voice like an aged provolone

Lucas Silveira
(image from afterellen.com)

Canadian singer Lucas Silveira is the first (openly) trans man to win the reader-poll “Throw Your Underwear Award – Male” from music magazine Chart Attack.

I found it interesting to see Lucas talking about his decision not to go on T – for fear of what it would do to his voice. I’m going a bit squinty at the research that seemed to tell him he’d have a useless, squeaky voice for 2.5 years, but I suppose different experiences are different, and solid data on what a sudden increase in testosterone does to the adult body is still pretty minimal, so it’s entirely possible there’s some amount of truth in there.

Begin navel-gazing tangent: I’ve been on T for about eight months now. Within the first few weeks I noticed a shift in my vocal cords and a slight deepening of my range. A month or so in I discovered I no longer had the kind of upper register I was used to, and my voice would crack at unexpected moments when speaking. I still haven’t gotten my solid singing voice back (though that’s partly because I haven’t really been working on it). I did discover around Thanksgiving that I could comfortably sing the bass part in the church hymnal with only a few of the very bottom notes out of my range. The teenage-boy-voice-cracking really only lasted for a few months, though it still happens now and then when I’m really excited about something and not paying attention. My voice is still a bit of a mystery to me, a bit out of my control — but then, that’s something I’m kind of used to.

I’ve never particularly liked my speaking voice, and during my several years of genderqueerness I sometimes hated my speaking voice for betraying my femaleness. I can be the super chatty one in a group, but not until I’m either a little drunk or really intimate with everyone in said group. And we’re talking about something I care desperately about. For numerous reasons (not all of which are even gender-identity related, but borne out of a general shyness and paranoia about saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or using the wrong name or generally being wrong) my voice has never been something I fully trust. I’d rather resigned myself to that fact.

But then T happened. Suddenly I had this voice that wasn’t betraying my femaleness but rather confirming my maleness. Verifying, validating, insert-your-favorite-empowerment-word-ing. This was thrilling. I wanted to use my voice all the time, to speak, to be heard, to shout to the world that I AM HERE AND I WANT TO DO STUFF.

Yet for all those other numerous reasons and a lifetime of practice, I still don’t know how to really trust my voice. I am learning. It’s part of the reason I’m taking an acting class right now, actually. I’m working on this monologue* about making cheese and how awful most American-brand cheese is and how sublime and wonderful a good aged cheese can be and OMG THE AFTERTASTE OMNOMNOM. (Here, have a listen. Yes, this is me.)

The instructor tells me she doesn’t believe I care about Cheese because it’s not in my Voice. And she’s not wrong. I listen to myself sometimes and I sound… flat, bored, boring, and rather not like me.

But hey — it’s still new. It’s still learning to walk, if you’ll permit an anthropomorphic metaphor about my own vocal cords. While I’m over here tapping my foot, impatient for it to dance. Or um… fly? Ride a motorcycle? Something else that is superior to walking?

End navel-gazing tangent.

So, anyway, it tickles me to see a gorgeous trans man being recognized and being visible — even if the announcement, irritatingly enough, is in a blog for lesbian and bisexual women, at least they treat him with respect and proper pronouns and hey, they can talk about whoever the hell they want. It’s cool that he talks about how he isn’t on T but that doesn’t make him any less a man — even if his reasons include some possible misinformation about OMG T WILL RUIN YOUR VOICE FOREVER, but then it is totally not his job to Inform The Public About All Facets Of Transness. The rest of us, in fact, have voices too.

Even if they’re sometimes as wobbly as newborn colts. (Or was the anthropomorphic one better?)

DANCE, LARYNX, DANCE!!!

Whee, Sunday.

P.S. If anyone comments just to tell me I have a nice voice and should stop fretting, I will scowl at you in a most immature fashion.

*Credits for the monologue: Len, from Book of Days by Lanford Wilson

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ETA: Well, would you look at that. Moments after hitting “publish” I find an article all about Testosterone And The Trans Male Singing Voice. *SUBSCRIBES*

Bill Bailey is a feminist

Via Fawcett Society: This is new favorite thing above all other kinds of thing. At this particular moment.

Caption at the source site, in case you don’t feel like clicking:

Three women walk into a pub and say, “Hooray, we’ve colonised a male-dominated joke format”

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Relatedly, I’ve just found an awesome (relatively new) blog about men and masculinity (and feminism) by a guy in Melbourne. I plan to stalk him — I mean FOLLOW IT. *cough*

Critical Masculinities: Exploration and analysis of masculine identities in society and culture

Moving day!

Welcome to my new internet home. Thanks to the import capabilities (yay WordPress!) I’ve moved everything over from the old Blogger place, including the comments. Enjoy, and please feel free to continue the conversation in my last post.

Note: I’m still messing around with themes, so you may notice the appearance of this site bounce all over the place in the next few days. Just roll with it. \o/

One Year Later

This week (Monday, to be precise) marks my one-year anniversary of deciding to transition. It’ll be a little while before the anniversary of Transition being anything other than a thought in my mind, but January 25th 2009 was one of those days I’ll remember forever because of that very important thing that happened in my head.

Since then I have reached out to local transgender support groups, made several trans* friends, reconnected with an old one, had a ritual coming-out party, started T, run out of my T prescription, failed to get around to legally changing my name, started two classes where I am simply known as male and not as a transitioning person, started blogging here, left off blogging here, gotten a job, begun training in stage combat and acting, sought prospects for my future as a performer, and felt a consistent desire to have a future as — well, anything. I have learned to design emails and websites with HTML and CSS, to use words like “SEO” and “affiliate marketing” and “link building”, and how to hand-roll a cigarette. I have remembered that acne is a pain in the ass and that short hair is fun. 2009 was quite a year.

Now we’re near the end of the first month of 2010, and I’m sitting in my neighborhood coffee shop whose employees know me as Gabriel and who know my regular order (grilled chicken wrap, black coffee) and who tolerate my working on my laptop for hours at a time.

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Since starting to move in the world as a man it’s not uncommon for a woman walking ahead of me on the sidewalk to glance nervously over her shoulder, then move more quickly or shift to the side or cross the street. Which sparks thoughts of a more complicated post on how I’m now, oddly, more comfortable participating in conversations about gender dynamics and the fear of male-stranger-assault that is supposedly ingrained in every woman. (I have in the past felt awkward in such discussions because I cannot recall ever living with that walking-down-the-street fear and I felt there was something wrong with either me or with the premise, but now that I can comfortably remove myself from the category “woman” to which that rule applies, I can interrogate the rule without it being so personal? Something?)

There is also a post in there about my awakening awareness of rape culture and the male role in overturning it that’s been tumbling about in my mind ever since cereta’s post “On rape and men (Oh yes, I’m going there)” that practically everyone on livejournal commented on.

This is not that post, but those are things I want to formulate thoughts on and talk about. Now here’s a question –

What do YOU want me to talk about?

All six of you that read this blog, that is. Prompts and questions and commentary are more than welcome.

Happy genderbending. Happy 2010.

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