Arrival

First of all, I am pretty much a technologically challenged old geek. Thus, one of the weekend challenges was learning how to navigate around Columbus, Ohio using the Uber car service. After I learned how easy and relatively inexpensive it was, I found I could relax much more seeing as I didn't have to worry about drinking and driving.

Club Diversity, Columbus, Ohio

Every year, Liz and I make it a point to going to a venue called Club Diversity. It's in a old Victorian style house just south of Downtown Columbus. "Diversity" is unique in that it is owned by a transgender woman and has a truly unique clientele.

Saturday night featured a packed house, made up by gay men, lesbian women, straight couples mixed in with the occasional transgender woman or even a cross dresser or two.

As Liz partook of several of their fabulous martini's, I was able to sip my beer and Jagermeister and survey the room to see who may have been surveying me.

It was fun! I had my usual visual contact with a butch lesbian, all the way to a gay guy who was doing his best not to be too noticeable looking at me. I didn't try to hide any of my narcissistic entertainment from Liz, who finally said "You have arrived." I said yes, Compliments of Uber and a lot of HRT :).

 Finally, I wore my fuzzy green sweater and leggings for the evening, which turned out to be unseasonably cool. Jagermeister though, is custom made to warm you up as it originated as a German hunting drink. I first made it a friend when I was in the Army in Germany.

I am riposting a selfie picture I took in the hotel after the trip back. A good time was had by all!

Also, I would be remiss in not writing about our stop for a famous "Thurman's" Hamburger before we went to Diversity. What is amazing to me, is they remember us year after year and we normally end up with the same server. We did well this year, the wait time was only about 45 minutes.

It's time to wrap this post up before I become accused of working for the Columbus Chamber of Commerce!

I See Girl!

Saturday was quite the long day, which of course revolved mostly around the Trans Ohio Symposium in Columbus, Ohio.

First of all, we had to get an early shuttle ride from the hotel to the Symposium venue since many streets were going to be closed off for a huge half marathon. So I had to grab a quick breakfast and shake off the party cobwebs from the night before relatively quickly. My workshop was at 10:15. All went well during my presentation and at one point one cis woman said all she saw in me was "girl." Which of course was nice!

During my workshops however, I always have to make the point of the person you see now didn't just happen. She took a lot of work and more error than success and even resulted in me trying one very active suicide as well as several ongoing "passive" attempts. Even though my workshop was sparsely attended I thought, it still went well and I was pleased.

The rest of the day, my partner Liz and I attended other workshops and key note speaker presentations. The Symposium was well attended and set a record this year with over three hundred attendees.

Of course lunch was served as well as a mid afternoon snack, which gave us the time to check out all the "vendor" and organization tables which were set up.

The breakdown of attendees this year seemed to favor more transgender women in various stages of transition and a fewer than normal amount of transgender men.

All too soon the day was over and it was time to take a quick breather before we began the night's activities on our own.

More to come in the next post!

Vocal Feminization Ideas

During the Trans Ohio Symposium I was able to hear the workshop presented by the lead transgender veteran liaison  person for the Veterans Administration Hospital I go to in Dayton, Ohio.

What did I learn? The VA in some situations will provide one wig and one set of breast forms a year. And more importantly, I should have no problems being referred to a qualified vocal feminiization coach in the near future.

I also sat in on another informative workshop called "Finding Your Feminine Voice."

During the workshop, the presenter mentioned a couple options she used to dramatically improve her voice. She mentioned You Tube videos as a possibility but couldn't remember who she used. So, as with most things on You Tube, usage comes with a built in warning but could be worth exploring. Other options included various tonal apps on your phone. Plus, someone mentioned access to your local educational institutions. Many of them have student intern programs which can be relatively inexpensive.

With any improvement worth working on, practice is very important with voice training. Options mentioned included leaving yourself messages on your email, or answering machine and/or practicing on your laptop so you can see your self as you talk.

Without getting too technical, the presenter said your new voice should originate somewhere in your upper neck area. Using the chest area is what men use and getting too far up into the nasal area will result in a falsetto tone. She (the presenter) also said though, since women vary their vocal patterns more than men, an occasional falsetto type tone isn't all that bad.

Hopefully, a few of these ideas may help you down your own vocal path. When I finally get a vocal therapist appointment, I will keep passing along more ideas.