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Can testosterone treatments affect a XY bodied persons voice still?

Started by Shawn Sunshine, November 14, 2013, 02:25:29 PM

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Shawn Sunshine

Hey all you guys in here. As an Intersex person who wants to at the very least start living more adrogynously and also is considering and praying and thinking about transitioning to fully female perhaps, I need to know what would happen to me if i started taking testosterone instead of estrogen/aa's as my endo may want to see if my problem of general body dsyphoria is what i really have and that my depression and mood swings are really coming from my already normally low levels of T for a XY body. I have 198 T when normal is 500 for a xy male, and of course I may have mild or partial AIS, but theres no way to confirm that 100%. Even though I have all of the symptoms. I can tell you that for sure I don't want to take something to cause my voice to get lower as of now I have a male tenor voice and I can really go high with my voice impressions I do. I don't want my singing voice to change eithier.

I have seen some people say that It does in fact make changes to any male's voice not just FTM's

So whats that actual truth here? Should I steer clear from testosterone or even clomid, which causes you to create T naturally? Would this be a huge mistake to try this for a month or 2, vs trying estrogen and AA's for a month or 2?




Shawn Sunshine Strickland The Strickalator

#SupergirlsForJustice
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Carrie Liz

It's possible, but as with anything hormonal, YMMV.

With that said, though, I don't think you have to worry too much about 1-2 months on either of those treatments. According to the official WPATH chart, the onset of a deepening voice as a result of testosterone treatment in FtM transsexuals usually isn't until 3-12 months, with its expected maximum effect after 1-2 years. So 1-2 months shouldn't really do much. And likewise, 1-2 months on anti-androgens and estrogen won't really cause any permanent changes either.

From the official standards of care, most of the serious effects of T or E/AA's don't start around the 3-month mark. In the beginning, most of the changes are to mood and libido. 3-6 months is where the changes really start, and there will indeed be some permanent effects, and 6 months is pretty much where the changes start becoming significant and irreversible.
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Magnus

The brunt of it depends on the dose and what that dose is translated into TT by your body (and of course, genes). The amount really and truly does have the biggest deciding factor in how slow or fast the changes occur, rather than genes.

I can almost guarantee you that a higher T level will have an effect on your voice (especially if your T levels have never been beyond what your body considers normal for it at that 198). I seriously doubt that Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jessie Ventura would have those super low, deep voices if they hadn't been messing with roids and at exceptionally (even dangerously) high doses for so many years, as just two examples (I don't think there's a single professional AAS-bodybuilder alive that doesn't have that effect going on. I'd be shocked if there were an exception out there, TBH).

So if you're really concerned about it changing your voice at-all, I wouldn't go on TRT unless it's medically necessary or until or unless you changed your mind and weren't concerned about voice changes anymore. OR, to simply opt into the very low and very slow WPATH plan where it's barely just enough until or unless they up it very gradually over those 3-6 months (and its for that reason I don't recommend anyone NOT on that dose plan to put any stock at all into their projected rates of changes because those WON'T apply to those being shotgunned on cismale levels straight off the bat; as I was. From the start my TT was into the 1,000 to 1,300 and even close into 1,400 ranges. Almost inhuman ranges, by and large. That's why some of my changes did in fact happen so very quickly e.g. voice getting scratchy and more rebellious of holding a singing tune overnight. It broke long before their projected 3 months and hard. Its still not settling yet. It happened so quickly in fact that it wasn't just annoying but really hurt at times).

On the other hand, it is also possible Estrogen will have an effect on your voice because it can cause increased vascularity and swelling in the vocal folds as well. So either way there's a chance your voice will change from one or the other. You'd just need to consider which way you'd hate it changing more (I'm pretty sure higher Estrogen can lend a helping hand into getting a super high-pitch, even screeching voice in those who'd always had a low T level. My grandmother had been on the old-school HRT for about 25 years after she'd had her goods removed at age 20 and now her voice can actually hurt people's ears, it's so screechingly and even unnaturally high. Nobody has pipes quite like her). It's considered a rarity on everything I've looked into about it, but it can still definitely happen. Although whether that's possible to happen quite to that level for you, that's anybody's guess. It probably only happened to my grandmother because they knew about nothing back then and it was probably way, way, way too much but anyway, I'm just saying that either way you should expect some changes whichever route you go.


That all stated, if you do go the T route, I'd have to say you would have the best experience and because of your voice concerns on a very low and very gradually increasing dose initially. Avoid the higher until or unless you like it. Or again because of your voice concerns, to try the Estrogen first (although if you really want to transition fully to male that might have other, unwanted effects if they're not already present. So be prepared for that too).

Also though, if you do have both hormones, perhaps it could instead be a matter of blocking one or the other of them, which could also assist you rather than raising one or the other. I would definitely discuss that option with your Endo to see if that can do something instead. From personal experience, having both of them fighting each other felt pretty bad for me for the first couple months on T (I image that is likely one of the factors for why 'shotgunning' into male levels immediately is not commonly done; to give the body time to adjust better first). It wasn't until the T gained the dominance over the E that I didn't feel weird anymore so that's why I'm thinking you could try blocking the E or the T instead, to get rid of what's causing the trouble right now.


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