A personal announcement, emphatic thank-you, and cheers to Fedora.

I wonder if it's odd that three men in the thread get mistaken for women on the phone. Is that because people are piping up due to the thread - where it's natural to discuss gender, masculinity etc. - or that such voices are common? (My voice isn't as deep as I'd like.)

I think they're reasonably common. I've known a couple of people personally who were misgendered as female in phone calls, plus the anecdotal evidence on this thread. I think that it's probably because of a combination of things: First, you're lacking any cues [em]other[/em] than the voice on the phone, so that introduces a greater degree of uncertainty: Most of the time we expect more information, so our voice perception is a little more imperfect. Second, I suspect that certain aspects of voice quality tend to be minimized on the phone. Here I'm talking about the difference in resonance in the undertone. Phones flatten things a bit, so that might not carry through, especially on a less than perfect connection. Finally, we often use very short utterances on the phone, compared to normal speech. This makes sense, since the speaker doesn't have body language to know when to stop talking, so they say shorter things to give the other party time to interrupt. And shorter utterances means that the different contonations between masculine and feminine spoken English have less of a chance to be apparent.

All of these things make it much easier for a male voice to be taken for a female voice and vice versa. Male speakers with a higher primary pitch and female speakers with a lower primary pitch will be misgendered, even if in normal everyday speech the other factors would usually add up quite quickly to make the difference. (Even without seeing the person.)

Update! I got called back by the electrolysist. I'll be going in for a consultation on Saturday afternoon. Excited/scared/fluttery-stomach-feeling. This place advertised in a list of trans-friendly hair removal clinics, which is very comforting. And they keep hours that make it convenient for people who work all day, which is very nice. But still, big step!

In some ways, it's not nearly as major as going on hormones, say. But hormones are a fairly low cost thing, even if it's for the rest of your life. Electrolysis is eventually finished, but it's pricey, and painful, and still takes a long time. Still, I'm excited to be getting so close now.

Hypatian wrote:

electrolysist (is that a word?)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the word is "electrolyst."

Although in all likelihood they just call themselves technicians or something.

Way to go, though. Prepare to say hello to a less hirsute Hypatian!

Hahaha.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/YMtde.jpg)

1Dgaf wrote:

I wonder if it's odd that three men in the thread get mistaken for women on the phone. Is that because people are piping up due to the thread - where it's natural to discuss gender, masculinity etc. - or that such voices are common? (My voice isn't as deep as I'd like.)

I get this a lot as well, but for me it's when I'm trying to be polite and friendly on the phone or at work. When I'm interacting in an overly-friendly manner my voice goes up and gets softer which then comes off as more feminine. I think for me it has more to do with the way I talk and mannerisms than my actual voice.

I get ma'am at the drive thru all the time. Then it's entertaining to watch the drive thru person squirm as they take my money and give me my food.

Today's progress: I ordered a couple of wigs and some wig care supplies. That felt weird. Which, I guess is the point—to get over the weird feeling.

IMAGE(http://www.wigs-us.com/media/WB/lace/ss_size2/kendra-p57430.jpg)IMAGE(http://www.wigs-us.com/media/WB/ss_size2/mystic-blk.jpg)

A friend of mine has a wig site. Does pretty well and has a huge collection available.

http://gorgeoushairwigs.com/

I am pretty sure she has a large contingent of US customers as well.

Tell her Marc sent you

Best of luck with all of this. It sounds like you are really embracing it and that's wonderful.

Hypatian wrote:

I think they're reasonably common. I've known a couple of people personally who were misgendered as female in phone calls, plus the anecdotal evidence on this thread. I think that it's probably because of a combination of things: First, you're lacking any cues [em]other[/em] than the voice on the phone, so that introduces a greater degree of uncertainty:

I've been growing my hair our since the age of twelve, which didn't help.

When I said for good or ill,.that regrettably meant over a year of bullying and a broken ankle for how I was perceived. Which is to say, terrible words that have no place here or anywhere else on planet earth. My family moved away, or else it no doubt would have continued.

Even through college, my friends made me aware with varying degrees of decorum that I could stand to act more masculine. I was called ma'am to my face plenty of times while working part time jobs in those days too. Even my wife thought I was a woman the first time she saw me.

It's been a battle, and not always one to be jealous of.I keep a walking stick in my trunk for days when my ankle is in too much pain to walk on unassisted. To be fair, there were good experiences too.

To clarify, adults tend to be much more innocent about all of this than children. Mistakes tend to be honest instead of malicious is the point I hoped to make.

I'll cut it short here. This could go on for a while but I'm glad to see people moving into happier places. I do sincerely - again- wish the best and happiest to all of you. And, honestly,I love seeing all the support for Hyp right now. You guys are awesome.

Ouch. Yeah, that's rough. Our society does not allow much room for men with less masculine presentation. Even when it's not a case of a different gender identification or sexual orientation, way too many people perceive it as that, and all of the nasty behaviors we as a society somehow allow to persist come out to punish the perceived "deviance". Human behavior is awfully depressing sometimes.

Hyp, There were some great times, life-changing moments and lifelong friends made through it all too. It certainly has been a wild ride.

This is where I hope your "late start" may hopefully bring you some benefits as well. I'd like to hope it helps you far more than you think.

Yeah. No matter how troublesome things may be, I think being however you are is full of wonderful fulfilling moments. I mean, being trans has caused issues in my life--and I expect that transition will create some really tremendous upheaval. But I could never really wish I [em]hadn't[/em] been trans. It's a part of me, and of my life. Without it, I wouldn't be the person that I am. My relationships with people would be different. My ideas about life in general would be different. I would be someone else entirely, and who wants that?

Today's update: The electrolysist told me a bunch of things I already know, which was fine. Then he did about an hour-long session, down at the bottom of the hair on my neck. So time consuming! Not much area was taken care of, but it'll get there, with time. I decided to start on the neck because shaving there sucks so horribly much. It's the main reason I can't shave every day--the hairs grow every which way, making it hard to avoid going against the grain, and when I do go against the grain my skin gets really irritated and I get ingrown hairs, which is nasty. Also, a bit less obvious a place to start to be hairless than some others.

The price at this place is $95 an hour, if you pre-pay in blocks of four hours. The numbers I've heard average around 200ish hours over the course of a couple of years--with more time starting at the beginning, and less time for finishing things up towards the end. So, like I had mentioned a long while back: It's one of the most expensive parts of transition. Depending on how long it takes for my face, the expected cost from those numbers is just about exactly what I expected. (For women who want to remove just a little hair, it's not too bad. For a heavy male beard, though, major major investment.)

I'm going to see about scheduling more time each week, if I can. Scheduling is tricky. Everybody wants to go outside of work hours, so I may end up shifting my work schedule around a bit to leave early one day a week and go in the mid-late afternoon. I'd definitely like to get more than 1-1.5 hours done a week. And maybe I can talk him into a little more of a discount if I buy a bigger block of time in advance. ;> Where I am right now, I think I'd like to be doing two hour sessions twice a week, if I can manage it. In that context, paying four hours at a time seems kind of small.

Anyway, I have another appointment scheduled for next Saturday. And I'm a step further along the path, having started with one more super-slow process that will take for[em]ever[/em] to finish.

Hypatian wrote:

And I'm a step further along the path, having started with one more super-slow process that will take for[em]ever[/em] to finish.

One of the first to start, and probably the last to finish

So, I've been feeling kind of crappy the last couple of days. Doubts. Stress. Just in general feeling like "OMG, what am I doing?" and so far away, again, from where I want to be. It's only been a week since I had my intake interview for therapy, but it feels like forever. The small steps feel very very small, and it leaves me feeling scared. I know I'll get through this mood if I just keep on going, but it's still a very "meh!" feeling. I'll be glad when I have a regular weekly therapy appointment.

Feeling just a [em]little[/em] better right now, though: On the bus in to work, I came across a reddit post about a lot of people finding out based on pronoun use during a cast that the SC2 player ROOT puCK had announced that she's trans. (And the cast happened to be a game between puCK and Scarlett!)

I guess SC2 is some kind of hotbed of gender variance or something.

I can't speak to being trans*, but doubts about changing how people perceive you are totally natural. One of the harder parts of coming out for me was telling people and thinking, "Why am I doing this? Is there a reason beyond my own satisfaction that I'm telling these people this? It almost seems unfair, and I wonder if it's even necessary."

Nearly a year later, I've got no advice to give other than, those doubts will pass. At least, in the regard that I'm referring to.

NSMike wrote:

I can't speak to being trans*, but doubts about changing how people perceive you are totally natural. One of the harder parts of coming out for me was telling people and thinking, "Why am I doing this? Is there a reason beyond my own satisfaction that I'm telling these people this? It almost seems unfair, and I wonder if it's even necessary."

Nearly a year later, I've got no advice to give other than, those doubts will pass. At least, in the regard that I'm referring to.

Plus, early adopters get to feel extra special, like they Kickstarted something!

I am having difficulty coming up with ideas tiered rewards for my kickstarter that are... tasteful.

Hypatian wrote:

I am having difficulty coming up with ideas tiered rewards for my kickstarter that are... tasteful. :)

Then you're doing it right.

NSMike wrote:

I can't speak to being trans*, but doubts about changing how people perceive you are totally natural. One of the harder parts of coming out for me was telling people and thinking, "Why am I doing this? Is there a reason beyond my own satisfaction that I'm telling these people this? It almost seems unfair, and I wonder if it's even necessary."

Nearly a year later, I've got no advice to give other than, those doubts will pass. At least, in the regard that I'm referring to.

Had to think about this for a bit. What you're saying does resonate with me. I think there are different wrinkles—but they may be more a matter of perspective than anything else.

One is that there's a step past "telling" to "doing". I think that's true in relationships and sexual orientation too, to a great degree: The idea of keeping silent about your relationships when other people are talking about theirs, or of not saying anything when people assume that you're straight... those are painful thoughts. And there are also bad issues in terms of "not talking about it" in certain contexts. I guess where I'm going towards here is that someone who is gay has a few options in terms of how public they want to be about things. Being able to choose how open you want to be is good. Feeling pressured into being more closed about it than you would like is bad. Feeling pressured to be more open about it than you like could also be bad.

I think that trans people in transition have things a little different there, because there's a point at which you absolutely cannot choose anything but to be totally open, or to completely cut yourself off from your old life. There's a potential for things settling down after a period of extreme openness, but... it's scary to think that "I will [em]have[/em] to out myself dramatically to all of my work colleagues, and my family, and all of my friends." Because I want to live as a woman, and I can't do that without people actually seeing me present myself as a woman... which is a bit different from what they're used to.

The other thing... I don't know. How did things feel when you realized you were gay and started opening up about stuff? For me, it's a relief to admit to myself that I haven't been living the life I want to live. But there's also this strain because I [em]still can't[/em]. I can maybe imagine approaching that possibility in a year or so. Probably a bit longer. That sense that I know who I want to be, but it's going to be so long before I can actually [em]live[/em] as that person... it's agonizing. I imagine it's not super easy on the sexual orientation side of things, either. You've got new communities of people to try to meet. New ways of interacting with people to learn. New parts of yourself to explore.

When I first started thinking about this, in both parts, I was like "Well, it's a lot easier if you're gay! Once you realize it, you can just start acting on that knowledge right away!" But, of course, I then realized how reductivist and wrong that thought was. It's not ever easy. The mere fact that people are closeted to themselves or others, in either the case of sexual orientation or gender identity, implies that there are very hard things to figure out and work through for everyone. You don't close off parts of yourself without a serious reason, no matter what parts you're worried about.

So, sorry for thinking that at first.

NSMike wrote:

"Why am I doing this? Is there a reason beyond my own satisfaction that I'm telling these people this? It almost seems unfair, and I wonder if it's even necessary."

That's where I'm at right now. Some of you already know, but I'm also transsexual and am in the middle of making some big decisions about how and whether to transition. What I've found is my biggest hang up is the idea that I'd be hurting people or disappointing them by coming out. I have the full support of my wife, which makes it infinitely easier, but the thought of telling my family (and hers) is very frightening.

But the thing of it is: I could never transition without telling the people I care about. It's just too big and too obvious of a change to hide. But it's hard to tell them before it happens because there will be that awkward time where I'm not living as a woman yet but will be; at the same time, waiting until it's a fait accompli I think would be very hurtful to some of them. (I waffled for a long time about posting here before telling them because of that very thing. I don't want anyone who is important to me to feel like they were the last to know something, but I could also use the support and encouragement of my friends as I prepare to tell my family.)

The reason I posted all this, though, was to respond to this:

Hypatian wrote:

So, I've been feeling kind of crappy the last couple of days. Doubts. Stress. Just in general feeling like "OMG, what am I doing?" and so far away, again, from where I want to be. It's only been a week since I had my intake interview for therapy, but it feels like forever. The small steps feel very very small, and it leaves me feeling scared. I know I'll get through this mood if I just keep on going, but it's still a very "meh!" feeling. I'll be glad when I have a regular weekly therapy appointment.

I've been going through that, too. I'll go along for a few weeks being very comfortable and confident, ready to tell everyone and take on the world, then I'll run into a wall where I'm just not sure at all that I'm doing the right thing. I'll either have a moment where I'm feeling really masculine and so wonder if that means I'm not trans after all, or else I'll just get intimidated by the amount of work and expense required to transition. It's overwhelming just how much needs to be done, how much it'll all cost, and how difficult it will be emotionally while you're between genders.

But while I know it's hard, I know it'll also be worth it for you in the end. It will be so much better and so much more comfortable to live in your own skin in the way you want to. It's difficult and overwhelming now, and wouldn't we all love some kind of private chrysalis transformation that wasn't at all awkward or uncomfortable, but just keep in mind that you're driving toward something better and happier than what you have now.

So here's a socially awkward question that I'll ask here because although I don't think it's offensive (I don't really know the social rules surrounding trans transformations), I hope I'll be forgiven due to ignorance: how does being trans interact with sexual orientation? As a male looking to switch, which gender is appealing to you? Is the end result to be a straight woman or a lesbian, or does that even enter into it? Does orientation (being which gender you're attracted to) remain constant throughout the change?

Now he's even clocking his own biology.

Spoiler:

(Sorry, couldn't let that one go past—no one ever accused me of being tactful. Insert deadhorse.gif)

But more seriously. How damn amazing is this community, that a thread like this not only generates so much support but has encouraged others to confidently tell their stories as well, fueling a sort of perpetual support/encouragement machine? One day I'm afraid GWJ is going to meet the rest of the Internet, and everything will be annihilated in a matter/anti-matter-like reaction.

Well, we are all here to support all of you - regardless of the rest of the world!

ClockworkHouse wrote:
NSMike wrote:

"Why am I doing this? Is there a reason beyond my own satisfaction that I'm telling these people this? It almost seems unfair, and I wonder if it's even necessary."

...Later...

I know it'll also be worth it for you in the end. It will be so much better and so much more comfortable to live in your own skin in the way you want to. It's difficult and overwhelming now, and wouldn't we all love some kind of private chrysalis transformation that wasn't at all awkward or uncomfortable, but just keep in mind that you're driving toward something better and happier than what you have now.

Here's really what I was getting to. The obviousness of transitioning VS. coming out is really a no-brainer for how dramatically different they are in how you interact with the rest of the world, or more importantly, the world that you know, and the world that knows you. While I am out, I'm generally under the radar. I don't feel a need to out myself at work because, generally, it doesn't change my working relationship with anyone. I am not keeping myself in the closet, either, and I don't keep quiet if the subject comes up. I'm just not proclaiming it to the open world. The first few times I tried that, I was still very nervous about breaking through those barriers. The first time I held Jeremy's hand in public, when it wasn't just the two of us and someone else could see, I was tentative and nervous, and then immediately thrilled by the simple fact that I realized I could do that.

My doubts have long since been erased, both over time and thanks to experiences I've had in the intervening year. You can't really know exactly what it feels like to be comfortable in your own skin, as the person you are, until you go for it. And if you don't go for it because of other people, you're being unfair to yourself, everyone else be damned.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

So here's a socially awkward question that I'll ask here because although I don't think it's offensive (I don't really know the social rules surrounding trans transformations), I hope I'll be forgiven due to ignorance: how does being trans interact with sexual orientation?

Think of people as having three properties: sex, as in their biological sex; gender, as in how they perceive and present themselves; and orientation, as in which gender(s) they're attracted to. The properties are independent of each other, so you can be biologically male, identify as female, and be attracted to women, or you can be biologically male, identify as female, and be attracted to men.

As a male looking to switch, which gender is appealing to you? Is the end result to be a straight woman or a lesbian, or does that even enter into it?

I'm happily married and will remain with my wife, so I suppose I would be a lesbian post-transition. But in broader terms, every person is different. Some men looking to transition are attracted to men, and some are attracted to women.

Does orientation (being which gender you're attracted to) remain constant throughout the change?

For some people it does, and for some people it doesn't. I've read plenty of accounts that go both ways with some transwomen who were attracted to women before being attracted to men after, and others staying oriented in more or less the same was as prior to transition. I suspect that if nothing else transition moves people around a bit on the Kinsey Scale as the people who are attracted to them and flirtatious with them shift.

Gravey wrote:

Now he's even clocking his own biology.

I had hoped that would be among the first responses.

(Feel free to tell me to shut it. I'm just fascinated.)

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm happily married and will remain with my wife, so I suppose I would be a lesbian post-transition. But in broader terms, every person is different. Some men looking to transition are attracted to men, and some are attracted to women.

Does/has/will your transition change the way your wife sees her own orientation (or where she falls on the sliding scale)? I've gotta think that it could be... disconcerting, at least, to fall in love with someone who is one gender and then have that change midstream.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

Some of you already know, but I'm also transsexual and am in the middle of making some big decisions about how and whether to transition.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/zYuM4.gif)

I am, once again, humbled by the trust everybody in this thread has shown, and how well the community has responded to honor that trust.

Cheering for all you folks, and happy to support however Mrs. Dim and I can.

Congrats, Clocky!

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Gravey wrote:

Now he's even clocking his own biology.

I had hoped that would be among the first responses.

Risky joke was risky, but I hoped we'd have enough of a rapport.

And yes, of course, congrats! Wishing you the best of luck for your decisions, and am happy you and Hyp have this thread and community.