#{oh boy.}

I stand by the fact that joining a unit that will support you is the most important thing you can do in this scenario. it sucks, but the reality is that, as a queer person, you need to be able to count on these people to have your back and keep you safe if it comes to it. obviously there's some relationship-building involved in this, but knowing outright that they would accept you is a good sign. it's not how every group functions, but for me my unit has come to be like my family, and while I know there are some differing political views floating around, I also know that more than anything else they care about me and will absolutely go to bat for me if necessary. and it has been necessary before. unfortunately. but because I'm in a group with a solid reputation and long-standing connections, I've been able to let my officers, the more experienced and connected people in this scenario, take the brunt of it without having to ever fend for myself completely.

this is a little disheartening to talk about, but I want to be honest so you can proceed in whatever way you feel most comfortable. I've had multiple run-ins with this rule and expect I will probably continue to—as I mentioned, most of my experience with it has not been face-to-face (i.e., it goes straight to my officers instead), but it definitely has affected how I conduct myself at BAR events. I've been targeted by this rule both as a musician and a man-at-arms and they seem to be begrudgingly more accepting of "women" in music roles after some conversations had a couple years ago. however, it has meant that in the past, at others' request, I have had to fall back to music at events I was planning to musket for, for example. that said I still refuse to let them relegate me to music roles when I want to musket so I have continued on my merry path of being a "problem" for them. last fall we had an immersion event I really wanted to musket for (music usually gets very sidelined at these sorts of events) and I communicated to my officers months in advance that I wanted to do this and did not intend to let the BAR stop me. I was met with support from said officers and showed up to the event exactly as I wanted to, went about the whole thing with no real problems, and was later informed that there had been some private complaints made to my serjeant about me from a member of the BAR board (notably, not from anyone else at the event). these complaints were handled without my involvement and while there were some choice things said about me, I was not informed of them until later and after some inquiry (I could appreciate that this issue was not brought to me at all but naturally I did sort of want to know what people were saying about me behind my back). it's been sort of a perpetual back-and-forth with the Brigade, involving some pretty vicious email chains I was not fully privy to.

but as far as I'm concerned, I can show up to an event however I want and know that I will be protected because of my unit—and, if I'm being honest, because the Brigade is a coward about this. because they know it is a lawsuit waiting to happen. I don't want to get too into the personal side of things but you should know that so much of this rule-squabbling is tied up in internal politics more than it is an actual desire to exclude women from the hobby—which doesn't make it any better—but it just goes to show how arbitrary all this stuff is.

so that's been my experience as a generally fem-appearing (not fem-presenting in these contexts, but you know how it is...) person. as for you, I certainly don't want to turn you away from a unit without more context, but you definitely really want to know how they would respond in these scenarios. I don't really know how other units tend to handle this issue because, let's be honest, women and fem-presenting people in ranks are not particularly common, so, like, I don't want to say it's a bad sign if this particular unit won't Personally Argue With The President Of The Brigade because my unit is admittedly sort of an exception and has a lot of personal connections to the board (and also a lot of various deep-seated long-held grudges). however, you do want to be able to trust that they're not going to leave you out to dry if something happens, and that they're not going to ever tell you that you have to change in order to participate (whether it be your reenactment role or yourself as a person). I know a lot of this is dependent on the relationships you have with these people, but my unit has fully threatened to pull out of events where we make up a large part of the attendance if I wasn't allowed on the field, as opposed to participating in an event that would exclude me. I know it's so circumstantial, but I want that level of safety and support for every passionate queer reenactor in the hobby.

it is technically always possible that you could just not attend events specifically run by the BAR and focus on independent ones (which objectively does suck, but you know), but that's up to you and what kinds of other events this unit does. there are also other units that simply aren't part of the BAR and thus don't do BAR events at all. I know a lot of "progressive" (said in the reenactment sense of focusing on historical accuracy, but also frequently correlates with the political sense) units find the Brigade bullshit to not be worth it for what they want out of the hobby anyway, and I think you tend to see more women in ranks there. in these units at least you would know you probably wouldn't be systemically excluded from any events they do, which, damn that's a low bar, but like. it is what it is. with the 250th ongoing there are a ton of really big events coming up, both BAR-related and non-BAR-related, plus tons of other passionate progressive reenactors hosting their own events specifically focused on these more progressive impressions and stuff, so I certainly don't think it's true that you can't have an awesome time in this hobby without being part of the BAR.

I guess if there were to be a silver lining to this, which there really isn't, it's that it's inspired me to vastly improve my kit—not that I think that makes the attempted exclusion more reasonable—but just for my peace of mind, knowing that I look good and handle myself well on the field makes me feel better knowing that there's no possible excuse other than sexism for them to not want me there. but that's just my thinking. if you're an excited passionate reenactor with a sort of shitty kit just getting into the hobby, particularly if you're young, I don't think anyone should be allowed to rag on you, especially not for sexist reasons.