Your take on transitioning but keeping a male voice?

[Ultimus]

I found this video while perusing youtube for some transgender inspiration:



She is a transgender woman who prefers to speak as a man. I have always found that the most disconcerting part of transitioning would be changing my voice. Practicing a girl's voice always felt fake and unnatural. I never realized that you could transition without having to change your voice. Sure, you won't pass, but at least you can be yourself.

[JenJen2011]

To each their own, I guess. I, personally, could have never kept my male voice. That would make me feel fake and unnatural.

[Sarah Louise]

I have to agree, there is no way I could have kept my old voice (even though it was never that masculine) and felt good about myself.

My new voice is me.  I am totally comforable with it.

But that doesn't mean you can't keep your masculine voice if that is what you want.

[Noelle]

My current voice is nice and deep, and it does make me uncomfortable. I used to love it as a male but now i just see it as this huge impossible obstacle to overcome..

This person is inspiring, and surprisingly beautifull even with the voice she uses. If it wasnt for pre-disposed gender norms in our minds im sure we could all agree there is nothing really wrong with her voice and she is a beautifull woman.

[Eve87]

I'm one of those girls who had a relatively male voice even when full-time. It's really quite complicated. I did the voice training and was able to go from 120 Hz to 130 to 180 to 200.. but could not really sustain it in real conversation. So I more or less just spoke around 130-140Hz which isn't all that low but still it did not match my body anymore. It bothered me endlessly that people would get this "wtf" look on their voice when I said something but part of me was also starting to feel that tingle of pride in myself - like "yeah, i'm trans, deal with it".

I've now had a cricothyropexy with an amazing result and speak at like 250Hz naturally with no effort (supposed to drop to 230 or so as it heals further) and it's great. Sounds and feels very nice. But part of me does miss that old voice. It was just mine, you know? In the end I had the surgery with the goal of being unclockable and fitting in. Having a pretty girly voice is certainly great but it wasn't quite as big a factor in my decision. So I can understand a bit when someone transitions but clings to their original voice.

By the way being unable to really use your voice for a week or two with no real idea of how it's going to turn out is just murder on your psyche. More than once I broke down thinking I'd just made my first terrible mistake in transition. If I couldve undone the op and gotten my old voice back somehow I'd have taken it. But luckily it got better. xD

[Dahlia]

She sounds like someone who was given the chance for a long time to build a healthy, strong ego as a 'white, heterosexual male the sky was the limit', which is very, very true.

[JenJen2011]

Right. And it feels so good to be ma'am'd over the phone. I don't even think about it anymore.

[Devlyn]

I couldn't view the video, but my take is it's no ones business how anyone presents. Hugs, Devlyn

[Stephe]

While I am not that concerned with passing 100%, the BEST thing I did was change my voice. As others have stated I got tired of the "jaw drop" reaction when I opened my mouth. The other thing was: even close friends would call me him/sir by accident quite often after we had been talking for a while and I realized my male voice over rode my female appearance. This happened more when a situation like we were in a car, they were driving and just listening to me etc.  If you sound male, people will think of you as male no matter how passable you look. When watching that video all I was thinking was "guy" and I should know better.

As far as "being myself", most of learning a female voice is simply relearning how to speak. We learned to talk like a man from listening to men talk because we assumed we had to live as men. Seriously think about it, most of us have the range to talk in the female range but we learned to talk like a guy, use male intonation etc. It's no different than learning how to apply makeup and IMHO a lot less "fake" than taking hormones if you want to try to think of it like that. 

Yes getting a female voice is a lot of work and practice, you can't just pop some pills and forget about it as it happens on it's own. And I'm not going to judge anyone who wants to look like a woman but sound like a man but it will ensure they never blend in under any situation and at least for me it severely limited me "being myself" which is a very outgoing person who loves to chat with strangers. I avoided talking to anyone because of the "jaw drop" reaction and then being treated differently/as a man after I did. I want to be treated as a woman and very few people will if you have a total male voice.

OK on the content of the video, the story she told about calling on the phone and talking with a gym owner. Then she is shocked at the gym owners reaction?? This is the problem with having a huge disconnect between your appearance and your voice. Anyone listening to that voice would assume they are male if they can't see them and/or look for the man the voice is coming from. You talk to the drive thru people and then show up at the window and every time they will be like O.o. I'm not ashamed of being trans or wanting to be stealth but I do think there has to be some continuity if you want to be accepted as a woman.

[Assoluta]

You can also take comfort in the fact that some genetic females also have very deep voices - just changing intonation can do wonders.

An example of a deep female voice I love - Zarah Leander

[Jennifer.L]

A bunch of people have said it already but to put it simply.  You sure can keep your old voice, but you will never pass.  So things like using the women's bathroom will be out.  You will always get That Look when you talk and it will make most Norm's uncomfortable.  But I promise you hun, if you train your voice for a month or so?  It will feel perfectly natural, and you will have to concentrate to drop it to boy tone's. 

Are you worried that you can't get it high enough?  It's not really all about the pitch so much as how you speak.  using half guatal stops not full ones. things like that.

[BrokenCode]

I found this video while perusing youtube for some transgender inspiration:



She is a transgender woman who prefers to speak as a man. I have always found that the most disconcerting part of transitioning would be changing my voice. Practicing a girl's voice always felt fake and unnatural. I never realized that you could transition without having to change your voice. Sure, you won't pass, but at least you can be yourself.

Nice topic!!

You wanna hear something weird. I hate talking with my male voice regularly. Sometimes after the end of the day being in guy mode for work I get so depressed about it. But here is the crazy part is I love to sing in the male voice. Like Offspring, Linkin Park, Manson, NIN, Ashes Divide.  I can hit it them so well and it feels so good, but I hate talking regularly in my male voice, it doesn't feel natural to me. lol.
Just thought I would share.

[Padma]

My voice is my voice, and i feel no urge to change it. I don't have a problem with being a deep-voiced woman, I'm pretty Amazonian in physique anyway.

[Rabbit]

I think I will keep my male voice. I don't feel the need to hide being trans... and changing your voice is pretty much so you can "pass" better.

Though, I am still practicing my "female" voice too (just because i think it is sexier and might be handy to pull out when I wana be more "fem").

[Annah]

I couldn't transition and keep my male voice...I just couldn't. I could not go my whole like getting clocked every single time I opened my mouth. I couldn't deal with the fact of being "sir'ed" everytime I am on the phone.

To me, The voice is one of the top two or three when it comes to going stealth.

If stealth doesn't appeal to you, then I assume voice is not necessary but I just could not do that. My whole reason of being is to be female....if society always label me as a transsexual everytime I open my mouth, that would be a hard life to live.

[Annah]

. I never realized that you could transition without having to change your voice. Sure, you won't pass, but at least you can be yourself.

I have a very feminine voice and I am myself. Matter of fact, I wasn't myself when I had the masculine voice.

[Padma]

It's fascinating to me just how diverse people's needs and desires are in transitioning. It's very easy to assume we're all the same, or at least very similar, but you only have to ask questions like this one to discover how diverse we actually are.

For me, transition is simply about a need for a female body. The person I have always been is the person I am going to be - except that I'm no longer trying to "pass" as a man. But it's my anatomy that needs attention, and is getting it. I would rather get misgendered sometimes than feel like I was obliged to put on a particular voice and outfit in order to be female. Of course, I may feel differently 5 years from now - but I may not. And clearly, for some people, changing their voice is a vital and valuable part of their transition experience.

[kelly_aus]

I couldn't transition and keep my male voice...I just couldn't. I could not go my whole like getting clocked every single time I opened my mouth. I couldn't deal with the fact of being "sir'ed" everytime I am on the phone.

To me, The voice is one of the top two or three when it comes to going stealth.

If stealth doesn't appeal to you, then I assume voice is not necessary but I just could not do that. My whole reason of being is to be female....if society always label me as a transsexual everytime I open my mouth, that would be a hard life to live.

I haven't changed my voice at all so far.. I have changed how I speak.. And either everyone I interact with is polite and sensitive (very doubtful) or I'm not getting clocked.. I do still very occasionally get 'sir' on the phone, but no way near as often as you might think.. I'm spending a lot of time on the phone at the moment, last week I think it happened once, maybe twice.. I will admit that I don't have a terribly deep voice, it's fairly high for a guy's voice..

As for stealth, it's essentially a fiction we create, I do work that requires background checks - and these will out you every time, just depends on  whether to person who reads the background check says anything..

[eli77]

It's fascinating to me just how diverse people's needs and desires are in transitioning. It's very easy to assume we're all the same, or at least very similar, but you only have to ask questions like this one to discover how diverse we actually are.

For me, transition is simply about a need for a female body. The person I have always been is the person I am going to be - except that I'm no longer trying to "pass" as a man. But it's my anatomy that needs attention, and is getting it. I would rather get misgendered sometimes than feel like I was obliged to put on a particular voice and outfit in order to be female. Of course, I may feel differently 5 years from now - but I may not. And clearly, for some people, changing their voice is a vital and valuable part of their transition experience.

Interesting. I use that same line: "for me, transition is simply about the need for a female body." But I consider voice to be part of my physicality rather than part of my presentation - i.e. my voice is part of my body. My position, when walking into the office of a voice therapist for the first time, was "testosterone broke it, now it's time to fix it."

Of course I discovered that my voice was closer to female than male to start with, and ended up shifting it only very slightly (the main thing I did was improve my projection so I don't sound like scared mouse). I also kept a fairly low female voice at 175Hz median (only 25Hz higher than what I started with), even though I can speak as high as 245Hz without difficulty (I dunno why, but my voice didn't really do the dropping thing in puberty apparently). My voice therapist tried to convince me to compromise on 190Hz, but I declined. So I guess I have mixed feelings. I didn't so much want a "feminine voice"; I just wanted to make my voice FIT me. The same way I want the rest of my body to FIT me.

So even though I am rather unfeminine with my men's clothes and andro haircut and whatnot, I do sport a definitively female, if low, voice. On the other hand it pisses me off to no end when people suggest I change how I talk (my vocabulary, etc.). It IS fascinating how diverse we are. If we were all the same we'd be boring, nah?

[Padma]

I just like my voice, is all - it feels like it's part of my strength as a woman. I may play around with the intonation sometimes, but not with the basic pitch of it (as a singer, I have a quite broad range anyway).

People keep asking me "are you planning to change your voice?", and it's a useful question to be asked, because every time it gets asked, I can feel the answer in my guts is "why would I?" - even though I always check to see if the answer has changed - because in transition, other things have been known to change .