u/iam-stevie-bee

I wrote a piece about the complete absurdity of ending up on dating apps at 57 as a trans woman after a very messy divorce.

It started, as all normal human behaviour does, with me trying to model post-divorce romantic probability in Claude and Excel.

Age. Attractiveness. Geography. Children. Social status. Income. Sexuality. The thickness or thinness of dating markets. The unspoken filters people apply before they admit, even to themselves, what they’re filtering for.

Then, eventually, I got brave.

Or stupid.

I decided to model myself.

This led to several conclusions, including:

“I was a fifty-seven-year-old transsexual in rural Cork, trying to understand the lesbian dating pool with the air of someone examining a puddle and wondering whether it technically qualified as a lake.”

Also:

“There are, regrettably, not many Jodie Fosters wandering around rural Cork waiting for a blonde transsexual software architect with a Chihuahua.”

Then I accidentally discovered the male side of dating apps.

Dear God.

Apparently I am now a “cougar”, a “MILF”, “gorgeous”, and several other things which would have sent the male version of me into complete existential shock.

But the piece is really about something more serious: the difference between being desired and being known.

Because the attention is often real. The desire is often real. But the willingness to integrate a trans woman into an actual public life? That is a completely different question. Chasers, chasers everywhere.

I’d be genuinely interested to hear from other older transitioners and how they got on on these things. Honestly, I am clueless. I was swiping right when I should have been swiping left at one point. I’m not joking either.

Full piece here: https://fasttrackfemme.substack.com/p/how-to-become-somebody-capable-of

I’ve just booked my flights to Seoul for voice surgery at Yeson Voice Center in Gangnam.

This has been one of those on/off/on/off decisions for ages. I’ve been doing voice training with Seattle Voice Lab, and my coach says I’m doing okay, but honestly, I’ve found it so much harder than I expected.

I thought I’d be good at it. I can sing, I can do impressions, I have a decent musical ear, and I arrogantly assumed it would click. It absolutely has not clicked 😂

The thing that finally pushed me over the edge wasn’t one huge dramatic moment. It was lots of little ones.

Being visually read as female, then speaking and watching people instantly recalibrate.

Trying to say “no” at a petrol station in my careful trained voice, then having to repeat it louder and feeling the whole thing collapse.

Phoning a hair salon and being told, “James does the men,” because I sounded male on the phone.

And then the big one: recording a software demo for a client, playing it back, and thinking, “Oh God. I just sound like Stephen Bennett with a girl face.”

That was the moment I knew.

So I’ve written a longer piece about why I’m doing it, why I chose Seoul, why voice has become the thing I can’t ignore anymore, and the strange comedy of going to Gangnam for voice surgery while not being allowed to sing Gangnam Style out loud.

After fifty-seven years of trying to find my voice, I’m flying halfway across the world to lose it deliberately.

Hopefully, when it comes back, it will sound a little more like me.

https://fasttrackfemme.substack.com/p/gangnam-style-silently