I was going to say this, but as usual FH beat me to it. Your “tired” voice sounds a lot like my normal voice. My tired voice pitches a good deal lower and gets really gravelly – I get a lot of vocal fry. I don’t get “Bea Arthur” or “smokers voice” from your examples at all. Your voice falls solidly within the realm of normal for feminine voices.
Hi Una, great thread. It’s very informative especially since I’ve recently became friends with a trans woman, and a lot of what has been posted pretty much mirrored my friend’s journey, especially on the psychological side. She thought that upon transitioning, her depression would be cured, but unfortunately it’s not being the case. It’s interesting to note how much trouble our mutual friends have with her concept of her sexuality, since she has had relationships with both men and women, before and after transitioning - especially after transitioning (is she straight? Gay? Pentecostal? What?). Which is silly because - well, as you’ve stated earlier - you like who you like, regardless of what’s outside. And like you’ve said too, cisgender gay men, who should be open-minded in theory, are just as close-minded.
About the gender pronouns, I know that our mutual friends who are Asian and who speak English as a second language, tend to get it mixed up quite often, regardless of whether they are speaking about a cisgender or a trans person, as many Asian languages don’t have gender pronouns (particularly Tagalog, which makes long anecdotal conversations confusing to say the least). Can’t imagine what she would feel, after reading about how much pain an innocent mistake can cause.
It’s classism, actually, albeit a kind that anybody who’s smart will work with rather than against; you dress like the class they are or want to be, so they want to get close to you. Attractive coloration.
Both classism and sexism are practiced by people of any group you care to name, I’ve heard crap along the lines of “oh, but you won’t be comfortable working in a group where everybody else is a guy” more often from women than men.
I just wanted to let you know that the information I’ve learned about transexuality and intersex from you and other SDMB posters has been instrumental in helping me change the minds of quite a few people about transexuality, SSM and other related subjects.
It’s been my experience that being the only gal in a group of guys in a work situation can be comfortable… but then, I haven’t been taught from infancy to fear all men or regard them as aliens. And I’m pretty butch, which probably helps, too. It’s not always smooth sailing but I really think people talk *themselves *into conundrums and limitations.
This is not always true. I have a friend who’s the only woman at the place she works, and is regularly made fun of, grabbed, assaulted (to the point of heavy bruises), and so on. They don’t want to work there, but if it’s the choice between that or eating, what else can you do?
Also, thank you Una.
Yes, I said as much that it doesn’t always work. Please re-read my post. It “can” be comfortable is not the same as “always”.
Thank you for the props! I bought my Blue John while on a work trip in Derbyshire last fall, at the mine.
Wow, it’s so good to hear from you, Keith! 
Well, we try to work on it. I know I do. I can’t go through life being a shrinking violet at every slip or accident, especially from people who care. It’s a problem I, like others, have to work on, to have a little bit thicker skin against the accidents.
It is classism as practiced, but not in fact - most of the female engineers around make close to what I do. One of them across the hall right now makes about 25% more than I do, and she’s wearing blue jeans with frayed cuffs to work today. I’m wearing the outfit I mentioned earlier.
I hope I can help change minds, or at least allow people to make a more informed decision even if they don’t change their mind.
Thank God I work in a professional environment where that would be unthinkable. I can’t say that women are treated 100% equally where I work, because I haven’t lived “out” as a woman for my career. And even until the far future, I’m going to be a “woman with an asterisk.*”
I mentioned in a previous thread, but I’ll repeat it here to add to my history: at my first engineering job out of college, a design engineering job, I was sexually harassed, then assaulted by a subordinate for 8 weeks. After having been there for some time, and proved myself, I was put in charge of a man who ran some metal testing equipment to try to clean up his part of the company. I was known to be good at organization and having a “light touch” to convince people to change processes and procedures.
Within the first week the subordinate, a man in his early 50’s, was making regular comments like:
“Why is your hair so long? Are you a girl?”
“Hey, you look like you have tits! Are you sure you’re not a girl.”
“Why is a pretty girl like you wearing boy clothes pretending she’s a boy. Are you a lezbo? Or are you one of those sissy fags?”
After ignoring him for a couple more weeks, one day he shut the door of the office and locked it, pulled the blinds, and sexually assaulted me.
At first I went into denial and shock - it had only been 7 years since I’d been raped.
And it kept happening. Every day. Along with the continued leers and jeers and little pinches and gropes. The assaults started to get more violent. I hurt and cried, and he laughed and hit me.
Finally about week 4 I complained to the manager. I was in tears and shaking. His reaction? His words, in effect, were:
“Guys don’t do that to other guys. I’m sure he was just horsing around and you took it wrong. You need to be more of a man. I don’t want to hear any more accusations like this!”
I wanted to quit but I had no other income. So I went to work every day, did everything I could to avoid him. Some days I was successful. Others I wasn’t. Once he hurt me so badly I thought I needed an ambulance.
Week 7, I received a call at work - from my current company. Offering me a job. It was like a bright light lit me up, and suddenly I had hope.
I managed to avoid most of the abuse for my last two weeks, but not all. I did get some revenge on him, petty and small, and unsatisfying.
So yeah, I may be a woman with an asterisk, but I’ve had some of the same experiences. 
- “So that’s what she calls it!”
una - if you need/want a big brother - just let me know. I’ll make sure folks like him learn some respect
I keep trying to type something and then deleting it; it’s not working. I’m just so sorry. And really, really angry.
ETA sorry, now it’s weird that I quoted that bit! Like I said, it was because I kept trying to say something and it wasn’t working. Something about how I want to roundhouse kick him in the face only nothing is enough? never mind, that’s why I gave up…
Class isn’t exclusively about income.
THats why I offered her my services as a big brother - she can determine the amount of ‘respect’ the scum learns - or just have someone she know’s always has her back (even if only virtually).
Oh yeah, I’m not very big or brotherly, but I am sometimes in Manchester (UK) if there is ever anything I can do Una!
Thank you boys; I believe he died a few years ago so it’s all in the past now.
Past, schmast, that means there’s a grave and I just drank my afternoon coffee.
see - scared him so bad he died years before you met me…
what more can you ask for?
(nice alibi I have as well - what time travel, your honor?)
Do you remember, at the tail end of the 20th century, there was a lot of talk about men and women being equal? I think it was largely part of the feminist movement, and it was the concept that not only should men and women have equal rights, but that gender was a societal construct and that if you stopped encouraging men to be one way and women to be another way, you’d end up with a lot more boys who like pink and women who like cars and trucks and men who grow up to take care of the household and women who become scientists and engineers.
I’m fascinated by how transgender people could be such a great example of this, and yet, instead of using differences in mannerisms, preferences, etc. to demonstrate that men and women are not that different, men with stereotypical female mannerisms (and vice versa) are proclaiming that there IS a distinct difference between the sexes, and that they do not truly belong to the gender that they biologically represent.
On the other hand, you mentioned earlier in this thread that transgender MTF outnumber FTM 4:1, in part because manly females are better accepted into society than effeminate males. And in my mind, I’m trying to figure out how the concept of gender fluidity fits in here.
Do you think, if people with male genitalia could present themselves however they pleased, that there would be less transgender people? Like, if a man could be a feminine man, could he be comfortable enough in his own body to not feel a need to actually disguise his voice or take hormones or get sexually reconstructive surgery?
Also, just wondering how clear you think the distinction is between genders? Do you think most transgender people have, like, a genetic defect that makes their brain not match their body, or is it more that people get frustrated with societal constructs and the constant need to repress certain tendencies that are natural in both genders?
This presupposes that transgender women are men who feel feminine. We aren’t that.
Sometimes I’m asked “how can you possibly say you feel like a woman when you aren’t one, you weren’t raised one, you didn’t have that social upbringing, etc.” My response is typically one of two - first, how do you know what gender you are? If a fairy came by with a magic wand and reversed your genitals but changed nothing else, would your brain magically change? Or would you be the same person you were before, but with different parts? What if you were forced to go to work in a skirt and heels (presupposing you’re male) - would that change your brain, or would you still be a guy? How would you know? Wouldn’t you just, well, know?
Second, although every woman is different and there are many stereotypes one could fall into which are unreal, my feelings, emotions, wants, needs, from a purely intellectual to a physical level appear to align with those of most other cisgender women who I have had contact with on a deep personal level. There’s a click, a comfort level, and other women say they feel the same way with me. They can sit next to me on a crowded airplane and they tell me they feel comfortable - like they are in the “girl’s club” with me. If they sat next to a man, there would be a tension. They say they feel nothing like that towards me. I mean, I fit in so naturally I’ve even been asked to help with a wardrobe malfunction in a ladies room by someone who knew exactly what I was, and never thought of me as anything but female.
I doubt there is an exact metric one can put on it. I’ve been tested by psychiatrists who proclaimed I had a “strong female personality”, but those tests can also be faked - you can guess the script pretty well, so someone like me who is somewhat bright could game the system.
But to what end? By potentially losing my family, my career, any friendly acquaintances, the goodwill over every single shopkeeper, neighbor, or person I had ever met…what would be my benefit in faking? So I have to believe them and that I tried to be honest.
I’m no theologian nor great philosopher. I can’t present equations or a logical treatise or evidence of divine blessing. I simply believe and know to the deepest root of my being, that I am female and will always be.
Less transgender people? Yes, I do, because by definition the transgender umbrella is so very broad. Less transsexual people? No. Because time and again even when transsexual women are in a position where they are allowed to act and be and express themselves fully as feminine, they still suffer from gender dysphoria until hormone treatment, counseling, and/or surgery are employed.
This pretty much summarizes my views on the root cause of gender dysphoria, in about 10,000 words.