There Are Women Who Don't Quite Sound Like Women. I'm One of Them.
In person, on the phone, it can be a problem depending on who we're talking to.
The woman at the gas company call center was so clearly not listening.
“Okay, so, Martin, I see in your records that you're carrying an overdue balance of --"
I had just gone down the road with her about the fact that I wanted to change the first name on my account to Corinne, because that was now my legal name. She quickly said she could not alter the record in any way -- and then immediately Martined me on her way to carping on how much I owed her employers.
As we say these days, she dead-named me.
I knew the most likely reason for her behavior: as I had spoken with her, and tried to become more business-like and reasonable, my voice had slowly dropped into a male register. I could hear it happening, and there was just nothing I could do about it. Almost instinctively, as the customer service person on the other end grew more and more obnoxious, I went for a voice with more gravitas, more gravel.
Finally, the woman interrupted me with, “Martin, Martin, Martin -- why you gotta make things so hard?” Yes, she was African-American, and I had been trying to stay as polite and respectful as I possibly could. And not only did that make no impression on her, she seemed to want to aggravate the situation more.
“Okay, Miss,” I said, “could I please speak to a manager?”
“Nope. She busy.”
I took a breath, let it out. “Well then, thank you for your time.” And I hung up.
I am not about to zero in on black people: my own extremely Caucasian mom has done me worse many times. What I'm focusing on here is how quickly the gas company woman was able to turn me back into a baritone. (I will admit to some racist tendencies; I am not proud of them, and I am making headway in getting rid of them.)
What I really intend to zero in on is me. Especially me, and my ways of using my basic toolkit of adult living skills.
Thinking about the call center woman: it's taken me years, and a couple of talks with my youngun Molly Oliver, who offered up this insight: look at the scene through her viewpoint, hear with her ears, think with her mind.
Try, anyway.
I've sort of been gnawing on this bone for a couple of years now. I imagine that this woman, a black woman who is already more of a minority member than I will ever be, first has to listen to this weird white person's speech about “actually" being a woman, which doesn't really bear on the job the woman has to do, and there's nothing she can do to edit my record — maybe I should've deemed myself lucky that all she did was dead-name me.
Her job was to Get The Money. Not placate customers with strange beliefs. She probably even had a quota, weekly or monthly (or both), and was falling behind again and having frequent little heart-to-hearts with her supervisor. None of which means she was a bad employee.
It's a scenario I've found myself in, too many times: when desperate, I too have put on the cheesy little headset and set out to brave the seething ocean of inanity, mediocrity and abuse that is much of the American public these days. I empathize. You need a damn tough skin for that line of work; after a while, my skin got thinner instead of tougher. And I could hear, after I thought about it, that toughness in the phone woman's approach.
Returning to topic: The Phone. That is where, as a transgender person whose voice is not the feminine alto range most people expect, I find I have the most trouble.
Now there are quite a few voice coaches to hand out there who specialize in helping us trans ladies achieve a convincing female voice and diction. My housemate Marissa tried one for about a month around the start of the pandemic, but didn't make much headway with it, partly because there were exercises she needed to do between sessions with the coach that she never quite got to. (Not because she's lazy, but because for the last six years, only a little sliver of her time has been her own.)
A good voice coach can help you tune yourself to a new vocal pitch, as in the musical note your tone stays around when you speak; they will also show you how to breathe properly (something people don't always have a handle on, you know), how to form vocal sounds differently, even how to choose your words and form your sentences differently. They'll also give you some psychological perspective on the ways women speak, and the approaches they might take in different settings.
And it is all, according to one young trans woman who has a series of voice instruction videos on YouTube, for the sake of keeping you alive.
I wish I could say she was putting it a little forcefully, but to some extent it's true. So many trans people live in places where no trans person would live by choice; being able to pass as a genetic girl (or boy) is a matter of survival in their case, not just feeling pretty (or handsome) or wanting to attract amorous interest. Just living in almost any major city can be gambling with your life when you're a trans person. And that is because there are always, and always will be, those who think it's their job to punish others for being different -- despite the equality we insist America was founded on, and in complete agreement with nasty religious zealots who think God loves bloodshed and hates fags. And you never know when you might run into one. We are turning up dead in record numbers … and even though these murders are catching the public eye, and there's mounting outcry against them, worldwide it's still almost a pandemic in its own right.
So there are those of us who go to great lengths, expense and pain to change everything, voice and face included, in order to pass as women; then there's the opposite camp, those who transition without surgery or postpone it, sometimes almost indefinitely. Many in this latter group would, not so many years ago, have been judged “somatically inappropriate” by the doctors evaluating them for gender transition, meaning too burly or “ugly” to ever become passable women; this was often a call made as much for the doctors' own safety and their reputations as for any thought of the patient's welfare. But quite a number have gone right ahead and transitioned, gotten at least hormone therapy and made a real go of it, some of them confounding the doctors' predictions.
And … they're beautiful. And yes, I know a lot of them personally. A lot.
They are my sisters.
I wasn't born female. Or pretty. Or even feminine, really. (As far as my mom's concerned.) But that has nothing to do with who we really are. (And who we don’t just want, but need, to be.)
I mean, seriously, guys, we don't all have to wind up looking like Kate Hudson or Angelina or Scarlett. (Though I wouldn't mind resembling any of those three, I don't need it. I'm a very attractive Corinne, and it's not just me saying so.) In the last few years we trans folk have seen more and more trans activists and allies standing up and saying that women come in all forms, not just some template of beauty and femininity mandated by society, and that includes tall women with big hands and feet and kinda deep voices. (No idea whom I'm referring to …)
And they're absolutely right. There are big deep-voiced women who nonetheless have two X chromosomes and the female parts to back up their claim. Saying a trans can't be a woman because of antique views about femininity is so 2003, folks. And honestly, I'm very glad to see the new attitude towards us taking shape and growing. I guarantee you, acceptance of trans people will make for a better world, in too many ways to count.
Especially if some call center workers get treated to some sensitivity training. (I can dream, can't I?)