Sabrina - that doctor in Thailand seems to try to do the same as Dr Thomas and it sounds very invasive indeed, as Jenny said. I would be careful there.
If the law protects your transgender status so well in terms of employment, does nit not also protect you in terms of needing surgery and the need to take medical leave for that?
Bobbi - yes, I will be interested to explore the opter options, but my gut feeling draws me to Dr Kim - IF I can fix my voice issues that are preventing him from giving me a full OK.
Amy
QuoteThis is another female voice mannerism: in order to cut through, women use pitch, not volume.
Hehe, yes. I guess I am doing that as it works. I cannot increase volume by going lower as some people seem to try - I am heard even less then unless I guess if i would switch to the male register.
QuoteRegarding F0s, everybody's natural F0 seems to be their lowest frequency attainable, multiplied by 1.4-1.7. Our female F0 is an arbitrary choice, so it doesn't figure. The natural (male) F0 will shift with the surgery to form the new, female, F0.
Ok, yes that makes some sense, I guess. Though I feel somehow that if I go to the female register and relax, the F0 is not the same as if I go to male register and relax. The difference is about 20-30 Hz. If I take the male F0 as a starting point and add 75 Hz to that. I will not get into the clearly female range, as Dr Kim predicted in the assessment. I would be at around 175 Hz then, maybe 180 Hz. Which would however be fine with me as I can possibly add the 20 Hz or so by just slightly modifying my voice then as I am used to do it anyways.
I hope...
I was skyping today with someone who was in Berlin for the VFS there. I really love skyping as this really gives so much of a better impression on the voice and one can talk much more directly than by writing. She sounded quite ok, female no doubt really, but she was having some very noticeable hoarseness to the voice. For her that was acceptable, the main goal was not to be called "sir" on the phone or in situations where voice is the main gender identificator. So she is happy that she has done it. Apparently if you go to Berlin, you have to sign a waiver that states hoarseness might happen. Honestly even though she was ok with it the outcome did not increase my confidence in the people in Berlin doing nearly as good work as Dr Kim. However as it seems there is a consistency I noticed: As some others who had issues with the VFS with glottoplasty - in Berlin but i think also with Dr Kim, if I remember this correctly - it seems that all of those who had these issues were not able to keep the instructions or did not even get these instructions. Fully speaking after less than 2 weeks, whispering, smoking,... these seem to be big influences on the outcome. I am not even sure about coughing or sneezing but to actually talk and whisper a lot in that time seems to make the outcome hoarse or not pitch elevated. This also was the case for two more people I contacted and who did glottoplasty in Germany. So the woman I talked to yesterdayfor example had to speak before the end of week 2, she has family that needed speaking and within the first 2 months she had to talk very loudly at her job. Unlike me, she used a lower pitch to get over the noise, which would train the reshaped vocal chords to a low pitch I would fear... Also what she told me was that she lost a lot of strength and cannot scream anymore. But she was only 3 months post op as of now, so I would not even want to try screaming at this point and am not surprised that at this stage there is still a loss in volume. I hope she will heal more with time... but I was definitely leaning more towards going to Dr Kim after our talk, even if that means $7000 more money to be spent
The other people I contacted also either started talking within the first 2 weeks or was a smoker and could not resist smoking just a day or two after surgery.
So I think it cannot be said enough that keeping to the instructions that Dr Kim gives are crucial ... not doing so may prolong the healing process or cause issues like hoarseness.
I have not yet met anyone from Germany who has managed to really keep to the instructions and some did not get instructions or did not take them seriously. Maybe this is the main cause why there is a bad reputation for VFS in Germany - I cannot exclude that a lot of the bad results are from not following the safety protocols, but I would think there would have to be at least some who managed to keep to the rules and get a good result - as this is not the case, I am doubtful about VFS in any place except Yeson or Dr Thomas.
Greetings
