Category Archives: Acceptance

Thoughts on passing

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Acceptance, Life, Thoughts, voice

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I’ve recently joined a closed group on Facebook where the majority of male to female members will post pictures of themselves and ask if they pass physically. Just about every since member who post and ask if they are passable indeed passable.  Having been on this journey would like to offer a small piece of advice which is forget about passing physically and focus on your female voice.

When I or any heterosexual male or female encounters a female without thinking “are they really female” expect a softer voice then a male voice. When the female speaks in the same tone as a male that will make the heterosexual male or female wonder or think “is this really a female”.

My guess is many male to female transgender or cross dressers realize this already but want to stress that this can not only lead to people wonder about you but also may very well cause them to be embarrass and infuriate them to incite a mindset to cause you physical harm.

There is only one method to circumvent this when out in public which is to practice speaking as a cisgender female does. For many it’s not easy, like myself I had to practice, practice, practice. The most difficult part as one gets older is to not only train your voice but also to retrain your brain.

Example, as you close to finish speaking your brain says “now I can relax” and attempts to to back to the male voice if for no other reason that it’s easy while speaking in a female tone is hard work especially keeping a conversation going.

If you can afford to take voice lessons even for a few sessions this will assist in building a proper foundation for what you need to do later to keep up appearances both with your physical looks and sounds that come out of your mouth.

Several times a month I go out with several cross-dressers and transgender groups in my area and I’m the only one, say out of twenty that use a female voice. All of them speak like men and if they didn’t speak the majority would pass one hundred percent as cisgender females. Do they go out in public? Several do yet are known to locals as cross-dressers and never will pass.

For the next part a little history.

I joined a cross-dresser group who are located 40 miles from me back in 2000. At that time I was not even trying to transition in the public and never made it to any of their events which are several times a week. Another group opened in my immediate area and they have one member who belongs to the other group (40 miles away). The decide to meet here in my town in a gay bar, I thought, great, finally get to meet them.

Went to the bar, walk in and there is this thirty something cisgender female with a guy sitting at the bar, she looks at me and says, hi gorgeous, you smell sexy. I said thanks, got my drink and sat down. Five minutes later she come over to my table, sits down next to me and we start chatting. Shortly there after the one cross dresser group walks in, they are all wearing prom dresses (the theme of the evening, not be thou). I wave at them, remember they don’t know me and they stare until I wave them over. I introduced myself and the night was fantastic. Later on the leader said that when I waved and she looked over she thought we were two cisgender females and was dumb founded that I was post-op as my voice passed with no hints of male.

Fast forward to last weekend, the leader of that group was suppose to be down by 8:30 but arrived at 7:30 (I’ve been there since 7). I greeted her and said, thought you would not be here until 8:30? She said, I know you don’t stay late and wanted to talk to you which I thought was cool. Had a great conversation to say the lest. Another member who didn’t know I was trans or post-op was told by another member and was shocked at how well I controlled my voice.

Pause: Although my voice is not a 100 percent it’s fully passable. Even to this say I do warm-up exercises because my brain will still fall back into old habits.

With that I want those who have decided to read this far to know that it’s not easy (some may disagree but they are the minority), one must be committed to not only appearing as a female but make efforts to speak the part too.

Have you heard Autumn? https://autumnasphodel.com/222/transgender-female-voice I feel the same as her in regards to mindset. There are plenty of resources on the web so thre is no excuse not to try.

The power of the mind is incredible

Diversity and inclusion

05 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by in Acceptance, Diversity, Helping others, inclusion, technology, Thoughts, Woman in tech

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I’ve been invited to speak at an event at Microsoft’s MVP Summit on Sunday on the topic of diversity and inclusion of woman and the LGBT community.

DiversityinWorkplace

Let’s look at the main types:

From my perspective woman are thriving in the field of technology but there are few when it comes to software developers at least in my locale.

I’s nearly impossible to gauge the gay community because most are not flamboyant and are no different in appearance than heterosexual counterparts.

As with the gay community, cross-dressers are invisible too as the nature of a cross-dresser is they are in the closet when they transform into their version of themselves of the opposite gender. Lastly, a cross-dresser may or may not be gay, some cross-dress for pleasure while others to please their partner.

Then there are those who identify as the opposite gender then their born gender. To complete their transformation they are required by law to live in the role of the gender they wise to transition to for one year, 24/7.

Thoughts on how to include the above into the field of technology. For cisgender females

  • Many woman believe technology is a “boy’s club”, same goes for parents of girls. If the woman believes this then they will not identify being in technology. The main place for change is in the home, parents need to encourage their daughters.
  • Discrimination, lack of parental leave especially in a face-pace industry. This needs to change in how management thinks,

Transgender, how do we include them in technology. This is extremely difficult for the heterosexual employees and management to buy into no different than one hundred years ago in discrimination of African Americans, it take time for people to embrace, in this case transgender people into the workforce.

Heterosexuals many times believe the transgender to be a deviant which in some cases may be the case but the majority of those in the transgender community are no different then their heterosexual counter-parts. A transgender had no choice in being transgender, it’s a chemical imbalance in the brain to that of their heterosexual counterpart.

With that said, a transgender may very well given the chance be the best at a chosen profession but they have two things against them (actually more but focusing on these).

  • Presenting in the opposite gender, at many stages will not appear proper for the new identity, examples a female to male no matter how hard they try breast my be visible or a male to female and for both their voice may not fit the new identity.
  • They are not intelligent because after an employer reviews their resume sees they had no employment prior to this application or had low paying jobs which comes from perpetuation of cisgender employers perception of a transgender individual and the transgender community at large.

I have personal insight into the above information as I was born as a male but was from the first time I could rationalize myself with others I was indeed a female with the wrong body.

Having lived as a male to conform with male hormones my brain worked as mostly male and for the most part was forced to act as a cisgender male. After beginning hormones and living as a female I have a unique perspective on how men and woman differ in how they think and see the world. With that in mind my unique perspective allows me to advocate for woman, gay and transgender community. When I see potential in one of them with technology no matter their age will encourage them to consider working in technology.

When I think of inclusion, Microsoft is the first company I think of from interacting with them and they know my background. There are other companies, like Microsoft who embrace a diverse work force yet that is not enough. Myself and others who are thriving in technology need to, when appropriate educate others such as educating parents of female children, employers on gays and transgender (left out cross-dressers because they are in the closet).

UPDATE: 11/07/2016

Last night myself and several other woman spoke about inclusion and diversity. I believe it went extremely well gauging by the attendance.  Have to give a huge thanks to Microsoft.

I was so wrong

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Acceptance, Life, My journey

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The weeks following me back at work after surgery it appeared that only a few people seemed to distance themselves from me and know full well this might happen so no big deal.

One person, use to chat with me from time to time. When I returned to work they said hardly two words to me, thought she would not have acted this way but as mentioned before knew some would not take to me in my new identity.

Well today I was walking into work, she walks out and says “do you mind if I ask you a question?” Sure (now waiting for something like ‘why did you do this’) and she said, where do you purchase your outfits? I was not ready for that and said, Macy’s and Victoria’s Secrets. Then I told her that most local stores do not sell jeans and leggings in a 32 inch inseam. She then says “I hear you”, well she has the same problem as she is my height. She also complimented me on my outfits, said I picked cute outfits and said I looked really good. She also said (and I love this), someone told her that they thought I was 30 years old, that instantly got a smile on my face.

We chatted for a while and at one point said she thought I had a great deal of courage (in a good way) to do what I did.

They entire time she just smiled out me so I then knew she had nothing against my transition.

I told her about my surgery and that next month I am slated to have breast argumentation done and that I did not want large breast. She opens her jacket and said (she has very small breast but perfect in my opinion) I could use slightly larger ones and we both giggled.

I said it before and I will say it again, after transitioning talking with other females is completely different in the topics that come up along with how comfortable they are with me as a female.

So one more in my corner, since it happened in the early morning I can say it made my entire day~