When I came to my acceptance of being trans there were a lot of questions in my head. Who am I really? How do I want to be? How do I want others to percieve and interact with me. I have elsewhere in this blog talked about my female presentation and of course you can follow the pix on the right to see. I basically look like a fairly conservative soccer mom. Which is kind of pretty much who I am. I am not flashy, not goth, I am not "looking" for something or somebody. I would like to be cute, and that is a challenge. But those static images are only part of my presentation. And you cannot see the rest.
Yes you are saying "Sharon, just post some video". And the truth is, I have a bunch but I only share them with my close circle of friends. My little web of trust. If I was FT I would not care, but alas I am not, and so I do. So let me tell you about my presentation layer cake.
First off for 47 years I did a fairly good guy impression, voice and all. No kidding. I also realized after figuring out something with "avatars" that my guy self was a real world avatar. And so one day I turned him off to see what the default person was. Well it turns out she's pretty feminine. And that is when I knew who I was. Mind you she had been there all along, she was the one crying at the movies. But with him off, she was simply there. So the thing is that when I am in girl mode, it is not contrived, it is just me, with him turned off. Get it?
Ok so back to presentation, and not the how you look part. So in these interveneing months I have come to adopt 3 basic presentation styles for myself. Guy mode I do not know you, guy mode you know I am trans (Guy-Lite), and Sharon. Sharon is me, with all filters turned off. Guy-Lite mode is in many ways Sharon, with a less fem voice (more on that in a moment). And less fem manner. It means I am constrained, not because I want to be but because it makes others around me more comfortable. If you saw me and interacted with me you would probably mark me as gay, but I do not have any of the classic gay man affectations. And of course last, is guy mode. Which is the usual back slapping, sports report (I have to make it up usually, with one tidbit I grabbed in passing), "hey lady" shouting, macho voice dude. Mind you he is not a asshole (my soon to be ex would probably disagree, but I know scores of others that would not). The last one, is the person most people still know me as, including my parents.
My kids have been getting Guy-Lite for some time now, of course they do not know why, but it is my way of slowly introducing "me" to the them. This is ok. And in fact good. I like being this way with them. And it seems to be working as of late. I have also used Guy-Lite for some of my interactions with my wife but it is a very constrained version. Almost Guy mode. I should mention that this is kind of a spectrum of sorts, I can kind of meter who I am as circumstance warrents. That might seem phony, but it is not. I am just trying to make everybody else comfortable.
So with respect to the voice thing. I had spent some time with an online trans friend who has an excellent female voice. And she taught me a great deal. That and some practice and I am close, not perfect, I do not think you can get to perfect 100% of the time. But I do not have a really contrived female voice. If you heard it you might be able to tell something is up, but compared to guy voice, it aint too bad. I figure if I was 24/7 it would tune up quickly. I expect to get into a program locally that helps girls like me perfect things. I have actually used the voice on the phone and gotten the holy grail of fem voice. The "ma'am".
And so I discovered that along with my manner and demeanor my voice is different in those three modes as well. I actually recorded my voice in these three modes which are really different. (I will share that audio if I know you, or we do some secret handshake, meaning you have to prove to me you are trans too, a member of the sisterhood if you will). Anyhow the voice is every bit a part of this.
And so as I go about my day I have to gauge the situation and pick who I am. Naturally I am mostly not Sharon.....yet. I know at some point the other presentations will fade away, I also know I need to keep them around for a bit. They serve puposes. But I also know that I have control over who you see, when and how much. I have no idea if other girls go through this kind of thing, I do know it is working for me. I feel comfortable in Guy-Lite. And so I am going to let him out more often, at least between now and being FT.
In the end, there can be only one...
I could not resist. And if you do not get that line, I am sorry for you. So for now, there are three, so much for those arguments of "Two of us" or being "both". I guess what I am showing is that there really is one, it is just that it has a knob on it marked "presentation". I think I will nudge it a bit to the F side for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment