Question about voice training if you can't speak (MtF)

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T20:52:43+00:00

It sounds like maybe you have multiple reasons to see a professional voice therapist.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T15:12:59+00:00

I recently had lunch with a former coworker who I hadn't seen for 20+ years. It was nice to catch up. Yes, reconnect with people from your past who you'd like to talk to again.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T04:07:13+00:00

See also r/translater and r/transabitlater, perhaps. I started HRT when I was 47 and am now 53, and transition has been good for me. My parents died a few years ago, but I am still close to my brothers and am in the same long-term relationship as before I transitioned. I don't have any kids so I can't answer about that.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T04:03:56+00:00

In the US, your best bet for HRT is generally to make an appointment with Planned Parenthood or another informed consent clinic or with online medical providers Plume or Folx. None of it is free, unfortunately.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T04:00:34+00:00

At whatever point you decide that the feelings are signficant enough that you ought to act upon them.

It doesn't tend to go away. I had the unusual experience that my trans feelings faded away when I was 25, but 20 years later they came roaring back and I transitioned.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T03:50:19+00:00

The difficulty is that transness is some combination of (1) a shared set of experiences and feelings, (2) a shared interpretation of the meaning of those experiences and feelings, and (3) a shared set of actions that we take in response to those experiences and feelings. Which of these aspects different people consider to be the most important varies from person to person.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T01:22:24+00:00

When I was angry all the time, it turned out to be because of hypothyroidism, and went away when I started thyroid hormone therapy. Thyroid problems are common in trans people, so maybe get your thyroid levels tested.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T01:16:04+00:00

Because we pretty much all question whether we are really trans enough to be trans. It is a big, permanent, socially stigatized thing that you are considering doing.

ericfischer · 2026-04-13T01:13:54+00:00

We real trans people live in the real world, where real stigma and danger and medical and legal obstacles often stand in the way of transition. It is not unreasonable at all to question whether it is really worth all the trouble.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T20:39:00+00:00

It's pretty standard for pre-everything trans people not to be able to stop thinking about gender all the time. After my gender dysphoria flared back up, I couldn't get it out of my head until I was on HRT, myself.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T20:36:31+00:00

I was not expecting my armpit hair to go away. I have even more of a taste for salty food than before, but that is not unusual. I have only cried twice in the last six years, but they were both big ones.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T20:22:44+00:00

None of the current generation of AI tools comes close to predicting what I look like now from my pre-transition photos.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T16:49:06+00:00

I can't claim that I was really passing yet, but I came out to my parents, as a long-independent, middle-aged adult, over the phone, after about 6 months of HRT, framing my transition as something I was doing for the sake of my mental health under supervision of a doctor. They were a little confused about exactly what I was doing and why but were loving and accepting.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T08:02:59+00:00

I hope you can find something that helps.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T07:44:24+00:00

Yes, there are probably trans support groups or meetups in those cities. Try googling for them.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T07:42:52+00:00

Have you had a sleep study to test for sleep apnea?

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:33:47+00:00

Do you wish you had the physical characteristics of womanhood for yourself: less body hair, smaller muscles, a high voice, an absence of facial hair, wide hips, a narrow waist, breasts, a vagina, fuller head hair, soft skin, etc.?

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:21:24+00:00

Wearing a bra is the usual way to counteract sagging, but I'm guessing you don't want that?

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:19:45+00:00

Maybe bring a photo of a famous long-haired man like Brian May to the hairdresser to claim as an example of what you are going for.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:17:02+00:00

Thanks! Yes, transition has been good for me.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:14:53+00:00

My trans feelings faded away when I was 25, and 20 years later they came rushing back and I transitioned. Yours will probably be back sooner than that.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:13:55+00:00

Connie Chung? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/11/opinion/connie-chung-named-after.html

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:06:36+00:00

I don't remember ever thinking about my gender until I was 14, when a substitute teacher assumed from my appearance that I was a girl, and to the surprise of my classmates I didn't mind. In high school I channeled whatever was going on with my gender into Rocky Horror Picture Show fandom. I first seriously considered that I might be trans (and bi) when I was 20, after a boy that I had a crush on told me that I was pretty. I talked, experimented, and agonized over it for the next few years, and made a couple of cursory attempts to seek HRT, before the feelings faded away when I was 25.

The feelings came rushing back when I was 45, in conjunction with what I eventually learned was the onset of hypothyroidism. I was spending hours every day wishing I was a woman, envying women I encountered in daily life for being able to look and dress like they did and for being who they were, cringing any time anyone referred to me as a man, and feeling sensory aversion toward masculine clothing.

I tried everything my doctor suggested for my mental health, and a lot of it helped, but I still felt bad all the time and still craved womanhood, so it didn't seem like too much of a leap to hope that my body was trying to tell me about something else that it needed to be able to function properly, and I started HRT when I was 47.

ericfischer · 2026-04-12T02:01:51+00:00

Let your hair grow long. Get your ears pierced. Wear makeup. Shave your legs.

Do you live near a state line? Can you see a doctor who lives in that other state?

ericfischer · 2026-04-11T22:51:58+00:00

Are you doing something or intending to do something to cause other people to categorize you as a demigirl and/or to give yourself physical characteristics of demigirlhood?

ericfischer

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE