Day to day life of a former trans woman

[Linde]

Several women here have more or less finished their transition, I am one of them (that i now want to get under the knife again was a separate decision).
drng my day to day life, it is of no importance that I used to live as a man.  I don't get misgendered because nature was friendly to me and did not cause man male characteristic to my body, and now that my voice is almost back, I am not misgendered anymore on the phone either.

However, I am not working anymore, and have a marginal idea only how my working life would have been.  This morning I had the first oil change ever with my new Subaru, and coming to the dealership they automatically assigned a female service advisor to me.  Society sees me as a female, and my legal documentation confirms this.
However, I found also that I lost all of my male privilege, and some people seem to want to try me like this little dumb old lady.  During my male life, i had never used my doctorate title in private life, it was not needed, being a with it looking guy was all what I needed to make my point. 
I found over the last few years living as a woman  that I can get similar kind of privileges only if I say that Dr. Linde XXX wnts to do this or that.  If I just say Linde XXX, I might as well talk to a wall some of the time, specifically if I have specific requests from some physicians or some of the male Latino population here.

Do any of you have similar experiences during your fulltime life as a woman?

Hugs
Linde

 

[Deleted]

I can say it drives me bonkers when my hubby wants me to go with him to go get his truck serviced. He will talk shop with the guys, and all I can do it sit back and twiddle my thumbs. If I pretended to know anything about anything, they shout me down and treat me like a dumb blonde.

It's about as bad when I go shopping for a gun. He think he knows it all, and tells me what he thinks I should have. Today, I went shopping for a new pistol without him, and picked up a nice little Ruger ec9 without his interference.

 

[Linde]

I don't have the problem with a husband telling me what to do, and I never want to have one. But I am still looked at like the stupid old lady, specifically in car repair shops.  Not to long ago one guy in a Firstone shop told me, my car needs a new timing belt, because the old one does not look good.  I had the car in for an oil change, and they did those 20 free safety checks.  Well makes sense, the car had 65 K miles on the clock, and that gets close to the mileage for changing the belt, and they just had a $300 special on timing belts.  Would have been a real good deal.........for the shop!  Because my car had a timing chain, and those don't require a change for the life of the engine.
I am pretty sure, they were ready to fleece me for $300!

Hugs
Linde

 

[Monica]

In my case, I'd say "Bring it on!" I was an auto tech for 30 years. I would play dumb until they say something stupid. I haven't experienced being talked down to yet though. People do tend to talk over more but that may have more to do with my voice. I think I am not as loud or insistent in speaking as I used to be.

 

[Linde]

In my case, I'd say "Bring it on!" I was an auto tech for 30 years. I would play dumb until they say something stupid. I haven't experienced being talked down to yet though. People do tend to talk over more but that may have more to do with my voice. I think I am not as loud or insistent in speaking as I used to be.

Auto stuff was my hobby,and I am now a semi retired wrencher.  I just asked really dumb, how they plan to install the belt, and he started to talk down on me, but I asked what they would do with the timing chain, and he almost fell over backwards that this older woman knows what a timing chain is.  He waffelt out by saying he was talking about another car and had mistaken me for the owner of that one!

Can you train your voice to get more volume?  I can yell as loud as ever (not really, cause female voices do have less volume), but I can be pretty loud.  I had to do several exercises that helped to increase the volume of my voice.

Hugs
Linde

 

[Monica]

If I have to call to someone, I take a deep breath and know that it isn't my best voice but in a job situation, you do what you must do. I think talking works so much better on a deep breath anyway. It's a matter of remembering to do so.

I respect your 'former trans' title but don't know I would use that description myself. There are all kinds of women. Go with it, my friend.

 

[Linde]

If I have to call to someone, I take a deep breath and know that it isn't my best voice but in a job situation, you do what you must do. I think talking works so much better on a deep breath anyway. It's a matter of remembering to do so.

I respect your 'former trans' title but don't know I would use that description myself. There are all kinds of women. Go with it, my friend.

By the way, my voice therapist taught me to breathe more during talking.  She said it is a typical male talking pattern thing to not take air in during the different parts of a sentence, and that, at the end of the sentence, one runs out of air, and that causes male to go lower with their voices at the end, cause they have not enough air left, to keep the voice higher pitched.
I am trying now to breath more during talking, and I can easily keep the end going up instead of down now.  I am now not misgendered on the phone anymore either, I seem to have even a little higher pitch than I had prior to me losing my voice.
As far as I remember, you had voice surgery, am I correct?  What is the pitch level you have now as an average?

For myself, I have a problem to hang on to the transgender prefix, because I am still not sure if I ever have been what one could call transgender, or if I was simply misgendered and tried to live that false roll?  I know very well that only very few women are like I am, and it is hard to always find the right wording to be all inclusive.
But I did not make a judgement about other women here, I just could not think about another heading for women who felt they had reached the end of their transition road, and live their day to day life now.
If you can come up with a better heading, I can easily modify the current one.  I want this to be as inclusive as possible.

Hugs
Linde

 

[Maddie]

Breathing while speaking.  I will keep your voice therapist's advice in mind.  Next time I actually talk with someone.

Do you have pet alligators in the jungle?

 

[Linde]

Do you have pet alligators in the jungle?

There might be alligators, I don't go into there, cause there are also all kinds of less friendly snakes.  One of the major canals which is alligator central, is only a few hundred yards away from my house.  If there are in there, they for sure are no pets of mine!

Hugs
Linde

 

[Monica]

Linde, your situation is indeed different than the typical trans woman. I urge no change in your title. In your case, you could view it as never being trans at all, I think. Your call on that one! Although I am basically done with transition, I guess I feel no need to embrace or distance myself from the term trans. It's like being an American. There are all sorts of descriptors that can precede saying I'm an American, like German-American, etc. but it doesn't change that I'm an American. I'm a woman. I sometimes describe myself as a trans women when it is useful to the discussion, but it doesn't in any way detract from me being a woman. I'm a trans American too, but how often is that relevant to the discussion. lol

No, I have had voice therapy but no surgery. In therapy, breathing is the first thing to work on. I have a decent voice at times. The things that fight against my best voice are being tired, having flem in my throat (a big issue for me), forgetting what rules I have learned and falling into old patterns, and the psychological issue of changing your voice in front of people who know your voice as a male voice once. That is a battle.

 

[Linde]

The things that fight against my best voice are being tired, having flem in my throat (a big issue for me), forgetting what rules I have learned and falling into old patterns, and the psychological issue of changing your voice in front of people who know your voice as a male voice once. That is a battle.

Thanks for your opinion Moni.  I still feel that I belong to the trans community, cause that is as close as I can come to my situation of having lived as a male and living now as a woman.

Flem is a big problem for me, too, and the voice starts to sound like the exhaust of a two cycle engine at times.  The pathologist says it is because i don't know how to swallow properly, and I had to do homework with different swallowing exercises.  I have way less flem now, following the way I have learned I should swallow.  I  have no problems falling into my old pattern, now that I breathe more, and my sentences are ending on a higher note.  I don't have the battle with voice changing in front of old friends, I like it when they comment telling me how nice of a female voice I have now.

I wonder if it would pay off, to do a Skype session with people interested in learning what I have learned during my training to get my voice back.  Getting it back would be not that different from any other trans woman working on her female voice.
It is to hard to try to teach this in writing only, but I am very willing to share it with other women here.

Hugs
Linde

Ps.: I would love to have such a decorative figurine for my fridge, can you please tell me where I can get one?
Linde

 

[Monica]

Ps.: I would love to have such a decorative figurine for my fridge, can you please tell me where I can get one?
Linde

Ha, ha, I can honestly say I've never been called that before! Sad to say, my mother stopped making them quite some time ago.