u/MyTardyBody

I am not really any kind of collar worker now, as I am retired. When I was working, I had desk jobs. I am doing a late life transition, and there are still things that are new to me. I have a clothing question that I thought would be apt for r/bluecollartrans .

If you know you have a day of sweaty work ahead of you, what is your preferred choice of upper body undergarment? Since I developed a bust, when I have to do work like gardening or rearranging the garage, I have been using a tank top under a tshirt that is inside a long sleeve button shirt (for arm protection).

I am interested in any brands and models of bras or other stuff that have worked well for you during manual labor. If it makes any difference, I'm A/AA cup size.

How to give the impression of having wider hips with clothing choices, without padding? Having specific brands and models would be nice, but overall advice is what I'm after. Recommendations for different activities and seasons would be nice as well.

If there are previous posts about this topic, I'd love to read them!

I had my VFS yesterday (yay!), and very early this morning I was laying in bed, drowsily thinking about my life afterwards and DIY projects I want to work on, etc. I realized my mental thinking voice was the male one I've had for most of my adult life.

I assume that is going to change once I get adept with my new voice. I've had voice training years ago, but had issues with it and stopped. So I've been using my default voice, with a few little adjustments depending on which group of people I'm with. So, I have no extended experience with any other voice in my adult life.

If you have an inner mental voice, how long did it take to switch over to resemble your new voice?

[Had my VFS yesterday, went with 50%. I'll report back to r/transvoice if I made the right decision for me. Thanks for the replies!] I have my VFS coming in a few days. I had a last preop appointment with my surgeon and her staff today. She was explaining the surgery, mentioning that she usually joins the folds so that the opening is 50% shorter. I asked her about the effects of leaving more of an opening, she said leaving a bigger opening has the tradeoff of less lower frequency cutoff, but allowing for a louder maximum volume and more range to sing with. I told her I might go with 40%, and make up my mind the day of the surgery.
For those who have had that style of VFS, how much shortening did your surgeon do, and how would you rate the results ?

I am getting near the point where I want to switch from the men's locker room to the women's locker room at the local YMCA, where I use their exercise equipment with the goal of bulking my butt and glute medius muscles.

I think I will change the time I go to the gym so that I'm not interacting with the same staff and members. Once I have confidence using the women's locker room , I will go back to my preferred time of day for workouts. I don't know how the people I regularly see will react. Hopefully my fears of negative interactions are unfounded - I do live in the middle of an area usually considered friendly to trans people.

I strongly suspect some of the regulars already notice that something is going on with me - no overt negative reactions detected so far.

What's been your experience with gym regulars after you've switched?

I have my VFS coming in June - really excited for it! I have had a pre-surgery session with a voice therapist, who told me about the need to avoid anything that could activate my vocal cords. Like throat clearing. He showed me a few substitute actions for throat clearing. Mostly inhaling through the nose and then either exhaling through pursed lips or swallowing whatever saliva I happen to have in my mouth.

I have been practicing, and it's difficult to catch the throat clearing, etc. until I've already started.

I was wondering if anyone reading this have used other techniques, or used drugs like dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) to reduce the urge for throat clearing ?