huffingtonpost:

Hey, White America, You Need To Hear What These Ferguson Kids Have To Say

In a new video from social justice-oriented T-shirt company FCKH8, several Ferguson children lampoon the excuses white people give to avoid getting involved in ending discrimination in America and deliver a call to action to stomp out racism.

Watch the full video and see these kids explain how racism is still a huge part of even getting an interview for a job.

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roxannebee:

Jellygram : short message transmitted by jellyfish.

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pinoy-culture:

But here is the thing. Filipino is a modern concept. You can’t have a dialect deriving from a language that was invented hundreds of years after it. Filipino as it is now is a standardized, institutionalized version of the Tagalog language. Yes there are variations between the Tagalog dialects such as the Batangas and Mindoro dialects from the standardized version of the language, Filipino, however it’s all the same language as a speaker from Batangas or Mindoro who speaks Tagalog can mutually understand one another and both can easily and mutually understand Filipino despite variations within the dialects.

Let’s try explaining it in terms of the English language. There is American English and British English, as well as Australian and Canadian English. All in all it is all the same language, English. However they all do differ based on pronunciations, spelling, and speech. Even within American English there are dialects based on the different regions in the U.S. and based on immigration patterns that influenced the local English dialect. Though some terms differ among U.S. Americans across the country and there are different slangs and accents, they can all understand one another despite regional differences of the dialects. This is the same in the UK. Then there is American Standardized English which is often heard in media but take for example the English spoken in Brooklyn, NY to someone in Tennessee, we don’t generally speak like that and have our own way of speaking and pronouncing the same language.

This is the same for the Tagalog language. However this is NOT the same for the different languages across the various regions and islands of the Philippines.

The Tagalog language still persists, though it may not be the same Tagalog spoken in precolonial times as it has developed, like all languages throughout the world, over time. The Tagalog language today is not the same as the language spoken by the Tagalogs say in the 1300’s. English is definitely not the same as it was spoken back in Medieval times, it developed over time but it’s still English. 

Of course there is no “pure” Tagalog. It doesn’t exist and it is the same for any language in the world. Languages develop over many years with the change of time. Tagalog is still spoken by native Tagalog speakers and I’m not talking about the standardized version of it based on the Metro Manila dialect. Tagalog as a language has changed and is still changing. It has received loan words from Spanish, the Nahuatl language that is native to Mexico, some Chinese and Japanese, as well as Sanskrit, based on the history and influx of people whether it was from trading or colonization. The language will continue to change like any language in the world but it’s still the same language.

hayloredits:

Won’t you come on over, baby, we can shake, shake, shake!

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alicebitland:

Hi everyone. I’m sure a lot of trans women and nonbinary trans DMAB folks out there would like a clear explanation of how to find your “fem” voice from someone who has succeeded. The way I do it doesn’t feel like it wears you down, so you don’t get a tired voice from using it for more than a few hours. It also came super fast and super natural for me but that doesn’t mean it will for everyone. I recognize that I may have unconsciously trained a bit before learning about how to do this.

For example, I first discovered my fem voice when I sang “Make Your Own Kind of Music" and attempted to mimic the resonance as best I could. I had the music turned up really loud because I was scared of how stupid I would sound. However, I noticed that my voice would "lock" into a fem type of voice for a few hours, where it would eventually get tired and need another go. I did this for about one or two weeks before really getting serious and approaching everything scientifically. Therefore, I recognize that these may have been necessary warmup steps for the following information.

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Pitch isn’t perfect

Probably most of you have tried making your voice more girly by increasing the pitch. What you’re really doing is just increasing the pitch of your masculine voice, and staying within a masculine range. All that really does is make a falsetto, fake voice. It really just makes the voice sound like Mickey Mouse. Girls sometimes have higher pitches than boys but they sometimes have lower ones. Yet we still identify them as women. So what’s going on here?

Well, it’s not as if playing an F# tells you that an instrument is a violin. Pianos can play the same octave F# as the violin; yet you know the difference when you hear them. Clearly they are different instrumentations of each other—called resonance. Sound is more complicated than just some two-dimensional oscillation. It actually oscillates in three dimensions, which leaves many different degrees of freedom for a given sound to have various properties of pitch, resonance, and tone.

When you change pitch, you’re just using your vocal cords and some of you probably use the Styloglossus muscle. This is found just under the tongue and gives what people refer to as head resonance. This is still a sort of “fake” resonance as the sound is not coming from the throat in a way that sounds fem, but rather is being converted at the last second in your mouth. This is why it’s so tiring to keep this up: partially because you’re using one muscle and partially the extra strain on the vocal cords.

Your instruments

So how do you change instrumentation? By changing the instrument, of course. DMAB people usually have a larynx which sits forward on the throat, allowing excess air to pass through it. This collection of new cartilage and bone changes the default human (or perceived “fem”) voice to “masculine”. Your goal is not to use the larynx (much) when speaking. Ideally, you accomplish this by folding the larynx in so that it’s not visible or being used. First, know your instruments:

This is the Stylopharyngeus muscle, which runs from your ear to your neck, behind the larynx. It’s one of three muscles in charge of moving that area around, including helping keep your larynx in position.

This is the Stylohyoid muscle. It’s a very small rubber-bandy muscle that runs from the hinge of the jaw to above the larynx.

This is the Digastric muscle—the specific part we’re interested in is called the posterior belly (on the right of the image). The whole muscle runs from the ear to the tip of the jaw, circling near the larynx like a rubber band.

Note that these muscles are all fine, rubber-bandy cords that stretch around and near the larynx. That’s how they can be so useful. The trick to this is using them, much like you would use your fingers, to pull the larynx back and upward. You can pull the larynx in any combination of back, forward, down, and up, however the combinations which include “forward” and “down” usually result in more masculinity (in fact, death metal growlers use this same trick to get the hardass sounds, and different masculine combinations get you the different metal growls and screams).

Pulling it back and upward will make the larynx almost disappear and this reverts you back to how a person without a larynx, or a DFAB person would be able to control their voice. This may not be instantaneous for everyone else like it was for me. I saw the diagrams, I truly understood them, and I just did it. After over 12 hours of streaming Dark Souls, I had no problem with voice fatigue nor anyone clocking me.

Tricks

Since, as I said, everyone will not have this come naturally, you may want to know some tricks and perspectives to help with changing the resonance in your voice.

First, you can try to pull the larynx back and up, using the three muscles above and taking care to avoid the Styloglossus under your tongue. If you can feel your tongue getting fatigued, you’re using the wrong muscle! Tilt your head back slightly and rub your finger down your throat, feeling to make sure the larynx is only barely (or not) noticable. Using less of it means a more fem voice, though some masculinity left in it is actually fine. Hold that there and try speaking. At first, you may sound ridiculous, like how you sound upside down hanging off your bed—kind of winded. But the point is getting used to the muscles being in that position.

Another thing you can try is the hump method. Go really really low in your masculine resonance, then work the “ahhh” note up to your highest pitch, and try to go over a sort of hump feeling when you do it (your larynx should end up backward and upward for this), then start going down slowly from high to about midrange, which should be within your female resonance and should demonstrate your fem voice. This may actually have been what my voice was doing when singing the song at the beginning of this post, so try not to discount it as silly.

Naturally, this may take practice and time, as the use of any unused muscle usually requires exercise. Remember that this is your voice and your life. You can practice as little or as much as makes you feel comfortable, but I highly encourage you to ignore anyone who may be listening and just do it. I have severe anxiety, so I know how that feels.

An important note: You do not have to change your voice! That is completely a preference thing. If you think it’ll make you more recognizable as a female in daily interactions, you can go for it. But never feel pressured. You’re a girl. If you sound that way, then that means girls sound that way too. If you need to take it slow due to anxiety or dysphoria, do so. Don’t rush this, if that’s not what you want.

Thanks everyone for reading this post, and I hope it helps a bunch! What I really want to see from you girls is a comment or reblog with your own tips and stories about how you changed your voice if you’ve been successful thus far. We should spread the knowledge. Also, please feel free to reblog with audio/video of your voice progress while trying this method! It’s definitely possible and it gets better.

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