hmmmm....i guess the difference as i see it, amanda...is that i don't have a man's voice.  i have a woman's voice...it's my voice and i am a woman.

it is difficult and i've always had some problems with the principle myself.  when driving myself nuts trying to figure if grs was what i needed i had to face that issue in spades.  i had long accepted that i was a woman.  i knew and understood that i didn't want to become a woman, i already was one.  my theory being that gender is not determined by what's between one's legs, but by what's between one's ears.  so...i was a woman with a penis.  i had a woman's penis.

just as i'm sure some won't ever be able to resolve that they have a woman's voice and be ok with it however it may sound, i just couldn't resolve having a woman's penis...it was just more then even my high ideals could deal with.  it's true, everyone has a point where their principles just don't add up to the truth as it is.

and i take your point about being young and uninvolved.  i'm old and married and not looking.  we're i in a position like that i may have to make more compromises myself.  what i am saying is really more about self image and confidence then whatever the details are.  it's so hard for us to get to that point where we internalize, really accept, that we are women and all the exterior stuff does not affect that one single reality.  until we accept that i don't think there is any end we won't go to in order to prove it...not just to others but to ourselves.  i guess i kind of see that as a never ending process that will inevitably leave one empty.  you just cannot ever prove your femininity, especially to someone else.  you know who you are and at some point that just has to be enough.  that place is somewhere else for each and every one of us...i just hope that what i say is worth considering, something for the young girls to hear...and maybe someday have it make some sense.

Pennyjane, how did you become so wise?

I only hope to some day have the mental a physical solidarity that you do. 

My mind voice changes depending on the situation. Normally it's James Earl Jones for entertainment, dramatics and normal reading. Sometimes I'll sub with Ira Glass (This American Life from WBEZ in Chicago, NPR) or on rare occasions I've been known to do a bit of Garrison Keillor (A Prairie Home Companion from Minnesota Public Radio, NPR).

<---- listens to way to much public radio.

Now that I think of it, I don't think my mind even knows what my voice sounds like...

weird.

Quote.i just hope that what i say is worth considering, something for the young girls to hear...and maybe someday have it make some sense.

It's very valuable to hear and I don't discount it at all and I wish I could develop that attitude and hope someday
I will. And I'm envious of you and others here that live their lives in that way.

But for now I feel like I need to do those things becuase it makes me feel better about my
body, face, voice, etc. And do all the things that I feel like I missed out on becuase I was too dumb, scared,
uninformed, etc to do them.

Amanda

hi amanda...all those things but dumb.  you clearly are not dumb.  you will do what you need to do to make life right...and whatever that is is good.  it's just that, for me, an impossible case to begin with, i had to except some pretty restrictive facts.  i'm no looker, never gonna be...i don't have the time left to do all of those things.  it's like that serentiy prayer...."God, grant me the serentiy to accept those things i cannot change, the courage to change those i can....and the wisdom to know the difference."  it's that wisdom part that i've been trying to focus on.  knowing and accepting my limitations so i don't end up tilting at windmills forever, but achieving what is within my limitations.  you gotta keep focused on the truth to make this happen, not fantasy nor delusion...reality...what is.  if i had never been able to do grs, then so be it...wouldn't have been the end of the world...i would have just had to find the way to happiness being a woman with a penis.  one can not allow their circumstances to control their happiness, you just have to do the best you can with what you have and allow happiness to happen.

Imagine a contralto who just snorted a lot of speed. It goes with the rest of my personality. My speech tends to be very very rapid and frantic irl. It's no less dizzying on the inside. It makes me very distractable. Definitely feminine, though.

Hmmmm, I have a couple of voices in there actually - at least three I can identify - My "own" voice is my voice - it has always sounded like me, including its voice changing as mine has. I have a second voice in there that is distinctly female, somewhat older and wiser sounding - that's the voice that always presents intuitive, compassionate standpoints, then there is also a more androgynous, slightly male-ish voice that usually takes up the "common sense" logical argument. From time to time I've also noticed other voices - usually at first they seem either one of the two "others", but usually after I listen for a while, their attitudes and tone will differentiate them from the others.

Hehehe. It's never lonely in here. 

~Simone.

Hmm, my "common sense, logical" voice is more of a gender-indeterminate and slightly metallic tenor. More of a compy voice than anything else. It sounds even more like it's on speed, and I get a little dizzy if it goes on for too long. When it comes out in my speech, people swear I sound Swedish. I don't hear it.

I do have a "male" voice, though, that's more slow and methodical, and it's always got a gentle hint of irony in it. However, it alternates between a throaty rumble and something sounding similar to a female argonian (a very deep and raspy but definitely female tenor). And yes...that comes out in my voice, too. It always throws people for a loop the way my voice changes around. Just the other day, I had someone ask me, "dude, did your voice somehow get deeper?" Nope.

Lately, however, I've been identifying very closely with the argonian, and I would like to try to adopt it as my regular voice after I've gone through transition. It is pleasant. It marks a personality that is not prone to being thrown off easily by surprises or unusual situations yet doesn't obsess with shallow sources of novelty either. Flexible yet dependable. If I'm going to stick with my ambitions for academia, I might as well get the image right.

My Mind-Voice depends on my mood, when Angry it becomes more or less a demon's roar that won't shut up. But any other time, it is a clam voice, and sounds like my real voice.

QuoteHow do your mind-voices sound?

My "mind-voice" sounds like a chicken with a slight hint of goat mixed in.

My mind voice is like my voice....masculine.

My voice is where I trained it to be, in the female range. I was lucky that I never had a deep voice to start with

Cindy

I've only recently in the past few months started training my voice....course everytime i do in front of my mother she tells me to "talk normal" whcih ticks me off....hense my "A not so accepting family" topic elsewhere in the forums.... 

Family should be tied to utility poles with molasses all over them then beat them with feather pillows.

Cindy