Three Weeks a Woman

isn’t presentation interesting!?

i plan on soft coming out at the office week after next

by wearing a trans flag wristband to the office

if you know know the colors, you know what im announcing

if you dont know the colors, im not really interested in telling you

….

pretty nifty coded communication right?

im pretty good at thinking stuff like this up, its fun

….

if you know you know 😎

first of all, the therapist was amazing

made it feel very fun, very safe! 😊

second, voice is such a fascinating and flexible thing

she ran through seven distinctly female, yet vastly different voices in the first 10 minutes. so freaking cool!!

”so like, have you ever like, dated a valley girl?”1

the valley girl voice uses a ton of vocal fry

which is interesting (to voice therapists and transwomen)

because heavy vocal fry usage was exclusively masculine for a long time

nasality, throat dilation, mouth dilation, projecting upward or downward, tongue stops and placement, resonance

so much goes into voice besides pitch

she also went a ton into presentation

which i love because presentation is so fascinating

we talked about what parts of my presentation are already explicitly feminine

for example, she noted that i tend to sit in a classic Y shape with my hands together

(right above)

that i self-touch frequently (play with my nails, hold my hand to my chest, touch my face and play with my hair)

and that my emotiveness level was very feminine

which felt nice to hear!

i think its my most feminine-presenting trait 🤭

here’s the thing about presentation

by far the majority of it is culturally shaped, not innate

and there are plenty of socially “feminine” presentations that bear minimal resemblance to each other, be it aesthetics, personality, or whatever

so one of the most interesting questions for transwomen

is “what sort of presentation expresses you?”

by way of example

i came in with three female actresses whose voices i want to emulate

i knew the therapist would ask and she did

i did some pre-study and voice work the past 2 months

(yt/transvoicelessons and im a singer)2

the list is Kristen Bell (just her, anywhere, anytime)

and then Katie and Tanis from Letterkenny

this clip is actually amazing voice therapy wise

because Katie repeats the same phrase in each scene

so its a powerful isolate of her voice

and variants for emphasis, emotion, etc.

per my therapist, all three have clear, emphatic voices

im not sure how to explain it, it was complex and i dont get it all yet

no fry, minimal affect, crisp pronunciation, standard nasality

its easy to understand them, even at low volume

presentation-wise, if you watch the last podcast

and compare my hand gestures to Tanis, theyre pretty close

i mimic’ed until they became my natural hand gestures

took like 3 weeks, pretty easy to retrain gestures and posture imo

i did that back in May

also her resting and confrontational postures

shes relaxed, feminine, assertive and seductive simultaneously

Tanis also does something i find fascinating

she deliberately stands about 3 inches closer than normal personal space boundaries would dictate

men cant do that with deliberateness

done to other men, its provocation3

done to women, its violative and aggro (especially as the size differential grows)

youre gonna get ostracized fast if you do that

done by Tanis, however, its powerful and/or seductive

super interesting imo

my issue will be presentation, not fundamentals

i had an emphatic, masculine voice before

i drop pitch, project into my throat and rasp when being emphatic

prototypically masculine

i want an emphatic, feminine voice

but the way male and female voices do emphasis is wildly different

its gonna be a total rebuild

do you consider me a woman?

if i date womxn, is it a straight or lesbian relationship?4

if i date men, is it a straight or gay relationship?5

😵

if you don’t know who she is

you are not a lesbian under the age of 45

i downloaded the dating app HER!

if you haven’t heard of it, its the “lesbian” dating app

the only men on it are transmen

HER has a lot of friendship building, unlike most dating apps

i downloaded it to make more female-presenting friends

little expectation dating-wise

i assumed that my genitalia would disqualify me

incorrect assumption 😲

honestly im a ashamed of making it

pretty prejudiced on my part 🤯

from the perspective of fifth wave feminism

and myself

and the queer community6

i am female

dilemma for me

i planned not to date cis women for a while

i did that for 16 years, time to try something else ya know?

a genuinely sapphic relationship could be rlly nice tho!

something to consider

i did already make a new friend! 🥳

i did a blow and go wednesday night

self-explanatory term, right?

afterward a friend asked “nothing for you”?

me: “gotta get my 10000 hours somewhere” 🤣

also giving blowjobs is fun and empowering 🤗

almost all of my female friends throughout my adult life

have been sexually confident women who know their needs

and arent afraid to pursue them

..

i dont see how confidently pursuing sexual fulfillment is inherently masculine

thats pretty sexist, ma’am 😤

also makes me pity you

because i highly doubt you stumbled across sexual fulfilment in your rigid, puritanical years on earth

….

jesus i can be mean 😬

its the southern church lady in me

i.e. my paternal grandmother

she was a good woman

but she could be really vicious with words