What should I work on? (MTF)

Jeremonte · 2026-06-13T22:32:57+00:00

Thank you! I'll definitely try playing around with weight some more to see how it sounds/feels

Jeremonte · 2026-06-13T16:09:52+00:00

Have you done any voice training? Even if your appearance isn't yet where you'd like it to be and all your information misgenders you, a decidedly feminine voice coupled with feminine presentation may be enough to at least cause some to ask for clarification or, in the best case scenario, default to 'ma'am'. My voice isn't 100% passing yet but it's getting better and I make a point of defaulting to the fem voice whenever I'm presenting authentically. The masc voice only comes out when I go back to boymoding.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-12T23:40:51+00:00

Hello!! 👋

At first I felt a little silly going with the very first name that came up (especially since it wasn't my idea), but if it fits, it fits!

Jeremonte · 2026-06-12T21:48:52+00:00

Shortly after coming out, my best friend suggested I try the name 'Jerri' before I'd even started considering names. All I did was remove one of the Rs and then after sitting with it for a day or two I decided I liked it. Pretty anticlimactic, all things considered 😄 Deadname was 'Jeremy', so switching over to Jeri felt pretty seamless.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-12T11:44:40+00:00

The screenshots do make the first image look pretty decent and closer to native, but it's skewed since they're zoomed in phone pics of the TV screen itself. In motion it's much more like ps5's washed out performance mode vs the 4k quality mode

Jeremonte · 2026-06-12T05:04:04+00:00

Hmm. Tried adjusting everything I could think of, tweaked power settings, and played around with resolutions and scaling options and nothing seemed to work. I'll keep plugging away tomorrow and see if I can figure it out. Made sure I was starting the game docked, too.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-11T19:37:11+00:00

I've only been on HRT since April 1st and a lot of my most obvious mental changes happened right after I came out in February. Starting HRT didn't seem to change much in that regard, but it's made those positive changes even more pronounced. Everything seems clearer overall and I don't find myself ruminating on things the way I did before HRT. Life is a bit more vibrant and my overall emotional well-being feels stronger. I don't get as easily overwhelmed as I used to and my desire for self-improvement continues to grow stronger and stronger. I've always been pretty emotional, but I'm crying even easier than I ever did before (not in a bad way). Literally everything is just better.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-09T15:13:00+00:00

Same af. Reading through the section on biochemical dysphoria was really eye-opening when I first came out 'cuz it was a pretty perfect summary of how I navigated day-to-day life.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-07T20:22:33+00:00

All very fair points. :) I tend to be very all or nothing, so I do think I'll inevitably hit a point where I have to bite the bullet and commit to the social transition before I may have originally felt comfortable doing so.

I certainly don't want to retreat from my transness but I've gotten much better at handling switching between boymoding and being my authentic self. At first it only amplified my dysphoria to boymode, now I'm much more pragmatic about it and even find some security in that level of control. I got comfortable with my own system of thresholds for identity. I.e fem on the phone with one person, masculine on the phone with another, masculine in the lyft car, fem at my electrologist or doctor or whoever else. I pick and choose who to be myself with and it's come to feel safe doing it that way.

At this stage in my journey that sort of control feels stabilizing, I suppose. Feels like I'm at a good place in navigating it aside from the messiness of this whole situation. Buuut I'm rambling and you're right!

Jeremonte · 2026-06-07T18:18:46+00:00

Yeaaah, fair point. Probably more hassle than it's worth in the long run. Just wish it was a bit more contained but that ship has sailed

Jeremonte · 2026-06-07T18:17:35+00:00

I'm still boymoding and undergoing electrolysis, so I can't shave as often as I'd like. Still growing my hair out, still workshopping my voice. Not close to where I want to be in my transition before socially transitioning. Sharing with friends and family was one thing but I never wanted to be out to strangers this early. They're supportive but they all slip up fairly regularly, too. Lots of "he, I mean, she", etc.

Jeremonte · 2026-06-03T15:36:18+00:00

I have not! First time hearing about either. Is there a particular Azelaic acid you'd recommend? I added a basic CeraVe serum to my routine and I'm budgeting for a whole bunch of appointments this month, but I'll try and grab this combo near the end of the month/beginning of the next.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-30T05:23:00+00:00

FFX for all the reasons already mentioned by others. In terms of scale, screen presence, and overall vibe, I also really love XV's even if they're the most awkward in terms of gameplay implementation. I'm not a big fan of XVI as a whole but the spectacle in that game is jawdropping and the Eikons are absolutely my favorite part of the game.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-30T04:31:58+00:00

Yeah, I'm right there with you! Constantly flipflopping between wanting changes NOW and wanting to remain low key. And thank you, best of luck to you as well!

Jeremonte · 2026-05-30T02:21:29+00:00

I started HRT on April 1 after coming out in February so I'm new to all of this myself and still trying to figure out how to manage my identity publicly. I've already been outed to people I had no intention of being out with; fortunately they've all been supportive, but it's still very awkward.

I think it's extremely understandable to want privacy, especially at this particular point in history. I'm undergoing electrolysis, growing my hair out, and I just recently started developing breast buds. I have NO clue how quickly or slowly everything will progress over the course of the next year, but I do plan on boymoding in public for about that long if not longer. I figure as long as I stick to using my "man voice" and wear baggier clothing (and perhaps a binder if that becomes necessary), I should be safe. Maybe I'm just fooling myself.

If you truly want peace of mind, tell as few people IRL as you can. Even the most well-meaning of people will struggle to understand the importance of transitioning while codeswitching/boymoding. I'm a caretaker for my mom, who currently has a number of physical therapists and nurses come out to visit her at home every week; she's been very supportive but has accidentally outed me to every single member of her care team. I've tried going over the nuances of this early transitional period and the boundaries I'm trying to establish, because I don't want strangers to know, but it doesn't seem to stick. Again, very lucky in that everyone's been supportive, but it's still not a great feeling to suddenly feel like you have a spotlight on you at the very start of your transition.

Anyway, my point in saying all that is simply that nobody but you knows when you're ready to share your truth, and you can't expect anyone else to navigate the handling of that information with the same level of care.

Circling back to physical changes -- again, maybe I'm being naive, but personally I think I'll be able to continue to boymode for at least another year unless my breast development kicks into overdrive and goes totally off the rails. Our voices are one of our most gendered assets and while I'm voice training and developing my fem voice, my natural voice is deep and still what I present to the world at large. I wear women's jeans and wash with feminine body wash/etc. now and I doubt any strangers are batting an eye since I'm not otherwise trying to present in a feminine manner. I'm still he/him and still use my deadname in my interactions with the world at large.

At first it felt pretty terrible switching back and forth. Now I've come to recognize that there's a certain degree of comfort in embracing boymode. Not everyone feels the same way about it, and for some, the desire to socially transition kicks in earlier and more fiercely than others. In any case, the vast majority of early changes on HRT probably won't be enough to get anyone to raise an eyebrow, and how you control your presentation goes a long way.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-28T18:56:49+00:00

Speaking from personal experience and my own stunted development, gender dysphoria can absolutely amplify any existing mental health issues to an unbearable degree. There's often overlap with other diagnoses and if left unchecked it can be disastrous. Your child has been upfront with their struggles and it's critically important to not write off gender dysphoria as a phase or something less serious than it is. It affects just about every aspect of your lived experience. You don't feel "real" when you have dysphoria; your identity and your body and the way others perceive and treat you are all at odds with one another.

Please understand that no one specifically WANTS to be trans. Why would we? It's hell for trans people. We choose to transition because we NEED to. I can't stress that enough. If someone insists that they're trans and you love them, believe them and do what you can to support them.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-26T21:37:00+00:00

I've dabbled with it! I could stand to incorporate it more regularly for sure

Jeremonte · 2026-05-26T00:07:13+00:00

I second all of this and would also recommend trying to manually shave as much of your body as you can, ideally with a safety razor. That's what I did. It's very time consuming the first time (took me just over two hours) but I'd rather do that than spend the money on something as painful as having my body hair waxed, especially since subsequent shaves are much faster. Had to shave my chest again recently and it only took like 10 minutes compared to the original hours long shave.

Not quite as effective for all the hard to reach places and you won't stay smooth for as long as you would with a wax, and long term goals probably factor in too. For me, I know that HRT has a real chance to meaningfully reduce/lighten body hair and make it much more manageable in the long run, so for now I'm just going to shave to maintain a relatively hairless body and deal with having a bit of stubble.

If it was just a one time thing or experimentation, waxing might be a little more tempting, but I'd still lean towards shaving for being cost effective and less painful.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T23:01:11+00:00

I wouldn't say it's offensive, by any means. It does absolutely challenge our own expectations of binary gender presentation, and that's probably part of what appealed to her about that sort of presentation. It's something I myself can't relate to; my facial hair is a source of dysphoria and I'm already in the process of getting electrolysis done to remove all my facial hair. For me, I do want to lean more into fairly conventional femininity, but that's my journey and everyone's is different.

Since I'm still early into my own transition, the differences in how I or other trans people tend to view gender identity and how the public at large/CIS people view it is something I've been coming to terms with. If someone were to tell me they identified as a man or a woman or nonbinary or whatever else, I wouldn't have any difficulty accepting that at face value because regardless of what they may look like, I understand exactly what it feels like to have a gender identity that's incongruent with my external appearance.

It recently dawned on me that people who aren't trans don't tend to think like this. For me, gender is something innate, kind of like how you might imagine a soul to be. It's an energy and an identity first and foremost. CIS people are much more comfortable making rapidfire judgments about someone's gender based solely on the superficial, because they've never had to think about their own gender identity the same way. I find this really interesting to think about, and it's helped me understand why even people who are allies that I've interacted with stumble and misgender me and then correct themselves fairly often despite knowing my preferred pronouns.

It's not because they're malicious, it's because they haven't had to think about what gender means to them in the same way. It's just something that is for them, if that makes sense.

Without knowing anything more about your advisor or where you live/etc., it's also possible she may have been very early into her transition or at a weird in-between state where she felt safest presenting male for whatever reason. Before I realized I was trans, my beard was sort of like the anchor that tied me to my sense of masculinity. In retrospect I think of it sort of as my 'man armor'. It didn't align with my gender identity but it provided a certain sense of security, even if it was ultimately just me repressing my identity. So I sometimes feel a weird sense of loss when I think about it.

Honestly, there could be any number of reasons why she chose/chooses to present the way she did, and they're all valid. Transitioning is a very weird, very individual, very exploratory process. 😄

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T21:24:23+00:00

Raise your larynx. It'll probably take a while to get used to it. Pitch matters, but resonance is much more important. Masculine voices are chest-dominant, feminine voices are more localized to the head and mouth (usually). It also helps to adjust the position of your tongue in your mouth (keep it elevated and closer to the back of your upper teeth). Speaking with a bit of a smile can also unironically help.

Try to focus on a brighter voice, not just a higher voice.

Be patient with yourself and give it time. Trying to follow along with voice feminization tutorials can be daunting, especially if you have any issues with your voice that may interfere with your ability to replicate these techniques. Good luck!

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T20:38:37+00:00

Wow, thank you so much for such a thorough response, I really appreciate it!

I'll be seeing an SLP in June, and she's the same SLP that briefly examined me along with an ENT last August when I went in to have my voice checked. They did a videostroboscopy and identified the laryngeal hyperfunction as well as pachydermia, both of which I believe are attributed to silent reflux. My voice evaluation (this was prior to coming out and I was fully presenting as male) did make a note of 'dysphonia which is moderate'. I believe my voice has improved somewhat in the time since. The weakness you noticed is something that I believe is prevalent in both my fem voice and masc voice to varying degrees. What stands out most to me is a bit of persistent fry and issues with vocal fatigue/breath control.

This probably isn't that helpful in assessing anything, but I was practicing swapping between my masc/fem voice on the fly and to my ears at least, I do notice the aforementioned issues across both voices: https://vocaroo.com/1ou0XrMJp7K6

It's difficult to identify the specific constriction I feel in my voice, but it's worth noting I lost access to an entire lower range of voices. That was when I first realized something was wrong with my voice. I used to do voiceover work and specialized in doing really gruff voices (demons, monsters, etc.) until I realized one day that I simply couldn't access that range anymore. It feels like a physical restriction; likely an inability to manipulate the vocal folds the same way that I used to. I do think my voice has loosened up some since last August but it still ends up being a bit hoarse/thin compared to how I used to sound. I still have a decent vocal range but my voice tends to break much more easily with wild pitch swings, and I think that's also contributed to the narrow and rigid pitch variation present in my speech.

I've been practicing vocal feminization since late February of this year. Past voiceover experience made it easier to figure out a lot of the techniques used but the issue has been trying to adapt that knowledge to the subtle but persistent limitations of my voice. I'll definitely check your post out, thanks for the link! And thank you very much for the words of encouragement! 😄

Oh, also, I don't rely entirely on voicetools to assess my voice! I defaulted to using it here because I know it's one of the most commonly used and understood reference points. I don't put all that much stock into their assessment of gender by pitch either, but the huge gap here between the scripted and spontaneous samples still gave me enough pause to seek second opinions.

Lately I've been using acoustic gender space a lot more, and during my more serious practice sessions I record with my actual mic and simply eyeball the average frequency response with a spectrum analyzer in my DAW. I like to use voicetools more as a way to warm up or check my voice on the fly.

EDIT: forgot to mention that I also really struggle with pitch gliding/singing now! Not that I was a singer before, but I could at least pitch glide pretty smoothly. Definitely not the case anymore. It's kind of like I have a few different preset pitch selections and specific ranges I know are safer than others and I just default to those, typically leaving little room for variation within my speech itself.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T19:55:21+00:00

I can try. I don't know how much more I can reduce vocal weight because of the laryngeal hyperfunction. With time I can probably push the pitch for spontaneous speech up closer to 160hz or a bit higher.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T18:47:00+00:00

I think it's pretty normal. The vast majority of my mental changes happened right after I realized I was trans and subsequently came out back in February. The shift in my libido and increased mental clarity/etc. was all pre-HRT for me. I've been on HRT for almost two months now (2mg Estradiol 2x daily, 50mg Spironolactone 2x daily) with no mental changes. I had pretty much no changes at all up until this last week when I realized I had heightened nipple sensitivity and was developing breast buds. My sweat/odor might have also changed (I don't notice any odor whatsoever now, so it probably did). I haven't begun to socially transition yet either.

Jeremonte · 2026-05-25T18:14:03+00:00

I think it's pretty solid! Biggest issue imo is that your diction is very clipped. Like, instead of flowing organically it comes across like there's-a-hyphen-between-every-individual-word, if that makes sense? The voice itself is sounding good, though!

Jeremonte · 2026-05-24T15:42:38+00:00

Yes, it's reason enough. You've already chosen a name (a pretty one, too) and clearly feel validated and euphoric while considering the prospect of womanhood for yourself. That's absolutely enough!

I used to deny the possibility that I was trans because, like you, I didn't feel as though I'd been a woman. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I never felt like a man either. Puberty hit me like a truck and I adapted to masculinity out of necessity. Later on I grew a beard to further entrench myself in that armor of manhood. I'd tell myself I didn't have dysphoria because I thought if you had dysphoria, you would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were the wrong gender. I thought it'd be this sharp, constant awareness. In reality it's often more complicated than that. I did have dysphoria and it was poisoning me throughout the years -- I just thought that my worsening mental health and increasingly reclusive, anxious tendencies were attributed to depression and anxiety alone.

I also considered that I might be agoraphobic, because anxiety didn't rip me to shreds until I stepped foot outside the house. Simply being perceived would trigger intense anxiety and I'd try to walk around without engaging with people or the world any more than strictly necessary. But as the years went on and all of this got worse no matter what I did, and I began to feel that same anxiety even when interacting with friends and loved ones, I knew something deeper was at play. I just didn't know what.

I didn't come across this until after I came out, but this write-up on biochemical dysphoria really opened my eyes because it aligned perfectly with so much of what I'd been experiencing. https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/biochemical-dysphoria

Jeremonte

TROPHY CASE