Amp has very kindly granted me permission to guest-blog at Alas!. \u00a0This is daunting: \u00a0the signal-to-noise ratio here is astonishingly high, even though the topics are often fraught. \u00a0I asked Amp delicately for guidance. \u00a0He cheerfully told me to write what I wanted.<\/p>\n
So I will. \u00a0I will also appreciate suggestions.<\/p>\n
The Internet being what it is, I will lead with a few things which are less important in a broader context, but critical in this one:<\/p>\n
I am a trans woman, I earn much of the money my family lives on, and I am not out to the public. \u00a0I work in a setting which tends to run politically conservative: \u00a0law enforcement. \u00a0Although I’ve been doing it for many years, with reasonable success, where I live, employment protections for trans people are scant. \u00a0Therefore, although I will mention things about myself as they become relevant, I will often be chary with specifics which might endanger my family’s income.<\/p>\n
This wariness is not completely new to me; I’m introverted by nature, and any sensible cop knows that she can be targeted for doing her duty. \u00a0But once I realized that I was trans and started working my way through transition, I found myself in the closet, and I have become accustomed to being unpleasantly shocked by how comprehensively that affects what I do, and what I say.<\/p>\n
For instance, awhile back a newspaper in my region ran an excellent series on trans people. \u00a0I wanted to respond to something toward the end of the series. \u00a0But, the paper’s response mechanism demanded address and phone number, and my comment was going to speak from my lived experience as a trans woman. \u00a0So I wrote, via e-mail, to someone at the paper and said, in summary, “This is what I would say, but I will not endanger my family to say it.” \u00a0He wrote back to say that the paper’s policy was to require some way to verify identity, and he gave good reasons for why they would want to. \u00a0I understood them; in my professional life, people lie to me a lot, and anonymous communications are problematical at best. \u00a0However, I had set my limit for sound reasons, which were important to me, and I chose to abide by it.<\/p>\n
So I didn’t comment. \u00a0Without taking a risk I was not willing to take, I could not<\/em> comment. \u00a0To be denied a voice, even for well-intended policy reasons, was a lesson in the fragility of free speech and also in the effect a well-intended policy can have on a vulnerable minority.<\/p>\n I understood a little better what it was like to be, for instance, homosexual in the 1970’s, to see danger on every side, to subject myself and my family to risks in order to do things which most people could do on a whim.<\/p>\n It has been an unpleasant and sobering experience. \u00a0Very educational.<\/p>\n There is a long list of things I have to be careful about. \u00a0Here’s a simple one: \u00a0my voice. \u00a0Every trans woman who wants to be gendered correctly has to work on her voice. \u00a0There is no good surgery to raise pitch, and it’s not all about pitch anyway; there are different ways to use your voice to communicate nuance, and some are more characteristic of women than of men. \u00a0It takes a lot of practice to strengthen some muscles and get used to using them, while at the same time not using adjacent muscles. \u00a0I can teach anybody to talk like Mickey Mouse in a few seconds. \u00a0It takes many, many hours for a person with vocal chords reconstructed with testosterone to speak like a person with vocal chords which never were.<\/p>\n For me, that means that I use my “female voice” everywhere I can, for practice. \u00a0I use it with my family. \u00a0I use it in the small circle of friends who know that I’m trans. \u00a0I read bedtime stories in it (except for when the male characters are speaking, because what a waste of a silver lining that<\/em> would be). \u00a0Over time, it has become natural to drop into it.<\/p>\n But at work, I have to be very careful not to. \u00a0I’ve only slipped once, and fortunately, it was with a well-regarded co-worker. \u00a0He just gave me a quizzical look.<\/p>\n So I have to police my voice very carefully. \u00a0When I pull into the lot at work, I often talk to myself a bit in my male voice, so that I get back into that mode.<\/p>\n At work, if I’m telling a story and quoting a woman, I am careful to make the “female” voice unconvincing. \u00a0It would not do to be too expert with it. \u00a0(In extended conversations, “too expert” is too much to hope for just yet, but with initial utterances I’m doing pretty well.)<\/p>\n The heck of it is that my male voice is a good voice. \u00a0It’s resonant and versatile, with good range. \u00a0People enjoy it when I sing. \u00a0My wife loves my baritone, and one of her greater fears as we were figuring out this transition thing was that a day would come when she would never hear it again. \u00a0(I promised her then that in private, between us, she could hear it on request. \u00a0She has been careful to make the request only at need.) \u00a0My female voice simply doesn’t compare. \u00a0I have tried singing with it, and I can get away with it on some songs. \u00a0No doubt it will get better with careful practice, but there will always be limits on it which I can blow through effortlessly simply by singing through my chest.<\/p>\n One way I de-stress is by singing and accompanying myself on guitar. \u00a0I have a stressful job, with lots of overtime, nights, evenings, holidays, weekends, and call-ins. \u00a0Once I hit a certain threshold, stress starts to affect my interactions with my family. \u00a0So stress-management is not a triviality. \u00a0My inability, so far, to find a good female singing voice was making it stressful to pick up my guitar, which did no one any good. \u00a0For awhile, I glumly faced the possibility that I would have to give up singing. \u00a0I cast about for other instruments, portable and versatile enough to try to substitute. \u00a0Harmonica? \u00a0Limited, and … wet. \u00a0Renaissance flute? \u00a0Fiddle? \u00a0Concertina?<\/p>\n I was noodling around one night on my guitar, thinking about how much my wife loves my singing, and I thought, “Fuck it. \u00a0In my own damned home, with my own accepting and loving family, I’m going to use this gift for our own damned enjoyment.” \u00a0And I sang out again, in my baritone.<\/p>\n I’m a woman with a baritone on tap. \u00a0I don’t always use it, but it’s there, and I enjoy it. \u00a0I have a right to it; I traded in a killer soprano for it, even if I really wish I could have that soprano back. \u00a0There are things I will do to be considered female, and there are things I won’t. \u00a0I won’t give up my voice forever.<\/p>\n For now, I use my voice within bounds described by the safety of my circumstances. \u00a0But I’m not going to stay within these bounds forever. \u00a0I used to live outside of them, and I will again. \u00a0I’m not planning to move, and I won’t hide my old name when I change legally to “Grace”. \u00a0I’m going to transition in place, and if possible, keep my job. \u00a0There will be no hiding that I am trans from people who know me, and from all the people those people will delight in telling. \u00a0It would probably kill something in me to try.<\/p>\n I chose not to participate in the discussion at that newspaper. \u00a0Fortunately, we have the Internet, and relative anonymity makes it possible for me to express myself here. \u00a0The Internet has enabled me to dole out the trans bigotry to myself in measured doses, to strengthen my system, build up some calluses, and work on my chops. \u00a0One of the best little pockets on the Internet is here at Alas!, and I’m privileged to be able to speak here.<\/p>\n Thanks, Amp. \u00a0Thanks, Mandolin.<\/p>\n Grace<\/p>\n [edited for clarity]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amp has very kindly granted me permission to guest-blog at Alas!. \u00a0This is daunting: \u00a0the signal-to-noise ratio here is astonishingly high, even though the topics are often fraught. \u00a0I asked Amp delicately for guidance. \u00a0He cheerfully told me to write … Continue reading