Listening With Your Eyes?

Referring back to the Cyrsti's Condo post "Is It Time", Connie brought up a good point about how people listen with their eyes. I would only add women are more apt to listen with their eyes than men.

Connie's idea started me thinking about how often I mention women deal in more non verbal communication skills than men. Eye to eye communication is a big part of it. If not all of it on occasion.

I remember quite clearly (for once), the times when I was going out cross dressed by myself and a man approached me, for whatever reason. Many times, I was "warned" by one of my cis women friends to steer clear of a potentially bad situation.

As I have often written about too, I learned often a cis woman's verbal comments don't always match what she is thinking and to be careful of where the knife is going to hit your back. Until I began to develop my own sense of confidence and being as a transgender woman, the "phantom" attacks used to bother me more. Until I became accustomed to the more complex sense of community women have.

For more of Connie's comment, follow the link above, then down the post to "comments".

The Devil Made me Do It!

The farther along a person travels down their transgender road, the more they learn about the devil (or angel) being in the details. Forget just how you look, every step or mis-spoken communication carries the possibility of an unpleasant experience. An example would be the times I have written long and often about here in Cyrsti's Condo concerning my major learning experiences in woman to woman communication as I Mtf gender transitioned. Briefly, I found myself in a (sometimes) brave new world. On occasion, the whole experience was just brutal as I was more stubborn than good.

As often happens around here, Connie has a current different perspective to pass along:

FABULOUSCONNIEDEEMarch 20, 2018 at 5:23 PM

"Coming home from downtown, today, I couldn't help but stare at a teenage boy as he stepped off the bus. It wasn't so much that I was staring in judgment, but I was just in amazement that he could move at all with his jeans belted around his thighs. I'll admit that I don't understand why he'd want to dress that way, but I suppose there are plenty of people who can't understand why I dress the way I do. In a way, I think he and I are helping each other, in that the more of us who are deemed "non-understandable" and are visibly just going about our lives, the more we are apt to be tolerated - or, better yet, acceptable.

My bus ride on the way downtown this morning was also interesting. There were few seats available where I could sit alone when I boarded, and, while I'm always hesitant to sit down next to someone in order to avoid a possible negative confrontation, I'm always happy to make room for someone to sit next to me.

As the seats filled up with each stop, a young woman, who had been sitting on one of the side-facing seats at the front of the bus, got up and came back to sit next to me. I had actually been trying not to stare at her earlier; she was a beautiful young black woman with magnificent dreadlocks of black and pink. Unbeknownst to her, though, she had saved me from a potentially awkward situation. An old "friend" of mine boarded the bus, and he took the seat she had left. I avoided eye contact with him the whole trip to downtown, hiding partially behind the woman's voluminous dreads.

Why was I hiding from this guy? Well, since coming out to him years ago, he has almost always misgendered and dead-named me. It was always hard enough to put up with when we were alone, but I'm not about to give him the opportunity to embarrass me in front of a whole busload of people!

There's the one you don't know and the one you know, but one needs to be aware that the devil can be found anywhere. Every once in a while, though, you can also find an angel."

Thanks!

Is It Time?

I was recently reading a Femulate  post in which Stana relayed several of her most asked questions along. One of the questions revolved around establishing a female voice...not just a feminine one.

It is true, no matter how feminine you look, your voice can give you away instantly.

To begin with, I have constant problems with my voice to start with. It is very raspy. Coming from many years working as a disc jockey "back in the day." If I had my choice, I would/could develop a voice which sounds like Jacqueline Bisset.  ( Right)

My problem is I am voice lazy too. Being full time, it is easy to relapse into old voice habits and then try to bring out a more feminine tone when I am out in public. Sometimes I  think I am more successful than others but it doesn't really matter if I am just guessing...does it?

At any rate, I have a couple options. One would be to have Liz help me, or it's possible to schedule an appointment with a VA voice therapist, or finally take a course such as the one Stana recommends called "How to Develop a a Female Voice" by Melanie Anne Phillips.

The only benefit of the first two options are they are free. But then again, you get what you pay for.

My next step is to ask Liz about her opinion and ask my VA therapist if she has heard anything about the in house therapist there. I know she has outside recommendations, but as always, there are financial considerations to look at. Plus, Melanie's course is not that expensive.

I know one thing for sure, the voice status quo is getting old and it's time to do something about it. Instead of my voice being a liability to my transgender presentation, it's time to work on making it a positive.