Yesterday's Gospel for the Annunciation was a dialogue between an angel and a woman, but liturgically read by a man (deacon or priest), who is neither. I think your parish custom, while probably well-intentioned, comes a little too close to making the liturgy into a play. I wonder if there might be similar customs on other feasts. I would suggest approaching the problem from that angle rather than from a gender angle, if possible.

Noel is right: it's your first year and people will be testing you. It's unfortunate and not very charitable, but people do it. Also, they will be testing you just for the reason he mentioned: can we get our way this time? I am in my second year as a music director and Ive already had to deal with a huge to-do regarding transposition, and scheduling, which I only half solved I think. It can also be difficult if both you and your Pastor are new to the parish, as people will be trying to take advantage of both of you at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if you told us any complaints you got about this were internal to the music ministry: every single issue I've had has been from one of my cantors, and it's always been the exact same person complaining.

Somehow, I had never thought about this one .... in my last job, starting from year one, since we used almost no accompaniment during Holy Week I chanted many things myself to which I would have assigned a cantor otherwise.
So it was a female voice asking my people what they had done... or commending my spirit to the Father, or asking why I had been abandoned.
I did from time to time ask some male cantor if he was okay with singing that he was the handmaid of the Lord.

I always tried to take my pastor's preference for a male voice singing the Exultet into account, but he himself was flexible on this.
Before I was MD, unbeknownst to me he had asked my husband if he thought he could learn it and Himself told him that it had always been a dream of mine to chant the Exultet so I was tapped. (I love them both ;o))

But ultimately, I agree with those who say it is especially important in your first year to resist being told what to do by those with no authority to do so, including those seemingly ubiquitous persons, Miss Thewaywevealwaysdoneit and Mr. Thatsnothewaysesangitbefore.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Even though your predecessors may have slapped down the malefactors in the past, ...

Brilliant, Noel!

Hi Josie. I'm new also and appreciate that you asked this question. I was wondering about the very same thing. We just need to keep asking the questions, and some day we will be answering instead of asking.