I can only speak for myself but a person’s voice is a person’s voice and since you are a woman, whatever voice you choose to use is therefore a woman’s voice.
Thank you for your openness and frankness. I have certainly learned and been given a lot to think about in the past few days.
Yep, add me to the “your voice sounds fine” group. If I heard that voice coming from someone who looks like you do, I would not even consider that the speaker was anything but a woman.
Thank you for the information. Sorry, I must have missed your link to the book the first time round.
Unfortunately I’m not in any counselling at the moment (I’ve finished my last set of sessions with a psychiatrist and am currently in NHS waiting list limbo to go to the gender identity clinic).
Neither parent is nearby and I don’t see them that often, so I will see if I can find any support groups in their areas. I doubt my dad would go to one, but I can only try!
The New Yorker has an article this week about the growing awareness of the difficulties (legal and otherwise) which the intersexed face and the ways societies are changing to accept them. It seems relevant to our interests -
Fascinating thread. Thanks for sharing, Una. I wish Eve was posting at the moment so we could get her perspective on this changes, too. I don’t have much to contribute but I wish peace and comfort to those in need.
When I hear Una being so hyper-critical of her voice, as I have heard so many other transwomen being hypercritical of this, that, or the other thing, I can’t help but think this is the result of so many in society saying they will never actually be women. It’s horribly unfair.
I’m a deep-voice ciswoman with legs hairier than most men (thanks to my ethnicity) and more muscles than most women my size but no one questions that I’m a real woman. I can wear jeans and workboots and swing hammers and climb ladders all day and no one questions that I’m a woman. In fact, it can be seen as cool or admirable that I am such a strong woman and don’t have a shrill, girly voice.
Una, though, can be the epitome of feminine grace dressed like the high-class lady she is and there will be some people who will never, ever accept that truth and will, as we have seen, resort to violence to drive home their point.
It goes beyond double-standard. It’s prejudice, pure and simple. And it just makes life harder for the transgendered.
Una, thanks for posting this thread and for all the replies you’ve given. My daughters and I are horrified at what you went through as a child (even from the teachers) and even recently. We’re so glad you are still here and that you are doing much better now.
You said a couple of times that you spent a lot of time deliberately destroying your voice in order to deepen it. If it isn’t too personal/painful to talk about, can you explain what that means?
Broomstick, as usual, brings up an excellent point which I want to stress before I answer the other questions folks have posted.
If anyone heard my voice and honestly thought it sounded “female”, and wasn’t just posting to keep me from driving off a cliff ( 
), consider this: to me, my voice sounds like Barry White trying to do a falsetto. It’s more than just being critical, it’s a belief system which needs to be changed, and Broomstick has outlined one of the root causes in her insightful post above. So many told me “it doesn’t matter that you’re mostly female, stay submerged and don’t make waves. Why are you wanting to throw everything you have away (less Fierra) and do this? You can’t have kids regardless, so what does it matter?”
What does it matter? It matters in that for most of my life I’ve clearly and unambiguously known I was more than “mostly” female inside, and on top of that I’m female “enough” to make a claim on that designation. I don’t want to be a Billy Tipton and nor should I have to be.
Let me make another point too - I’ve met and read and spoken to a LOT of transwomen. OMG I could not count how many in all categories of contact. Of all the ones I know IRL or have met, perhaps only 1 could say “I really like my voice”, and perhaps a dozen might say “I think it’s good enough.” Surgery isn’t even a very good option - the results from voice surgery can sometimes be much worse than what you start with, and sometimes the results aren’t permanent. I have to wonder, if voice surgery was 100% effective if more transwomen wouldn’t choose it before SRS.
We are so desperately uncertain and unsteady with respect to our gender presentation, that honest praise (and we can pick out dishonest praise, believe me, because we are so focused on how others perceive us) can make not just our day, but…well let me give some examples.
One day during our tennis game a cisgender woman “L” playing with us was walking out to the court, and made a comment to my friend “A:” “OMG A, I wish I had your hair! Mine just won’t behave at all!” A was stunned - A has a female hair pattern - barely - and it’s thin because she’s in her mid-50’s, and her hair is something she hates so very much. I mean I’ve seen a lot of cisgender women with less/poorer hair. L’s hair is frizzy though, and hard to control, while A’s hair hangs straight, and that’s what she was envious of.
A was riding high on that compliment for a month. She actually cried from joy, later, when only she and I were around.
FTR L also said to me one day when we were sitting around drinking wine on a patio after tennis, “Jesus Christ, Una, your legs are so sexy they’re turning me on! You have like perfect cheerleader legs!” Yeah, I ate that up…but not as much, because I knew it was true. Fencing gave me great legs; it’s about the only part of my body I have complete confidence in. Even at work, cisgender women have complimented my legs, including my secretary. A few women have urged me to wear shorter skits (I tend to mid-calf length or even ankle length) to show off my legs.
It’s nice to have one thing you like about yourself.
This is one reason the baggers and chasers are so successful. You tell a transwoman how sexy she is, compliment her on this and that, even small things, and some will eat it up since we’re so uncertain. Add to this something I posted about earlier - that so very few of us can find dates, let alone a long-term relationship, so we’re starved for physical attention - and it’s clear to see why sometimes the community has a reputation for being “easy” or “sexually promiscuous.”
I’ll be blunt - some will think it’s bragging, but I want to illustrate a point. Although it’s very rare that intersex people can find a partner willing to be with them on the short of long term, we and transwomen intrigue some people. Some people really want to try having sex with us once, just to experience it. I will state in complete honesty I was offered $500 to sleep with a chaser once, cash in advance. There were so many reasons I was not going to do that, the foremost being, duh, I love only Fierra… But people also assume that they can do things to me, in public, because of the overall undercurrent of desperation.
FTR my mother has expressed similar thoughts. She wishes she had boy me as a son and girl me as a daughter at the same time.
Two persons who I thought were friends or friendly to me since high school felt the same, but they expressed it to me. I was hurt by it, very much so. Eventually they both decided they couldn’t deal with me - one said “I don’t want anyone to know I have a tranny for a friend”, and then posted in a Facebook group where he thought I couldn’t read that I was, and I quote, a “faggot trying to trick men into having sex with them.” The other person basically just became suddenly very distant from me.
A third old high school friend did well with me for a while, and I thought we were actually hitting it off as a newer, stronger friendship. Then one day he admitted to me with a lot of struggle that he not only thought I was cute, but from photos of me (he’s seen hundreds) he was “attracted” to me. After that, he basically vanished. 
And not only that, having Bob back might mean Bob eventually kills themself, and then you would have nothing. 
Una, thanks so much for this thread. A lot of really great information-- it’s easy for even well-meaning cisgendered people to be totally clueless about the trans experience so I’ve gotten a lot out of this. You rock.
Just tripped over this thread and haven’t had a chance to read more than part of the first page yet, but all I can say is Una, I’m glad you’ve finally become able to present yourself publicly as the person you’ve been inside all along. And I’m thanking goodness for whatever stroke of luck deflected you from killing yourself back in 2012. The world would be a poorer place without you.
BTW I do thank everyone for the comments on my voice, good or bad, but don’t want to reply to everyone to flood the thread with posts by me. I want this thread to be balanced.
Excellent question.
The short answer is yes. I try to come across as much more feminine because it helps me to pass. I think almost every transwoman I’ve met under the age of 60 feels the same. I admit to this entirely.
That being said, some of my choices are not that I’m trying to look girly or be girly, but in that I’m taking advantage of the assets I have. I mentioned my legs before - you can’t show off “cheerleader legs” in a pantsuit, so I wear skirts - short ones in public. I also genuinely am more comfortable in dresses and skirts - I think in opposition to the mantra of women of the 1970’s, skirts give me more freedom of movement, and I can be either cooler, or warmer, than I ever could be in slacks. You wear some insulated tights, layer underslips with a pleated wool skirt, etc. and you can be much warmer in this weather than in slacks.
Another thing is corporate heirarchy and the way in which women are perceived.
At the place where I am a consultant, MOST female engineers, drafters, etc. wear slacks and flat shoes. Some wear jeans, even though they technically are not supposed to. Typically a soft top or men’s-styled shirt goes with this. But the female senior managers, VPs, etc. wear smart skirt-suits and heels, or pantsuits and heels. When I was discussing work wear with several of the other women in my group before transition, they all said “just Dockers and a cute top, flats, you’ll blend in just fine.” When they left, my secretary (who is the most intelligent, insightful, and fierce secretary in my entire company, and is like a second mom to me) took me aside and said (quoting as directly as possible) “Listen here, missy - they mean well but you need to stand out as a professional, and you have a higher position. And every eye is going to be on you for the first few months. You go see what the women VP’s are wearing, and you dress like them.”
Did it work? Hell yeah, it worked. When a senior management person or client is being introduced to a bunch of us, and they see 4 women dressed business casual and one in a $1,000 skirt-suit with 4-inch heels, you better believe they greet me first, and spend the most time with me. And I’m the one who gets invited to sit next to them at lunch. I’d say it was sexism, except that the same thing happens if the client is female. It’s a matter of how important you look. I believe in one of the Dilbert Principle books Adams says “your clothes get promoted; you come along for the ride.” It’s an oversimplification and not totally true, but there is some truth in it.
When I’m teaching at university, I do dress down a little bit, because I’m not really dealing with clients, and there is no chance of promotion until I decide to change careers completely (which I may). So I tend to wear a calf-length skirt and cute top, with at most 2-inch heels. Sometimes I wear a peasant or ruffled skirt and flats. Sometimes boots and a denim skirt.
This leads me to another thing which is important - I’m a frustrated artist. I have studied art, design, and fashion informally and formally, and I love women’s fashion. Slacks and pantsuits seem to me to give very limited opportunities for experimentation and making an “image”. Skirts and dresses are something I love to work with, and I spend a lot of time planning my outfits in the morning. For this Monday tomorrow, I’m wearing a calf-length grey and black herringbone flared skirt, so I can stuff a thick underslip underneath. Black tights and black riding boots. A black top with a purple and black shawl (it’s going to be -9 F tomorrow, and my office will likely be COLD). Matching jewelry - Blue John earrings to pick up on the light grey of the herringbone and the purple of the shawl, Blue John pendant in the same shape, and a Blue John and grey/silver bracelet. Lipstick will be lightly applied but dark to match the outfit and shawl.
Does it work? There’s a reason I was voted the “second best-dressed woman” at my company at the end of last year.
With slacks or a pantsuit, it seems like I’m much more limited.
I use very little makeup. I never really grew facial hair due to my intersex hormones, so I only needed a tiny bit of laser on three spots about the size of a fingernail. In the photo in Post 1, here is all the makeup I’m wearing:
And that is my standard makeup daily. I have a complete set and can doll myself up so I look like a foundationed’ Barbie, but…why? I emphasize my eyes and my lips, becuase I receive a lot fo compliments on both. Sometimes I use concealer just under my eyes because I have a vein which is visible under and to the outside of my left eye.
Eve and I are in touch outside of the SDMB. She’s a lovely and witty lady and is doing well, and that’s all I can really say.
Thank you for the thoughts and wishes. I tried to force my voice deeper by practicing talking low, but mainly singing low to the radio. At that time I lived nearly an hour away from work, so I had nearly 2 hours a day in the car by myself to sing low to the radio. To turn my soprano into a tenor or bass. It hurt, but with determination you can destroy your voice in very short order. I think it took about 2-3 months to get to the “Boy Voice” sample I posted above.
Thank you both very much, and everyone else who has been so kind as to express the same. 
I like that one a lot She’s a good writer and discloses a lot of personal internal-processing narrative without ending up with a ponderously serious angsty drama.
ETA: the Boylan, I mean
And to go completely off the topic, I never heard of Blue John before even though blue is my favorite color, so thanks for introducing me to that – as well as for everything else. You Rock (heh).
Was gonna ask what’s new, but this thread answered that question. As has been mentioned before, I am glad that you are comfortable with yourself now…and it’s nice to have (finally) seen pictures of you. I just want to say that I have always seen you as you, an intelligent person or Persson, who has given a lot to this and other communities for far longer than either of us wants to admit.
Keith
You don’t know me very well. I’m an inveterate sesquipedalian.
In public, even?! Shame on you, you’ll scare the children.
great, another acronym/pronoun I need to learn… do you have a preference, or shall I just call you issy ?