I pass pretty well most of the time now, but I find that my voice, actions, and way of communicating are still decidedly male. I get jealous of women with melodic voices with feminine inflections. Also I have tried and no matter what I do I can't seem to be "sexy".  I see my more feminine friends, cis and trans, that can simply part their lips a certain way that just screams sexy.

Granted I am really overweight and in some people's eyes that makes me less sexy. I am constantly told how beautiful I am yet no one has ever really called me "sexy"

What's a girl to do?


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Quote from: brionnaclaire on May 23, 2016, 01:36:11 PM
I pass pretty well most of the time now, but I find that my voice, actions, and way of communicating are still decidedly male. I get jealous of women with melodic voices with feminine inflections. Also I have tried and no matter what I do I can't seem to be "sexy".  I see my more feminine friends, cis and trans, that can simply part their lips a certain way that just screams sexy.

Granted I am really overweight and in some people's eyes that makes me less sexy. I am constantly told how beautiful I am yet no one has ever really called me "sexy"

What's a girl to do?


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I think that with the proper training and practice, most of us can develop a natural sounding female voice. And some mannerisms can be learned as well, however, most of our femininity comes from within; it is the core of who we are, you just need to relax and let it flow. 😊

so I'm curious, what exactly Do you  want just  to mingle with the rest of humanity and go about life as any other woman or lean towards a more Dolly Pardon persona. I mean no harm just wondering how you perceive sexy. I feel pretty hot if I have on a pretty dress. I mean if I go to my favorite bar in a nice black lace dress I feel pretty sexy, but I don't do anything in an overtly sexy way.

Part of this is attitude, but a big piece is conscious emulation.   We don't have the advantage of growing up and emulating more experienced members of our gender for many years, so we have to make some conscious effort to reproduce the effect of that experience.

I people-watch, looking at how females, particularly those closer to my age, move and dress.  I try to note posture in various activities, from walking, to how one opens a door, to leg placement and mannerisms when standing and sitting.  Everything is slightly different between males and females.  It's fascinating, really.

Two things I have found to be useful is watching people walk and listening to them talk. I found a site a while back that talks about it in simple but effective detail. http://tarasresources.net/walk.html#walk and http://tarasresources.net/voice.html#voice

But a couple of tips I noticed offhand: walk with your hips not your chest, I noticed when I watched Cis females they walk with their balance centered around the hips , whereas I walked with my chest leading and being the center around which everything else just was following. When talking try to enunciate everything you say and add a bit of fade in/out to your sentances. I also notice females use a bit more breath when they talk which seems to soften T and D sounds and adds a hint of reticence. I personally practiced walking with a camera in my hallway to review how I move and what I could work on. As for your voice you can try recording yourself on PC or even a smart phone to get the tempo and enunciation right.

Quote from: stephaniec on May 23, 2016, 02:38:45 PM
so I'm curious, what exactly Do you  want just  to mingle with the rest of humanity and go about life as any other woman or lean towards a more Dolly Pardon persona. I mean no harm just wondering how you perceive sexy. I feel pretty hot if I have on a pretty dress. I mean if I go to my favorite bar in a nice black lace dress I feel pretty sexy, but I don't do anything in an overtly sexy way.

I can mingle, but I'm always worried my flat monotone voice and the way I move give me away. I guess part of it is my weight, I feel like I am lumbering about and not very feminine in my motions and stuff. My friends tell me otherwise.

Forgive me but I'm very firmly of the opinion that you can't "learn to be more feminine" nor should anyone try, because the whole basis of this treatment and the whole logic of transition is that our gender is something innate... one either is naturally feminine or one isnt, and no amount of "training" will ever make for a natural result. I believe therefore that the whole point of this is to be comfortable in ones own skin and express authentically the true self... whatever that may be, which by definition is not going to be something put on and trained.

Sorry to be a negative voice but I'm very much against all this training and trying too hard, because I've never yet met anyone who was happy with the results, or indeed who came across as natural aftwerwards - and in my experience being natural and genuine is 100.00 % of so called passing. If you are natural then, like me, you can be pretty androgynous in behaviour and yet have no one ever question your presented gender in over THIRTY years - if you are NOT natural then you can be as perfect and studied as you like, but you will always get read eventually.

That view may not be popular, but its based on over three decades of lived experience, and of having met counselled and helped literally hundreds of transwomen.

Just let the authentic you shine through, and be comfortable in your own skin, it will pay bigger dividends than years of training and acting.

Most importantly, be YOURSELF and not a copy of some ideal that does not exist. You will be happier, more relaxed and people will see the beauty emanating from within you.

I suppose a reason for my needing to consciously observe is to undo the damage of a lifetime.  I had essentially all non-male behaviors beaten out of me in my first 10 years of private religious schools, by which time I had developed a sufficiently robust male persona that I regularly passed as male, and the beatings stopped.

A younger person might have easier direct access to innate behaviors. I've got a well-established persona and a bunch of muscle memory to dismantle.  Sorry.

You have to work through your fear and past trauma...no easy task but can be done.

Quote from: Michelle_P on May 23, 2016, 03:58:48 PM
I suppose a reason for my needing to consciously observe is to undo the damage of a lifetime.  I had essentially all non-male behaviors beaten out of me in my first 10 years of private religious schools, by which time I had developed a sufficiently robust male persona that I regularly passed as male, and the beatings stopped.

A younger person might have easier direct access to innate behaviors. I've got a well-established persona and a bunch of muscle memory to dismantle.  Sorry.

That is pretty much what happened to me. I was the youngest and the only male in a family with three kids. I taught myself how to be opposite from them.  I may be being a little hard on myself as my sisters, while not masculine in any way, are not the picture of femininity. For instance, it has always been weird to me to see either of my sisters in a dress, even though both of them are beautiful in them.

Quote from: brionnaclaire on May 23, 2016, 05:17:53 PM
That is pretty much what happened to me. I was the youngest and the only male in a family with three kids. I taught myself how to be opposite from them.  I may be being a little hard on myself as my sisters, while not masculine in any way, are not the picture of femininity. For instance, it has always been weird to me to see either of my sisters in a dress, even though both of them are beautiful in them.

Learning by anti-example!  Wow.  I was the oldest, with just brothers years behind me, so I didn't really have any examples outside of school.  It took a while to learn how to act more boy-like.  Alas, there were powerful incentives to do so 50-60 years ago.

It's certainly possible to learn how to be more feminine.  I find that getting my head in 'girl mode' helps, engaging confidence that I can do this.  Add onto that observation of culturally based behaviors (not instinctive, but things we learn), and I think I can do this.

I've run across 'image consultants' that work with trains-people to train them in movement, mannerisms, and dress, but they're a bit above my budget.  I ran across a video clip of one of them working with a lawyer who was transitioning, and looking for new courtroom clothing styling and behaviors!

you can't learn how to be feminine you really either are or aren't....isn't that the whole reason  to transition...cause your naturally that way originally...

Sorry I feel the need to chime in again... Some of us are Un-learning what was forced on us from a young age. I know for me it was difficult and painful as I got to experience bigotry and religious fanaticism while growing up and joined the ARMY at 17 due to a loophole for emancipation to "prove" my manliness. I learned a lot and when I got home was when I started learning what it was that I felt and why I felt the way I did. It took a long time for me to tag myself as trans and even longer to realize that tagging myself wasn't the right way to go about it. But over all of that I have been having to condition myself to see what I was taught to see what is natural for a woman and to try to figure out what is me versus what was expected of me as a "guy".

tl;dr Everyone was raised different, some have a longer path to bring out their inner woman and suppress the previous life's mis-teachings.

Quote from: brionnaclaire on May 23, 2016, 03:44:20 PM
I can mingle, but I'm always worried my flat monotone voice and the way I move give me away. I guess part of it is my weight, I feel like I am lumbering about and not very feminine in my motions and stuff. My friends tell me otherwise.

If your friend's are telling you otherwise, that's generally a good indication. As an artist, I'm constantly feeling what I do isn't good enough, but when you are doing things to present to other people there is the desire for self-satisfaction, but ultimately it is the satisfaction of others that matters.
Just be yourself. You may not be where you want to be now, but don't beat yourself up over it. It will hold you back and slow you down in the long wrong, and making achieving your goals much harder.

Quote from: Annabolton on May 23, 2016, 08:28:37 PM
you can't learn how to be feminine you really either are or aren't....isn't that the whole reason  to transition...cause your naturally that way originally...

Behavior is partially learned and partially innate.


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Quote from: brionnaclaire on May 24, 2016, 08:26:43 PM
Behavior is partially learned and partially innate.


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I really agree with this. If you are transgender you are innately the gender you identify with. It doesn't mean you know what that looks like, especially to the outside world. I could identify myself as a tennis player, but it doesn't mean I automatically know how to play tennis. The trick is, to absorb what you like about the gender you seek and make it yours in your own personal style. I want to walk like a woman. Do I need to walk like a runway model? No! I get an idea of the mechanics of a female walking and make it so that it fits me. Try to copy to too great an extent though, and it looks forced. I am always looking for feedback from people I know.
Moni

Just be yourself. Why do you want to be someone else ?

Most of what you call "gender" is acquired, not innate. You want a proof ? Go look at women in engineer schools or math/info universities, where they are with men most of the times. They end up behaving like men. Most of them weren't like that initially, they just blend to their environment.

I used to behave like a little girl because I was brought up by 3 woman and a feminine father. Then I spent 15 years with males and I ended up behaving like a man.

Today I'm still behaving like a man despite having a vagina and that's OK. Who cares ? That's who I am, I was constructed that way by life. I laugh hard, tell trash jokes, debate aggressively on videogames forums... I lack a lot of "feminine things" but who cares ? There's a lot of ciswomen that are way worse than I am.

Trying to stick to "women" or "men" definitions (whatever they are) will only make you sad and unhappy. Just be yourself and search for what is making you happy.

We are socialized from our earliest moments to be either a boy or girl. These things are taught to us and usually no one knows that they are doing it. Hand gestures, walking, our voice inflections, how we react... These are most definitely learned behaviors. It is uncommon for most of us not to pick up those things. That has nothing to do with our innate identity. It has much to do with how we present ourselves. I think a simple acknowledgment is a big step in moving beyond this conundrum. Whether we can retrain ourselves or not is another issue. Some don't want to, some appear to need it by society, some don't. It all depends on what you want and how you want to interact with the rest of society.

We often break social norms and this can make life uncomfortable for everyone, especially ourselves. We need to learn how to deal with it in one way or another. Why is it we place so much emphasis on what we wear? Think about it.

Learning is always good and I would expect most us had a lot to learn.

I would say innate desires and learned abilities go hand in hand for all people.

For example as a woman I write in cursive whereas when previously presenting as male I wrote in block capitals only.
Having written in capitals for many years my handwriting, which was never the best, was shocking I ultimately taught myself to write all over again. It was tricky but as I got better at it it got easier allowing me express myself as I wanted to. It still needs work and I am still learning but I am happier now that I can can do it.

Is my writing forced?
Is it something I do to add to some form of deception of being female?

Absolutely not, given I didn't learn to write as a girl growing up there are many things I am catching up on.
I'm a 38 year old teenage girl but still have my preteen experiences to have like playing balls, skipping, dancing, makeup, princess birthday parties (ok I've had that one but I want more  ) etc.
Fortunately for me I have 11 & 6 year old daughters to allow me to fill the gaps in my education.

For walking I like to play on the treadmill after a run (which I also had to learn to do but fortunately I "ran like a girl" in my youth - lol) catwalking, swinging my arms just doing what feels natural or fun.

For those without additional female company of varying ages the internet is probably as close people can get for role models.

I am personally very much opposed to anything that feels like a trick to make me appear more feminine. Things like wigs, makeup, false nails, pads, forms etc are not an option to me (only me as to others they are lifesavers) as it would invalidate me to myself making me seem like an act instead of just me. Which is a shame as I have seen many spectacular results and as female work colleagues always point out to me born woman use enhancements a lot too but at this point in my life I need to be me more than ever so I take the slow path a few weeks for nails, a year for hair.

Leading onto a point honest.

Covering this part as I am about to start speech therapy (definitely learned, trained, forced behavior) which I initially struggled with on the basis that my new voice would be considered an act which is a logical argument but..........

If for some reason I couldn't walk and had been confined to a wheelchair all my life would I decline physical therapy to gain the ability to walk. Would I consider that to be fake or some kind of act?

Naturally the answer would be a resounding "No!" leading to my final position of learning or training can give us critical missing skills to fill holes in our lives that we wish to express but simply don't know how.

I'll finish with Oscar Wilde's quote "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken" and me just saying have fun