Quote from: sarahla on November 21, 2010, 11:24:43 PM
The hardest to "improve" is downstairs and the hips.  The pubic bone is another issue, because on women it connects.  On men the pubic bone does not. That falls into the category of "downstairs".

Okay feet are issues too, huge ones (12.5W).

I think you got it backwards, the pubic bone is not "connected" in women to allow for childbirth.  Obviously this isn't an issue for men, the pubic bone is "connected"

As for shoes, check out www.zappos.com.  I'm stunned at the styles and sizes they carry.

Sarah, don't get vocal surgery. Please don't. You just have to learn to use a different register of your voice. It's already there, but you just have to access it. No, you'll never have the resonance of a coloratura soprano, but you won't get that from surgery either, and it can do incredible damage to your voice. If you are "forcing" a high pitch, you are doing it wrong. If you've been at it awhile, I assume you know how to use your "head voice" or "falsetto" register, right? Okay, you need to learn how to relax when you use that, maybe take it down a few scale degrees (maybe as much as a major fifth) so you don't have to push and so you can get more inflection.

This is really important -- if your larynx (the main resonant chamber of the human voice; behind and above the Adam's apple) rises up in your neck, stop what you're doing!!!! And relax. Massage your neck muscles gently, hum some low notes or some descending scales or slides, even growl a little (the technical term is vocal fry or laryngealization). But never "push," because it sounds bad, it hurts, it's tiring, and it might cause lasting damage (vocal nodules, for example).



To answer the original question, the best analogy I've come up with is that gender dysphoria is like culture shock.

regan:  I already know about zappos.com.   I bought my athletic shoes that way, thanks though.  It would just be nice to try on shoes in stores too.

general:  I apologize for getting it backwards on the pubic bone.

Alyssa:  Why are you so against voice surgery?  Do you know of people that have bad results?   One day, I have to get voice training and see how far I am.  I was just hoping for a less tiring way and just be able to speak naturally.

Yes, I have heard many scary stories (granted, mostly online), and I have a friend who is a voice teacher who has a student who had such surgery. Her pitch actually dropped after the surgery.

On the flip side, literally every trans woman I have met and known for any length of time has shown a lot of improvement after living full-time. I sing alto now; I used to sing tenor or even baritone. I know another trans woman who used to sing baritone, and her voice is great after only a few months full-time. It can take some time and it's not easy, but it gets easier and your voice improves a lot. What's more, it's cheap, and it's something you can do completely on your own.

Even if, at the end, you decide that your voice is just lower than Barry White's and there's no way you'll ever pass without surgery, okay, consider it, but you'll have to do all the voice training stuff anyway, so don't think about surgery until you at least give it a good shot. Male and female voices are largely like accents, and even if you get surgery, you'll still need to get rid of the harsh attack and the deep resonance and the narrow pitch range and the wide dynamic range and the hard consonants that mark the male voice. Though, sure, pitch helps.

There are lots of resources out there -- YouTube videos, for example -- but try what I said. Just relax when you make those high pitches. You should not have to squeeze your larynx. It might rise a little, but don't push. It you can't sustain a pitch without pushing, it's too high. Back off to a pitch you can hit without forcing it (but definitely still using falsetto / head voice), and then just see how relaxed you can make your larynx and all your neck muscles when your sing that note (or hum -- that's even better, since it's usually more relaxed). Try to go down from that pitch. Go up and down. Make little ambulance sounds, sliding up and down. Make them louder. See how much resonance you can get doing that. See how low you can go -- try to slide from really high squeaky notes down to the lowest notes you can sing, and then back up to the highest, all without a "break" -- it's hard, kind of like learning stick shift, but it's great if you can do it, because then you can mix the techniques of lower and upper registers together. Once you get the hand of it, it's a piece of cake.

Hi Alyssa,

I guess here is where I say "gaga goo goo". :-)  You are far above me in singing and voice stuff.  I thought about singing when I was in grade school, but never did anything with it.  I did play the violin in school, but these days there is nobody to play the violin for, so I do not.  I keep hoping, but no such luck.

I need to get professional voice training.  That is a bit down on my list.  I first want to get a hair transplant and a LaserComb, increase electrology sessions to finally finish with it.  HRT.  It is hard to imagine that I might be on hormones again.  SRS is even harder to imagine.

Thanks for the help. I should take voice lessons one day.  I do not want to sing as a guy, though.  I want to learn to sing as a girl.  My problem is that, when I listen to myself I do not hear a female.

que sera, sera.

Right, I'm pretty serious about singing. And, yes, I get the issue with hearing your own singing voice; it's always been a huge problem for me -- but much less so now.

Basically, you said, "Talking with a forced higher pitch voice does not always work and gets tiring," and there are two things you can do to make it easier, without any need for a professional.

First, try to experiment with making that high pitch, but not forcing it. Just give it a try. Start by making the "forced higher pitch," and then try to relax all the muscles in your neck when your.

Next, try to experiment with that type of vocal production any way that feels comfortable. Make siren sounds, sing along to your favorite female pop artist, and generally use your falsetto as much as you can (falsetto is the high, less resonant voice, kind of like a squeal), but without pushing -- don't do anything that hurts.

That's all. You'll have to practice eventually if you take lessons (which is certainly a good idea), so you might as well get used to using your voice now, and figure out some of the things you can do with it.

I've used the following analogy:

Imagine if, one day, you lose both your legs. Chopped off, right at the hip. You can no longer walk, no longer run, no longer dance. You can still function relatively normally in society, but you feel restricted all the time - no longer quite free. Furthermore, you still feel like your legs are there - you can sometimes sense them, you expect to see them there, in every sense you feel like you have legs, and should be able to run, and dance, and do all those things freely. But you can't. You wake up in the morning, and swing your legs over the side of your bed... and they're gone. And for just a moment, you can't remember why. When you go down the street in your wheelchair, people stare at you - you no longer quite fit in. You're now something subtly other to them. But you still feel like a legged person, feel like one of them, and you still expect others to treat you that way. And whenever you move down the street, you're acutely aware of just what you've lost, and how other people now look at you differently.

But even worse is, you could be like them - you could get prosthetics, good enough to walk, if not run, and good enough that you no longer find yourself surprised every time you look down. You might even be able to get transplants. But the people around you won't let you. They don't believe you when you say you used to have legs. They can't remember. Even your parents refuse - "honey, you were born without legs. You just need to learn to live with it."

And the worst part is, they're right. You never did have legs. You just feel like you did. And they refuse to treat you, to give you new legs, because they refuse to accept that you want legs. Because, surely, others have gotten used to it, and having lived without them for so long, so should you? But it doesn't work that way, because the only thing that matters to you is being able to dance, and run, and climb a mountain. Without those, life isn't worth living, even if you can live mostly normally. Because what lies between "mostly" and "normally" is the most important stuff of all.

Now, imagine that this was pretty much the only thing you could think about.

It's not perfect, but I think it works.


I've never had much of the mirror problem, myself. Seeing myself naked is bad, because every time I see my body with that thing hanging down there, I'm surprised, unless I consciously braced for it. But my face and body are otherwise feminine enough that, most of the time, I can see a woman looking back. Sometimes, the male image snaps back into focus, and then I want to die, but most of the time, I can make myself see only a slightly ugly, macho woman.