Still passing as male

[julesjones]

Now there's a coincidence. I was in a conversation elsewhere yesterday about female authors of m/m pretending to be men for commercial reasons, and pointed out that readers keep thinking of me as male even though I have never explicitly presented myself as a man, and have in fact made efforts to correct reviews that referred to me as male.

And this afternoon someone linked to my post about my Cybook, and referred to me as "he". Okay, this is a stranger and someone from outside the world of romance epublishing who was obviously misled by the subject matter of my books, but it's not that many months since the last time a romance reader did it. (I'm not going to embarrass her by naming her.:-) I suppose I *could* redecorate the blog in pink bows and hearts, but I'm not really into pink. Which is doubtless a contributing factor in why so many people think I'm a guy, or at least can't decide.

Comments

[lisabea.livejournal.com]

Heh. I promise to never do it again.

:)

[julesjones]

I very much doubt you'll be the last to do it. :-) There are people who've done it even *after* being told that I is a gurl. I just seem to read as male to a lot of people who only know me online.

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

I think it's your user name more than anything - I thought Jules was a masculine name and Jones falls on the male side of my brain for some reason. I still have trouble remembering you are a girl when I'm skimming over my flist quickly.

When I chose my fandom name and designed my journal, I somewhat deliberately chose something that was ambiguously on the masculine side of things. I wasn't trying to hide behind that or intended to present myself as male but I wanted to appear somewhat tomboyish and masculine at first glance - That just embodies my inner fangirl, not my outward persona. I don't think anyone who actually *read* my journal would mistake my gender. I could be wrong about that though - I had an old high school buddy look me up on the internet and find my journal... He posted and when I asked him how he found me he said it wasn't hard through Google (because he knew enough about me) but he just needed to make sure he was emailing *me* and not a gay British man. LOL! I wasn't going for gay or British but there you have it! :-)

[julesjones]

In the UK "Jules" as a formal name on the birth certificate is normally male, but it's also used as a nickname for the whole group of names derived from Julius/Julia, both male and female. So to me it was a gender-ambiguous name, even if it leans to male. I had no idea that in the US it's typically seen as male-only, not until some of my American writer friends explained why an American editor of a "women-only" anthology had got in a huff about me submitting a story. (Even with a cover letter signed in my legal name, which is quite definitely gendered.)

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could use your real name.

[julesjones]

True. :-)

[tanjalouise.livejournal.com]

Uhm, I must admit that I have read lots of your stories but either I never read the Jules Jones author description properly (I must admit I tend to ignore them a lot) but I was quite certain that you are a.) British and b.) a man...
regarding a.) I wasn't so sure when I read the The Syndicate story but after Dolphin Dreams and the way Martin made the tea at Mr. Parker's house suggested a Brit rather than an American. I mean no disrespect I am sure Americans brew a nice cup of tea but it sounded rather British.
LOL...well b.) having a vivid imagination is all good but it just sounded like you had personal experience with the sex and all. And I haven't found any pictures of you anywhere (not that I have been looking very hard, but there you go instant thought oh yes, definitely male)

[julesjones]

The author bio tends to be ungendered because a lot of gay erotica anthology editors prefer it that way, and I use the same one for Loose Id. I did have one editor actually change it to read "he" without asking me first, which startled me slightly.

Very definitely British, but I've confused people in the past because I was living in California at the time people started buying my books, although I moved back to the UK last year. I avoid having pictures online under this name, but that's just a general thing with not wanting people to link this name to my meatspace identity in case it causes problems, rather than hiding my gender.

I research the sex, just as I research other things I need to be able to write convincingly about. I have an interesting reference library, which gets locked up before my parents come to visit. :-)

[treva2007.livejournal.com]

Well, since my female cousin (Juliana) married an Australian who calls her Jules, it would have occurred that you are female even if I didn't have insider info.

Imagine my shock when one of my male friends said I write and think like a man in my stories. Especially when all my life I've been told I'm a FEMALE (usually that's not meant in a nice way.) Perhaps it's a bit more difficult to figure out gender from writing than originally thought...

[julesjones]

There are cues in people's writing styles, but they're not as reliable an indicator as some people think. For example, if you run a sample of my writing through the Gender Genie, it will almost certainly be tagged as male, and that is in part because I am a scientist and have been trained to write a certain way. And there are these stereotypes about interests that are stereotypes because they *are* common, but "common" is not the same as "universal".