During the spring of 2011, I finally decided to start on the path to transition. I had just graduated college a few months earlier, and I was in the process of trying to obtain some type of employment. I got tired of being so down about not knowing what to do about my gender issues. I decided to go ahead and shoot for the moon. I was not one hundred percent certain of my transsexuality, but it was obvious that I was not comfortable living as a cisgender male
The first step in my transition was to develop a female voice. I did not have the money to do much of anything else at the time. I was also too scared to tell my father that I was a transsexual. I remember when I came out to him as a crossdresser. He was very angry that day. How would I come out as trans to him?
I started researching techniques online regarding developing a female voice in May of 2011. I downloaded a spectrogram and a voice tuner to help me get the correct pitch of a female voice. It turns out that a female voice is only about an octave higher than the voices of most men. The average male voice vibrates between 108-121 hertz while the average female voice vibrates between 200-230 hertz the majority of the time. There are also a few other factors that play into the female voice as well. Resonance and melodic intonation also are very important aspects to developing a feminine sounding voice. Resonance has to do with how much bass a certain vibration holds. Most female voice tutorials always emphasize getting the bass out of one’s chest. The only issue with this piece of knowledge is that all voices have some element of bass to them. If this is true, then how it is possible for a person under the influence of male hormones supposed to develop a natural sounding female voice? Melodic intonation is all about patterns of speech. Women tend to speak more melodically than men a good majority of the time. The only thing that one has to watch for is going up at the end of every sentence, and speaking with false emotion.
Developing a female voice was one of the biggest hurdles I faced as a transgender individual. This is probably the biggest mountain to climb for anyone in the trans community. I cannot believe I chose this challenge to kick of my transition. I always have taken the hard parts of life first.
I eventually told my father about my gender confusion in June of 2011. He wondered why I was being so stupid. He used my college career as evidence for why I was too smart to have gender issues. I told him that I wanted to see a therapist, and he eventually agreed to my proposal. I was surprised that I was brave enough to see a therapist regarding my gender issues. I was scared that he or she would laugh me out of his or her office. I searched for a gender therapist online in the Baltimore area, and I found someone within five minutes. I sent her an e-mail, and she got back to me the next day.
After ten long years of questioning myself, I finally decided to do something in regards to my gender issues. The pain that I felt for quite a few years was starting to turn into happiness. I was going to hit a lot of bumps down this road, but at least I was satisfied with the choice that made.
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