Quote from: Arch on November 03, 2009, 01:09:03 AM
Petzjazz is right about the voice, of course, but a lot of young transguys can be read as late-maturing teenage boys if they're lucky. It's just that a lot of other qualities can lead someone to clock you even if it's not your voice.
Yeah, in my experiences, it's a combination of things that aids in "male passibility" more than any one thing. With a lot of FTM guys, their voice can be their Tell-Tale Heart, for others it's subtle gestures that can single them out as "not male enough" with the guys they're trying to pass amongst. Even pre-HRT, I had a deep voice )"for a female", of course), so with this now deeper in registry, you might think I have it easy, especially since now my face is balanced out with facial hair? Wrong -- my face is apparently
my Tell-Tale Heart, and the fact that I'm oriented toward guys and am completely shameless about checking them out in public doesn't help.
Quote from: chrissyboy on November 03, 2009, 01:19:56 AM
Twitchy as in, I tend to talk with my whole body...hand movements and such. And over time I forget to keep my voice lower in conversations and get louder when excited. I'm on T now, I'm worried about coming off as one of those "flamboyant, lisping, wrist-flapping, hip-twirling gay men" as previously stated, because those men irritate the everliving **** out of me for some reason. Or having the same actions read as "girly".
If you want to work on your communication mannerisms, well, all I can say is that practise makes perfect. I don't mind coming across as somewhat flamboyant, so I really don't have any personal tips except perhaps some of the stuff my therapist and I have been working on to control my panic attacks my be useful -- if you catch yourself doing something you think isn't appropriate to the situation (and since you're conscious that you at least
sometimes do such things, so you're probably aware
when you're doing it), then just adjust as you see better fitting. It may help to limit your social circles until you think you have a handle on some of what you feel are your "bigger problems", and if you have a few close friends who you think may be around you enough to discreetly signal that you're doing stuff you'd rather not, then ask them for their assistance -- my one of my best friends, for example, knows to tap me on the shoulder and ask me if I need a drink of water if he sees me inching closer to a panic attack, for example; it's a very discreet thing that doesn't "out me" as having a problem with this and gives me a second or two to think about what I was just doing that prompted the signal so that I can calm down. You and your best friend(s) may not use the same sort of thing, but it's an example.
Quote from: chrissyboy on November 03, 2009, 01:19:56 AMVoice wise I can SORT OF pass as a late-maturing guy who's voice didn't drop yet. But I can't seem to get the monotone implications down.
Intonations.
This is just something that you're going to have to work at, most likely on your own. Try recording your voice, playing it back, and making notes to yourself. It may seem obsessive, but I trained as a classical singer for fifteen years, and I did this when working on harder pieces -- the principle is the same for speaking that when you actually listen to yourself in recordings, you become more aware of where you need to make improvements.
Quote from: Miniar on November 03, 2009, 01:18:28 PMLet it come "naturally" if at all possible, because forced movements always come off wrong.
This.
And as I've said in threads about appearances -- if you think that changing certain things about vocal intonnations and mannerisms are what you need to make you happy, then by all means, if the feeling is genuine, then go ahead. On the other hand, if you think that the only way to "pass" is to look / act like a stereotype, then you'll come across as either awkward and / or obnoxious, and nobody likes that.
As for guys who tangent and get more animated when excited -- OK, my room-mate is friends with a *lot* of nerdy/geeky/gamer guys, very few of whom are gay. They *all* do this to varying degrees. Even hetero guys have a wide range of vocal ticks and intonations, and my room-mate's best friend is very soft-spoken with a bit of a lisp and is 100% straight (granted, a lot of people think he's gay when they first meet him, but those who know him know he's not).
