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I've been wearing my undercut for over 20 years. Given that it wasn't exactly fashionable back then, I'm perfectly used to people’s comments about my hairstyle – everything from "sick" to "lesbian".Now, as a voice-over artist you wouldn’t think it's relevant what kind of haircut a woman has… would you?I was booked for a national radio commercial. In the world metropolis Hamburg. By an agency in St. Pauli. I was to play a mother asking her son at the breakfast table what he would like to eat. One sentence. Nothing special in itself – except that the agency was clearly very keen on over-elaborate stage directions: "...so it’s reeeeally important that you get right inside the mother's feelings - do you have children? No? Okay, so then it’s even more important, yeah? You know that warm, protective feeling, that notion of “caring” - that needs to be in there…"All of a sudden the agency guy stopped issuing his directions: "...Oh, but you’re a lesbian? Well, then it’s not going to work...ha".Both my and the sound engineer's jaws dropped simultaneously - on so many levels! And I was actually speechless (which rarely happens). But this idiot agency guy just kept on chatting away "Ok, so...right, maybe try it like this…aaah, this is challenging now, right? ... So just try and ‘feel’ yourself into the part as much as you can, ok? Yeah,... it's tough now, haa...?"

I don't care that I am taken for a lesbian (as long as any male object of my desire doesn't think so). What really shocked me was that A) an enlightened, thinking person in the middle of St. Pauli thinks it’s ok for him to draw conclusions about my sexual preferences just from a haircut in the middle of a job, and even more shockingly B) he disputes the ability of anyone in the LGBT+ community to be able to have parental feelings.Between a listless sip of espresso and another grumpy stage direction. Wait, whaaaat?