User:TonyVanniDoubek/sandbox

Tony Vanni Doubek is an American born composer, singer-songwriter, and pianist. He was born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin and lived the first 20 years of his life as a girl before coming out as a transgender man in February of 2012. Tony started playing piano at the age of 7 and is said to have been singing since he was a toddler. His parents have said he even sang himself to sleep. He continued his music studies through high school and began studying piano and music theory at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point in 2010 until he came out as transgender. At the time he was a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point where he became heavily involved in the Gender and Sexuality Alliance on campus, starting as Vice President and becoming the President in his Senior Year. After coming out he decided to change majors and became a Political Science Major to prepare for a career as a community activist. While transitioning Tony wrote a blog titled Boxers and Binders: An FTM Story where he documented his transition with the mission to help other transmen know they were not alone in their experience and to find resources needed to aid in transitioning. At that time there was not a lot of visibility of transgender people and he hoped to help raise awareness of the experience of transgender individuals. After graduating he spent time as a community organizer and LGBTQ youth counselor. While working with the youth of Milwaukee he began to notice that the young people he was working with were not responding to the programs that the non-profit he was working with was running. He discovered that music, art, films and pop culture had a greater influence on youth and decided to return to music to create cultural change and to bring transgender representation to the music world. Currently he composes music for piano, ensembles, and orchestras and collaborates with other artists on pieces that speak to matters of equality, social justice, visibility, and climate change.