performance that makes it seem much more offensive than it is? Either way, this last-minute cancellation is profoundly close-minded and therefore unconscionable.