Cross Dressing, the Feminine Voice and Passing - Part 2

Regular check ups and routine maintenance, they say, are important to the long life and satisfactory performance of the things we own and operate. Things like our bodies and our blogs.

There is a little check up I put Voyages en Rose through every month or so (the 10,000 word scheduled maintenance). The check up is an online diagnostic tool called Gender Analyzer.

The Gender Analyzer scans a web site and looks for ”sugar and spice and everything nice”, or “snips and snails and puppy dog tails”. In fractions of a second it renders a judgment as to exactly what the author is made of and, therefore, what Gender the author occupies.

Well some days, my sleek and stylish friends, one just feels pretty. Today is such a day. Gender Analyzer indicates with a 74% degree of certainty that Voyages en Rose is written by a woman. Well my, O my. Petra passes.

This is a small victory, and not a comprehensive one. It is a small victory because I don’t know how Gender Analyzer actually works. Ideally, I would want to find out that there are true structural indicators of femininity in my writing. I may only find out though that the tool does a simple vocabulary scan and guesses that somebody who talks ceaselessly about pantyhose is likely female.

I dropped a note to customer service last week. I have not heard back yet. I am hoping they will peel open their pretty little kimono for me and whisper sweet everythings in my anxious ear.

If there is an something beyond simple vocabulary tests that predictably and systematically identifies an authors gender, I truly believe that would be something worthy of investigation. I think that most of us cross dressers and absolutely every transgendered person I have spoken with would agree that we were served up with something, a disposition towards our desires at birth. When we dress, or when we transition we are yielding to that very natural and very deeply embedded desire.

I believe that all of us examine our own behavior pretty closely for “tells”, for indicators of our tendencies. The F2M TG might look back at a childhood where dresses just felt wrong. The M2F CD might look at early adult years where he is the only guy in the room with his legs crossed at the knee.

Does writing have similar tells? It’s a question I look forward to investigating more.

For you, dear friends with a blog of your own, or visitors who simply want to play around with an interesting tool, go ahead, visit, and hopefully surprise yourself. Find out if your favorite blogger is floating on a frothy sea of literary estrogen, or bashing away at their keyboard with a surfeit of testosterone.

If you have any thoughts about how your gender journey is reflected in your writing, please comment here. Happy to plunder this line of thinking with thoughtful people from any point on the compass.

Cross Dressing, The Feminine Voice and Passing – Part 1

Physically, I am not a big man. When shopping for trousers I have been encouraged on more than one occasion to perhaps look in the boys section and see if the husky teen line would work out for me. Picture my smiling face. I believe that I have an eye for style and a sure sense of quality, whatever gender I am provisioning for and presenting in, so shopping for the drab self is not always a really happy occasion for me. Or for the Sales Assistant pointing towards the kiddie section either.

Physically, I am not a big woman either. Mediums in most things, and in fact a small here and there work well for me. An 8 ½ shoe fits, and only if the heel is higher than 3” do I really stand out as tall in a gaggle of genetic girls.

With that said, some other accidents of nature have conspired to provide me with one characteristic that simply does not set up well for deeply and happily engaging with the world en femme, and passing in the process. I have a deep and sonorous voice that projects well and effortlessly. Wags and wanna-be analysts might suggest that I overcompensated in the vocal area for the relatively meager real estate grab that my body represents. That in my own social micro-evolution I grew a great baritone flourish of feathers to obscure the boney frame concealed within. They might have something there. Who knows. Maybe they are overcompensating…

My voice has been however, for male self, a very useful adaptation. I am able to get heard, easily. This has been helpful in my life.

It’s a bit of an issue for Petra though. Yes, there are tricks. Yes, practice makes perfect, even when all we really need is passable. I simply have not made the investment, and where there is no investment, there is no dividend.

For the moment, when out en femme, I am perfectly happy to pass from a distance, to raise doubts at close range and to remove all doubt as to my working gender the very moment I open my mouth and ask if they have that perfect dress in a 6. In fact there is a part of me that relishes the moment when one has clearly outed oneself.

Yes, I am enthralled by the theatricality of public cross dressing. There is very little to match the odd combination of adrenalin and peace that comes from being out, en femme, and far from home. But after some consideration and a lifetimes worth of fantasizing about passing, a full pass is not exactly what I am after, after all. I am not entirely certain why.

As expert as I could ever become (and even with a perfectly softened and feminine voice) I will always be clockable to some degree. I am ok with that. And do you know, dear friend, that even if I could somehow pass a presentation threshold that could fool all of the people, all of the time, I am not convinced that I would want to. I believe that a full pass would that takes away part of the fun, the lure, and whole raison d’etre of cross dressing to this cross dresser. Isn’t this all supposed to feel a little seditious? Where there is no risk, where is the reward?

Additionally, do we not all hope that cross dressing was a little more accepted by society in general? If we all passed, it would be a difficult issue to give visibility to.

My voice, in short, will continue to give me away, and when it does, I hope that I am leaving behind a positive and (here is a loaded word) normal impression of cross dressers. I won’t be dogmatic though. If any of you can point me to terrific resources for feminizing the voice, it would probably save me a google or 2. Please leave your comments and suggestions here.

Part 2 – The Written Feminine Voice and Passing. Coming tomorrow.

Passing (well … sort of) & other news

Very short post here my lovely and curious friends. As I was doing my daily email, Google Reader, Blog traffic review and general CD/TG snooping I came across 2 things I wanted to share with you.

First, the sad sad news of the lingerie spill on Highway H-1 just outside of Honolulu. A truckload of intimate garments, wind-tossed, tire-spoiled and ditch-begrimed, never to feel the warm touch of flesh. Again, nothing but sad. For full article and video, click here. I imagine myself on the scene dodging traffic in a desperate bid to save the bras.

Next, the happy stuff. In this mornings research I found a neat site. (And I must credit the lovely and talented Lynn Jones whose fabulous "Yet Another T-Girl Blog) can be found here). The Gender Analyzer is a simple online tool that scans websites and offers up an expert opinion on the gender of the author. If you have a blog or want to play with your favorite web sites a little, just press on a new set of nails and click over here.

I did, (minus the nails girls, it’s a busy drab day) and had the analyzer look in on Voyages en Rose. And what do the experts say? (Click on image to enlarge)

I passed. I encourage you all to hum along to your favorite triumphant music and imagine yourself waving to an adoring imaginary audience with your wrist pointed just so and an open hand. That would be Petra just about now.

I glow.

For real, this is interesting to me. I have not edited myself too heavily here. I do a lot of writing professionally and have never considered my gender as an influencer of my style. I have, however, attempted to occupy Petra’s mind while writing here, because it’s a nice way to spend 30 minutes “dressed” without all the effort. Petra needs at least 2 hours to appear and disappear in the real world. Here in the virtual world, she can log in and live it up in snap.

And evidently, she can pass.

And now, I encourage you to imagine my quick pirouette and slightly sassy walk into the sunset on this happy occasion. A last flip of the hair and a wink over my shoulder right your way.

Happy dressing and happy everything else to you.