When I was 35 20 years ago I went out like twice a week and thought I passed, I didn't. Now I know I don't pass and I'm ok with it.
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When I was 35 20 years ago I went out like twice a week and thought I passed, I didn't. Now I know I don't pass and I'm ok with it.
For the OP; going out fully dressed and 'done up' as you say, is entirely up to whether you feel you can handle the potential backlash you might experience. As long as you make sure to stay safe, and can disregard any ill spoken words about you, I think you'll be fine. Just remember that you'll then be 'out', with all the potential ramifications that might bring as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jennifer Michelle
That said, good luck! Enjoy your time dressed as you wish to be.
Boy, is that an understated classic! Yes, well, duh.:bonk:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jennie-cd
Jennifer,
I use to ask if I was passable or not but after going out to my first social group meeting a year ago the thought and need fades away. I have had all favourable comments like being called a convincing woman and some have said I'm passable , the point is it really doesn't matter, once you've gone out the door it become irrelevant , try not to act it , I feel comfortable dressed and it makes me happy and that's what carries it off. I don't put on a false voice and don't overdo the feminine movements which isn't possible anyway in some heels.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Juanita S
im conflicted with this one, firstly how does a female not pass as female.
on the other hand how do you know they were indeed female....
Not wanting to pick a fight over what may be a stray comment, but voice work is among the most crucial and frequently neglected of going-out skills. I view my two voices as one-real and one-mask. The mask is the one I was pretty much forced to develop as masculine cover. The one I feel is the one I have to remember when I don't need cover.Quote:
Originally Posted by Teresa
Few things will destroy a good illusion like a typical male monotone; it can be jarring. It's not easy to find your feminine voice, but it's not an impossible task. There's a threshold of believability that isn't a little-girl voice or something you wouldn't wonder about on the other end of a phone call, but your voice in a different style.
Lots of tips and advice to be had here and all over the Internet, but we overlook it at our peril.
I don't believe passing is a prerequisite to going out.
In my opinion very few people are passable if they are looked at closely. The word I like to use is blending in. If you are wearing age appropriate clothes, venue appropriate clothes and have no obvious male markers like a beard you will most likely blend in. That means that most people will not notice that your anything but a woman.
If you are appropriately dressed then even if your are picked it probably will not matter as most people are respectful. Also remember that there are lots of GG's who have very masculine characteristics. There are GG's with wide shoulders, flat chests, thin hips, deep voices etc,
Acastina,
I've been going out socially for a year now, our group is a mix of TGs and TSs, not one of us puts on a false voice, to most of us it's not an act ,we are comfortable in how we present ourselves. To continually change your voice is impossible people are going to pick up on that and comment . To take Jen at home's point none of us are going to fool anyone , they all know we are male to some degree , besides not all women have high pitched voices. I don't feel in any peril because I attempt to keep the whole situation as natural as possible.
I make money with my voice, I sing professionally. While the hormones have raised it a slight bit (maybe a 1/3rd) it hasn't moved me into the alto/soprano or even close. I have changed cadence and lilt but I remain in a lower register. Also I have several friends who don't alter their voice except to be softer or change cadence. I also have friends who do go to a falsetto and they sound fake. Personally it outs them faster than their body style. One starts the conversation in falsetto then drops to a medium level (and I think more believable) voice. So what I am saying is, I don't think you need to play the voice card unless you are basso profundo. I have met women with lower registers than mine. Several actresses make fortunes with tenor level voices.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acastina
People like Jim Neighbors was the opposite and the girl who was in the top 3 of the voice was also, her smokey contralto/tenor wowed the world. So many here focus on nuances, small tells that will often give you away because you over do them...take them to an obvious extreme. If you can pull off a headtone voice and maintain it without sounding fake, great. But my experience is that most can't
I have seen real woman out there who do not pass as a female.....lol. Just go out and enjoy yourself and do the best you can with what you have.
I believe people appreciate someone who tries to pass.
vicky again conflicted, see post #55
Do what makes you happy, so long as you feel safe. Since my guy is just a guy in women's clothing, passing isn't even a goal. Neck down, he could easily pass, but he's got a handsome face and short hair. Still, he looks incredibly cute dressed and, more importantly, it makes him visibly happy. Let them see your joy more than your gender.
What is the difference between a crossdresser and a transsexual except in the mind? It's true that the transsexual may have had body parts added or modified, but these things can't normally be seen when the person is dressed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jenniferathome
As for passing, there is passing and there is "passing". When I was a teenager, my friends and I had old cars. We would judge our cars by how far away you had to be for them to look good. You might have a ten foot car or you might have a thirty foot car.
Passing is the same. A crossdresser might pass walking down the sidewalk to someone driving by in a car but not pass sitting down in a restaurant with bright lighting. A crossdresser might pass in a bar full of drunks but not in Home Depot or the library. And of course, there's no way to know if you passed or not. If someone tells you you passed, you didn't. Your best indication is if you don't get any looks, jeers, etc.
Maury Povich used to have contests on his TV show where "women" would come out and the audience would guess if they were really male or female. They got fooled many times.
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I can't recall ever seeing a female who didn't pass (assuming you mean pass as a female). I did have one encounter with a person in a business where I couldn't tell if it was male or female. That is one time in many, many years. FDR was president when I was born.Quote:
Originally Posted by Juanita S
Teresa, that whole matrix of things we lump together into the concept of passing doesn't have a lot of relevance within TG social/support groups; you all already know about each other. My point was that, out among the general public, a typical male voice might as well be a flashing red light over your head, and it truly is difficult to alter the way we speak. Many people, for example, are surprised (and sometimes dismayed) by how they sound when they hear a recording of themselves. As males, we are (sometimes brutally as we're growing up) conditioned to strip emotion from our voices, unless the emotion is something like anger or cheering for one's team or singing, and that flat-affect delivery is uncommon among females, so it's a tell.
I'm thinking of a TG musician who frequented our open mic events for a period of months. Her appearance was everyday passable, very good, in fact. But she made zero effort with her voice, so everyone knew she was TG. Not that it mattered. Everyone liked her because she was polite and friendly and so forth. Her musical talents were mediocre, in part because she sang like a guy, not even like an androgynous person, let alone anything like even a husky-voiced female vocalist. We don't judge the mediocre harshly, so the whole gang of regulars was fine with her. I'm just saying that in her case it was a glaring tell on something she was otherwise doing very well with publicly. If she's comfortable with that, I'm fine, but it may well cause issues in certain circumstances.
And I take issue with two words: "false" and "fool". I think they degrade what's going on. Is a mother's scolding voice "false" while her nurturing tone is true? I developed a second tone of voice, which includes intonation, accent, inflection, gestures, and the conscious incorporation of freer expression of emotion, to set my presentation apart from my cover-mask male persona. You live 24/7 as a female for most of a decade, you get a lot of chances to practice, and you pick up a lot of cues when it's not getting the job done. And I don't see passing/blending as "fooling" anyone, It's persuasion, tipping the balance of perception in the direction we want to achieve. "Fooling" connotes deception, fraudulence, and that cheapens our sincerity needlessly.
It's a LOT easier to put on a good physical look with clothes and accessories and makeup and hair, to be a Krisi's twenty-foot woman (nice concept, Krisi; I've had a couple of cars that I'd cleaned up to where I felt they looked pretty good from across the street...), than it is to develop a presentation that is believable enough for everyday use in the real world. We can't change our basic physiological basis of pitch, but, within our comfortable vocal ranges, we can craft a more believable tone of voice. It's hard, because it's something most cis-people never give a thought to, and if anyone doesn't feel it's important or necessary, absolutely not my problem. To me, it's important, and an accomplishment I'm proud of. The OP was about passability.
Lorileah, I've never heard of HRT actually raising pitch at all. When you say a third, do you mean a third of an octave (singer-speak...), and does that mean your useful range shifted upward? I knew one TG whose trachea shave was apparently overdone and deprived her of a lot of her vocal ability; she was really bummed by it. I also understand that efforts to surgically tighten the vocal cords generally fail to accomplish the desired result, and at best yield an unnatural Minnie Mouse tone. The FtM guys get lower pitch from their T, but E does nothing to raise ours, and FtMs who are singers have reported serious degradation of their tone.
My range is basically low tenor, although I can go deep if needed, and I have a strong, clear falsetto when I want that, but I'd never try to speak in falsetto. I agree, that would be "fake". But, as you correctly say, we can change "cadence and lilt", and that's my point.
I've always believed that it's not about "passing" so much as "presenting".
Very few of us have the bone structure and other characteristics that would make us indistinguishable from a genetic woman to the majority of people we encounter.
When I go out I know that many will not see me as passing, but the way I "present" myself to the public I feel is more important. I display myself as a woman, dress appropriately for where I'm going, carry myself with dignity and "own it". By that I mean that I am confident that I belong there as much as anyone else and if I am seen as other that female then so be it. I don't try to hide or be a wall flower. I am confident in who I am and where I am. I feel that that is accepted by most and is more important to them than the fact that they recognize I am not female.
I've met a couple of crossdressers with natural speaking voices that could pass as female or male. Practicing (or not) the art of speaking like a woman is a personal choice. I would probably develop a more girly drawl if I dressed 24/7, but I haven't done much dressing in public at all.
It would be interesting to hear audio clips of those using a female voice wouldn't it?
I posted last year that while out a young GG saw me sitting in the car dressed, came over and told me "You look amazin'". Well by deduction I can't be that "amazin'" as I was read. I guess what I do is not draw the attention of the casual observer. My "presentation", (this is a word that's going to gain momentum here) is such that (I think) I blend into a crowd. That is all that all but the very blessed can hope and expect to achieve. The trick for anyone teetering on the edge of going out is to realise that being read is not the show stopper you think it is.
As for voice. A couple of years ago I sat and chatted to a GG who was a voice coach. She told me the very worst thing to do is talk falsetto. Sing the note doh at your natural pitch. Go up to Ray or Me. Somewhere around there is what you aim for but speak in a softer tone. It's not so far from your natural voice that you're straining and if you do fall back the change isn't so noticeable. It's also very easy to practice.
A "do-re-mi" drill is probably a very useful exercise in raising one's speaking pitch within the natural range. It will sound different to your own ears but not be unnaturally out of your own pipes' sound capacity. That's one of the ways I monitor my second voice; can I hear the difference?
I consider myself as a plausible woman, I could be a woman just don't look too close. As far as my voice goes I have recorded my own voice, I sound like Mr. Rodgers, close enough.
Jaymee,
"I consider myself as a plausible woman". I like the term "Plausible". Perhaps the definition of "Blending" should be "Plausible Presentation". Works for me!
This is one of those occasions when I want a 'like' button, rather than having to type a few lines just to say that I agree entirely with Helen. 'Plausible' is the word, where plausibility increases with distance! At 100yds I'm plausible as a woman; at six inches, not so much!
Yes, plausible, absolutely. There are seven billion of us, after all, no two alike. All we're trying to do is nudge anyone who stops to ponder which flavor we might be in the desired direction. Plausibly we go.
To me, "dressing to blend" means "dressing to hide". I can hide at home and dress anyway I like! :heehee:
It is defiantly presentation. When we are out and about. Act as feminine as you can and people will look at you as female and call you mam. But try to present as well as you can. it works wonders. Also be kind and social.
OMG. "Presentable" is the word I've been meaning to use! That's exactly how I want to dress for going out in public. In the past, I've been using the word "appropriate", which is close, but not as accurate. Thanks for that.
Presentable and plausible are both great words if one is both one will more than likely blend in. Blending is not hiding for me, it is attempting to just look like one of the other women out and about.
Whatever you think is making you not "passable" work on it. My first time out was a disaster. I wore a short sleeve t-shirt style top that I liked and have since learned did not flatter my body type at all. As I left the shoe store the SAs actually came to the window to look and laugh. I haven't felt that small in forever. I have since learned to dress for my body type, worked on my voice, and the way I walk and stand. And the biggest part was I lost about 30lbs of muscle. But it is a continual work in progress. I believe I am pretty good at being able to tell when I don't pass and lately I have been doing a lot better. Except for this one dress I have, everytime I wear it I seem to get read. Love the outfit though so I keep wearing it.
I met a middle age person a few years ago that I assumed was a man. Relatively deep voice, rough around the edges from physical labor and too much sun exposure from working outside. It was not until several months later my S.O., who has know this person all her life, told me Pat was in fact a she. The deep voice came from smoking and she, while physically fit, just did not take care of herself very well.Quote:
Originally Posted by mikell
It can happen
To answer the original post(if I can remember now what that was). I am very selective about where and when I go out dressed. I do not have a snowballs chance in you know where of passing myself off as female. At 6'2" with broad shoulders blending in dressed is difficult, I even stand out as a guy in many crowds when I am in full guy mode. I have seen photos of myself in a crowd and I seem to stand out as the large fellow towering above those around me. I guess I need to find out where NBA and NFL players hang out so I can look physically smaller
Damn! Was that hard to give up? Every time I dress I look at the triceps of my 14.5 inch arms and say, "I have to stop working out my arms. I look like a female crossfit competitor with a male head transplant." But then when I go into man mode the mind changes. Man mode says, "Are you seriously willing to let your arms wither and die to 12 inches or less just for this?"Quote:
Originally Posted by KimberlyJean
For me I'd go with presentable, for daytime outings I dress to blend, for evening I'll glam it up and vary my look.
Where I come from, "presentable" means clean and tidy, hair done, dressed appropriately for the occasion - in short, fit to be seen by whoever may see you wherever your going! See also "fit to be let out (of the house)". For instance, I frequently ask my wife, "Am I presentable?", before heading out to work.
So, for me, "presentable" doesn't suggest success in emulating a woman in the way that "plausible" does.
I don't think I'm passable, but I have had some good days when it all seemed to go right - clothes, make-up, wig etc, and have walked past numerous people who didn't bat an eyelid.
One thing I do know is that when I am fully dressed with make-up and wig, I am not recognisable as myself as a man. SO, if I go out and people spot that I am a man, (or have one of those "is she, isn't she?" moments), it doesn't matter that much because nobody will recognise me.
I live in an area where there are a fair number of transgender people, so it's not unusual to see somebody dressed as a woman who might not be genetically a woman. So, I think for me, it's a lot easier because the general public are getting quite used to it.
Loving winter though, because I can wear thick tights, a big coat, hat. gloves and scarf, which cover a whole host of things that might normally give me away. Especially the gloves.
Rax, at my heaviest I weighed in at 265lbs. I had already lost some of that weight prior to my first outing. Right now I still weigh in between 210-220, so still not small. I want to get to 200lbs by the end of this year. The biggest thing that keeps me going out is the fact that I see women bigger than me all the time and long sleeve tops are a must.
Good for you, Kimberly. Hitting your goal looks like a sure thing, so keep up whatever you are doing. I just recently committed to a serious weight loss regimen and I know what a slog it was for you so, again, well done!Quote:
Originally Posted by KimberlyJean
Hugs,
Kelly
Mikell, thanks so much for sharing Brooke's video with us. She is very pretty and very informative. To bottom line it, we have to just be completely happy with ourselves. I am so glad I now have approval to cross dress from my loving wife. Even having to hide my cross dressing for years, I was always happy with myself and my desire to dress up as a beautiful girl. I now am so happy and relieved that my wife finally is accepting of my cross dressing. I feel so free and relieved and don't ever have to worry about hearing that garage door open an hour or two or three before it's her usual time to arrive home from work. We are both very happy and accepting fully now of who we completely are as a loving couple and two loving individuals. I hope those who are in the closet are able to come out soon and be accepted by their wife or significant other. Thanks again for sharing Brooke's video. You can tell she is happy with who she is and so are all of her friends....Hugs to you for the video...Scarlett
Well that's easy for her to say ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by mikell
The only thing, while out in public, that would give me away is my voice and when I do eventually go somewhere where I have to interact with another girl in the mall, the movie theater, or a restaurant, I have no plans on attempting to change my voice at all. I am proud of who I am just like I am.
I am blessed to have been born with the body and the face that allows me to be seen as a man or a girl. I am 5' 10" tall and always weigh between 165 and 175. For some reason, I have the curves of a girl as you can see from the photos I post. Now I don't have breasts so I had to purchase those of which I have the foam ones with no nipples and the gel ones that look just like original gorgeous female breasts. I wear a 38 C bra size that has a perfect fit depending on the brand I like to buy.
When I was a young boy and even a teenager, many of my guys I played sports with had parents who told me on numerous occasions I was too pretty to be a boy. I just always smiled and took that as a compliment. I didn't know that one day I would want to dress up from head to toe as a pretty girl and have a lot of fun doing it.
In the near future, I will have more opportunities to go out to the above mentioned places and will eventually go and interact first with some girls who I think, based on where they work - like Sally's Beauty Supply or girl's clothing shops or departments in the mall - I'll have no reservations of using my natural voice and talking to them with no sense of not belonging or feeling out of place.
Well, that's it for know and thanks for reading my post...Sincerely Scarlett
Nice! Keep it up and maybe drop another 50 lbs! 200 is too conservative a goal for a whole year!Quote:
Originally Posted by KimberlyJean
I'm definitely "presentable" and try to blend in the crowd as I find most people are not even looking at you. I think at nighttime I've fooled some people though (was called miss a couple of times on my last night out lol) but during daytime it's very obvious I'm not passable so I just try to dress well