echoskyes [she/her]

That's awesome! I'm very happy for you.

I would like to start training my voice more. The thing is I've always been decent at modulating my voice in general and can do a semi-decent feminine voice as it is, but it's so hard for me to stick to that. My natural voice is already rather low and masculine and I find myself just reverting to it subconsciously unless I'm constantly thinking about shifting it as I speak. But I guess that's what the whole "training" part is for lol.

I remember a couple months ago I went on a first date with a woman and beforehand I convinced myself I was going to try out my feminine voice for the date. She knew I was trans and all. So, it's not like I was trying to hide that. Just thought it would be a fun experiment as we hadn't actually talked prior, just texted. I immediately subconsciously reverted to my normal voice upon meeting her. So that experiment failed. Though it might have been a hard ruse to keep up with anyway had we went on any dates afterwards, which we unfortunately did not--though we had plans to, our schedules just never aligned properly and things fizzled out.

Anyway, happy for you and you've provided me inspiration to make a more concerted effort to train my voice too :)

I don't consider myself a woman, so I generally avoid women's spaces. But I do like when I feel like I'm at least not seen as a threat.

That's understandable. I'm definitely still on the fence in the whole, "do I consider myself a woman or not?" aspect. There's parts of dysphoria I don't feel I relate to but other aspects of my life that at the least I identify much more strongly with womanhood than manhood. I mean, I remember frequently imagining as early as about age 6 a machine that could turn boys into girls. This idea was always very exciting to me at a time already when I had pretty much no concept of sexuality and little concept of gender beyond what I knew was "expected" of me, which I intrinsically felt disdain towards.

I guess that in itself is a pretty good indicator that I definitely feel more comfortable with the idea of being seen as a woman. But at the same time don't really have much in terms of body dysphoria. I have more seriously considered taking hormones lately, which I shrugged off for a long time as unnecessary for me personally. But there are certain aspects that do appeal to me like addressing or at least halting MPB which does cause me some amount of dysphoria (though it could be far worse at this stage in my life based on my father's experience), and also being able to more reconnect with a more emotional and sensitive side of myself that I feel I was very attune with growing up but had conditioned and bullied out of me over time. But the other physical aspects aren't as much of a latent desire of mine, though not unwelcome in allowing me to be viewed by others as more outwardly feminine.

All this being said, I do generally avoid women's spaces if I'm not explicitly invited into those spaces for the fear always of making others uncomfortable. But I do feel affirmed when I am invited into those spaces. I have a cis female friend who recently started doing "girl's nights" and has made it a point to invite me every time. She herself is queer and it's overwhelmingly queer space. So that helps in itself, but it also feels nice to be included and not feeling unwelcome in any way.

I've also been regularly attending recovery meetings for a drinking problem & a couple months ago one of the women who attends the meetings asked me if I identified as a woman which even though I said at the time I considered myself non-binary, she still invited me to the young women's meeting they had just started. Which felt affirming as well as I typically find myself "boymoding" moreso at the general meetings, though I'm pretty obviously queer coded to most people as I barely even own an article of "men's" clothing at this point and boymode is just me wearing my less overtly femme women's clothing pieces, but it still felt nice to be recognized by someone as "not male" even when I wasn't presenting overly femme. Going to those meetings has provided me a place where I feel more comfortable with presenting more outwardly femme which is always nice, and though everyone has been very nice to me there, I still have that nagging feeling of "Am I truly welcome?" at times seeing as it's less of queer space. Though one of the regular members brings up her girlfriend pretty often. So, that makes me feel good that there's at least one other queer person in there. Again, I probably wouldn't have attended on my own though had I not been specifically invited as I would have felt I was intruding otherwise.

I can very much relate to this. AMAB and my closest friend from about kindergarten to second grade was the girl who lived in the house behind me. Somewhere around 3rd grade, I guess both my and her parents mutually decided we could no longer hang out as friends and we never did after that. I really only had one close male friend throughout the rest of my childhood and youth after that. There was always a feeling I had innately that I did not fit in with other boys and often found it easier to connect with girls.

I remember even when I was high school age, the summer between my Junior & Senior year, I went to a journalism camp at a university. There were a handful of guys at the camp, but it was mostly girls. In the beginning, we all kind of splintered off into groups. All of the other guys went off into a group that I'd say most approximated the "normie" crowd, while I on the other hand-- shy and somewhat reserved-- found myself accepted into a group of girls who were more on the "alternative" side of things. It was me and about 8 girls in that group and I found an acceptance and closeness with them that I had rarely felt with same sex peers in the past. It was refreshingly uplifting. However, as our time in the camp reached an end, they were making plans for after we leave camp, how they were gonna get together and hang out, but then one said to me, "Sorry, we wish we could invite you, but my mom would think it's weird if we had a guy hanging out with us." That one hurt and really made me question where I belonged for sometime after.

Several years after the fact, coming to terms now with my trans identity, I do feel more comfortable when I do get accepted into female spaces and it's a place I find myself feeling more at home. But there is always that nagging feeling of "do I really belong?" based on what I've gone through in the past that makes me cautious and always needing some affirmation if my presence is truly welcome there.

So I find it particularly baffling when TERF's throw out the "trying to invade women's spaces" line when it's not like I've ever really felt totally comfortable or accepted in male spaces in the first place and beyond mixed gender queer spaces, it's really the only place I find a sense of belonging.

It's complicated of course. Often it feels like a box I'm forced to fit into when I don't really fit into said box.

For the longest time, I considered myself in closest proximity to non-binary as an AMAB person that generally likes to present and be viewed in a feminine matter but without any overwhelming body dysphoria. By contrast, I felt feminine presentation just always fit the body I'm given more than masculine presentation as I've always tended towards a more typically feminine profile slender with long legs and a more androgynous facial structure. Though the narrowness of my hips and my shoulder width do lean more to the masculine side.

That being said, I've been finding lately that I've been left with this feeling that I kind of have to "pick a side" in order to be taken seriously in society as a whole. My presentation alone has caused many to assume I fully on identify as trans in the past, as it leans very femme. Certain aspects of me like my height and the 'maleness' of some of my features make full on 'passing' difficult to me, but I have mulled over hormones as a way to potentially address this. I just don't know. I posted some pics of me on another website recently that while getting largely positive feedback, also resulted in relentless brigading from a small group of TERF's and transphobes who wanted to hyperfixate on every aspect of myself that I'm already uncomfortable with. Instead of the potentially intended reaction of making me want to shy away from my expression, it just made me want to put in the effort to be seen more as a woman though I still don't feel like my identity is completely "woman," yet when forced to pick a side so to speak, I align far more with that than being a man.

So that's where I'm at right now. Pretty much transfemme I suppose. But still trying to figure out what that means for me exactly.