Egg went splat and things made a bit more sense.
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complete lack of care about my own appearance (recently realized that while becoming a big buff muscley man doesn’t appeal at all, becoming a visibly fit woman sounds pretty alright to me)
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always been uncomfortable within my own body/skin (too big in the wrong places, too hairy)
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a lot of longing for transformation/shape-shifting abilities (Christopher Paolinis Inheritance series goes hard about magic enabling elves to be exactly as their heart desires)
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upon learning FtM transitioning was a thing, absolutely confused about why anyone would ever WANT to be male/masculine
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started speaking a lot less after my voice literally changed overnight, no periods of cracking voice just immediately deep (it is irredeemably masculine and i hate it)
Edit: Oh and can’t forget
- never being comfortable being shirtless, even as a prepubescent child.
And (edit2)
- giving up and growing a beard because trying to keep my chin clear of hair is borderline impossible.
That’s really funny, I thought the exact same thing when I learned about MTFs existing.
Also, just because your voice is low doesn’t mean that it’s irredeemably masculine. I am a trans man, and way before my transition I had a voice that was comfortably in a male range. It’s not unheard of. My voice would still get read as female on the phone until I worked on my innotation and worked on speaking in a chest voice, then I passed quite well. Point is, you can get read as a woman with a low voice, you just have to alter specific things which is very doable.
It’s bad. Like, deep enough that I’ve had other dudes saying they’re jealous how deep my voice is, I worked service desk in IT and the number one compliment was the deep voice.
I have serious doubts about how effective vocal training could be in my case. Typing this up reeeeaaally makes me realize how much my voice bothers me.
I recommend trying to figure out what your vocal range is. Aka how high your voice can go and how low. If you know that, you can see what you’ve got to work with. I highly recommend just trying vocal training. Record your voice before and after it and see if you like it better. Something’s better than nothing in a lot of cases. There’s a lot of resources for transfems on YouTube.
Also, I’m pretty sure there’s a vocal chord surgery for MTFs. They’ll shorten your vocal chords so you get higher pitches (think about a guitar, the tighter and shorter the string the higher the pitch). You could look into that as well.
complete lack of care about my own appearance
Same. I felt nothing for the characteristics that I was taught a boy should feel confident with, and I dismissed the idea of being more feminine because “I’m not trans, I just wish I were.” I never developed a sense of style, and instead picked my clothes based on what obscured the most of my body. Always long pants and long sleeves.
Same story with my voice, too. My insanely deep voice for my age was funny at first, but after a while there was a sense of “oh god, this is how I’ll sound for the rest of my life.” One time when I was ~12 some guy on Counter-Strike told me he’d have sold me a pack of cigarettes if I hadn’t told him my age lol.
I was largely in online school for middle/high school (actual teacher led classes, full classrooms, just online. Adobe Connect.) and I was a regular request for the classroom for any character roles to read aloud, which was uncomfortable to me in ways i wasn’t really able to express. It also earned me a nickname for my voice depth.
I often got asked to read things out loud in school because of my deep voice, too. Didn’t know that was a thing 😅
Absolutely a thing. Part of it was also teachers noticing I could competently read Shakespeare with the correct pacing (reading a lot and escapism have their perks!) 😅 but yeah, a lot of girls saying “omg they should do this character!!”
Now there’s something I can relate to, I’ve often been told I have a good voice for reading or narrating.
Which isn’t wrong, and I can appreciate the compliment, but… yeahhhh.
(Quick side note: Why is narrating something so strongly associated with masc voices in the first place? At least it seems so from my experience with the people around me.)
I’ve been practicing the girl voice™ every now and then since realizing, and wow, is it hard. I can do everything from Darth Vader to Stitch, I can gurgle like a fresh zombie or gulugulu like a turkey in heat, but an everyday womans voice is apparently too difficult.
Still though, I try to appreciate everything my voice can do, and while I do wish to learn the girl voice™ as quickly as possible, I am at least a little less uncomfortable with how it is now.
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