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.
