over the past 5 years with coming to terms with everything and excepting who I am and finally have courage enough to tell pretty much everyone in my life.  between ups and downs and people understanding and being supportive or not.  The biggest hurdle I think I have yet to over come.  I have no problem going out and trying to live a female life, but my biggest hurdle is my voice.  I am completely not comfortable with it at all. I used to think my body proportions where bad or pick out little things about my face or hair.  Over time I gradual excepted those things and began to love the way I looked.  I mean how can I be worried about my body when me and my sister share the same cloths because we are practically the same size. She being CIS female.  I can't not get past my fear of my voice and it is probably the only thing holding me back from going FT female.

I used to be in choir back In high school and I could sing pretty high I could sing at a mid alto range which was really impressive because before I started singing I couldn't even really sing at the high end for like most men.  with lots of practice and over the course of 2 years I trained my voice.   so I know what has to be done and I've lost a lot of my higher range I still can sing a little at the higher end but its forced and hard to project.  so its another long battle or training and it really brings me down at times.  I'm so close to being FT but I have one last thing to do and its like in a part of every aspect of life.

I was looking into VFS from Korea which looks to be wonderful the statistics I've seen and I haven't really found any negative feed back.  I'm still hesitant on to actually go for it and I'm still trying to save up some money as this will probably cost like 11000-12000 to go there and stay the week or so you need to.  that's probably a high estimate but better to be safe in my mind.  If anyone has any insight to this,  I think its the Yeson voice center in Sol.  I would be happy to hear everyone's thoughts ^.^

Having done so much and feeling so close to have such a daunting task to over come.  What are some of everyone's biggest hurdles they have or have yet to over come?

Not sure why ffs, you have nice facial  features.

If your voice is the issue the I would many do that surgery or voice lessons.

My voice is little low and rasped

Years of smoking, for part of my therapy I had to spend 4 days in a busy malls food court watching people and listening.

I found no one looks the same. Males look somewhat female featured and females sometimes looked somewhat male

Same with voices everyone had there own tone range and pitch.

So what she was trying to show me that I am me and who I am matters more then what others might perceived me as.

It's all good no matter what you do. We do what we think needs. Me I just needed confidence in myself. It worked.

Hugs

hehe thanks ^.^;  I don't mind the way I look to much but confidence is definitely lacking in my voice.  you do bring up a good point everyone is different and striving for perfection is only going to leave me feeling inadequate!!

FWIW, I found voice rather easy to master, despite being pretty much tone deaf. I followed a technique recommended in the CANDIFLA youtube videos:

1. I spoke in the highest, squeakiest voice I could manage. I concentrated on remembering the exact position my throat was in. In practice this meant my voicebox was raised a fraction of an inch and my throat was "squeezed".

2. I would then position my throat exactly that way, but speak normally. Everything that came out of my mouth sounded female when I did that.

My biggest hurdle was letting go of whether I was going to pass and willing to accept my transition at whatever level of passability I could achieve. In practice, I don't pass perfectly but better than I ever dreamed.

After reading  Mrs Izzy's post and her saying "It's all good no matter what you do. We do what we think needs. Me I just needed confidence in myself. It worked."  Got me thinking that maybe its just me being paranoid.  I got on my computer and played around with my mic and got a program to measure frequency.  and I recorded my self and I could easily get in the range of 200-220 not even nearing falsetto.  I'm still not confident as I still need to work on clarity but I never thought for a moment it was that high already.  My normal voice was around 150.  Its defiantly a confidence level and I'm going to work on it.  thank you both !!

I really don't worry about my voice very much. Depending on the situation I'm in , I just try different octaves and hope for the best. I don't think they can put me in jail for having a weird voice.

Nayuki.

Keep that quiet between you and i about the confidence thing.

If others listen it can catch on, if it does they will miss out on so much fear and darkness going forward.


No seriously everyone many think us old timers are full of egos.

Only ego i have is to help others with what i have found that worked after all the fears, darkness, tears.

Confidence takes effort in not over doing what you think society wants you to look like. We are not the news stand models.

Yes some do get very lucky and can pull that off. 

But more then not we are just normal females trying to carve out our slice of happiness.

Just what every you do just be yourself, in a nut shell that is all you really are yourself

Hugs

Aw, it takes a lot of time to get the voice right. I know this may not be helpful, because I have a high voice naturally (but I do make a conscious effort too sometimes), but all you gotta do is keeping your larynx in a higher position while you talk and use more head resonance. It's hard to master, but with lots lots of practise you'lll get there. Or, you could save money for VFS, though, it must be really costy, but it may be worth it! Also, while you're in the awkward stages, try to sooften your voice's tone, I know many cis-females do not speak softely, but in our case, it helps

best wishes, xxx

EDIT: If your voice is above the 160hz mark and you can get higher easily, then DON'T WORRY, that's exactly the point where a voice starts sounding female. It may sound adult-ish, but still female. You just need to get the resonance right so you can manage to speak with enough volume and voila! keep practsising, it will become natural to you.