To what extent does your voice have on your transition

[stephaniec]

It's seems , somewhat understandably so that voice is an extremely important part of ones willingness to transition. Personally for me it's transition first and worry later about the voice. Worse case for me would be just going around whispering. I do all right though when force in a situation to talk , but I have no clue how good it sounds I just wing it. just curious if voice would be enough to stop you from transitioning'

[enigmaticrorschach]

steph, i enjoy your threads lol. i can shift my voice from male to female or vice versa or keep it andro. so its important but not enough to stop me

[stephaniec]

thanks

[Jenna Marie]

I was with you; I went full-time well before I felt like I had the voice down, because it was that important to me to live as a woman.

(That said, it was a help to be able to break out a very female voice when someone was clearly puzzling out my gender - I'm not downplaying how much voice can matter, just saying, as you do, that I would have transitioned even if I'd never managed the voice part.)

[stephaniec]

I'd totally would love having a totally female voice. I listen all the time to other woman talking and try imagining how to do it. Sometimes I think I do all right if I only speak a few words and take it slow, but it would be beautiful to freely talk away in a feminine tone.

[Jenna Marie]

Practice, seriously. The hard part is getting it right AT ALL; once you can do that, it's a question of figuring out what worked and repeating it until it's second nature. I know, that sounds easy and I'm not making light of it (I put in probably hundreds of hours of practice), but I thought it might be reassuring to know you've made the important breakthrough.

It was a year or more before my voice was not only "good" but enough of a habit that that was what came out when I was surprised/distracted/stubbed my toe... but you can get there with time and training the muscle memory.

[Squircle]

It was pretty important to me, I put in a lot of work to make sure I sound half decent. I don't think it would ever have stopped me, I would have just carried on working on it. I do think it's really important generally, people seem to be more prepared to treat you and consider you as a woman if you have a female voice.

[Marly]

For me, it is one of the must-haves. In fact, while I am seeing my therapist towards HRT, I am steadily working on my voice. it is coming along decently.

[big kim]

None i sound like Lemmy from Motorhead when he has a sore throat!

[iKate]

My voice is so important to me that I'm flying halfway across the world to get it fixed. I also go full time at work before I go!

But I'm a ham radio operator and I also record podcasts and speak in front of people professionally. I also do TV and radio interviews from time to time but I'm not sure after transition if I'm going to. So often I'm heard before I'm seen. My voice is super duper important to me!

In fact my voice dropping was one of the biggest things that I hated about myself. I was in the choir in elementary school.

[kittenpower]

I put a lot of work into training my voice, and stuck with it during it's terrible stage (when it was embarrassing to use it in public), so yes, it's important to me.

[Christine Eryn]

I admit, now that I'm full time I am more hesitant to speak to people than usual because my voice is not as high as cis women. And I'm not talking about 80 year old smokers either. But, it's good enough to pass but it is one of my major deficiencies.

[April_TO]

iKate and I were discussing about voice and we both acknowledged that it is the swing vote when one raises suspicion on you. I'm blessed to have a decent sounding female voice that when I feel I am being scrutinized, I open my mouth (talk) and I can see them looking away.

Yes it is important.

[kelly_aus]

I haven't done much with my voice at all.. I did have 3 sessions with a speech therapist that mainly involved her trying to teach me female vocal mannerisms and the like - and then realising that I already spoke that way. My pitch is still what most around here would call too low, but I don't find it that much of an issue.

It certainly didn't play any part in my decision to transition..

[JoanneB]

My male voice is close to an octave lower then the "Typical" male's. So no matter how much I try, there is only so much I can, with or w/o any sort of no guarantee surgeries.

Does it bother me? You bet.

Does it stop me?  It did. Back in the dark times with a negative self-esteem as well as a negative self-confidence and, no real true positive sense of who or what I am, it helped stopped me.

Is it stopping me? Nope. Ever hear a life-long female smoker talk? Well, compared to her Lou Reed voice I am Mel Torme.

[Lady Smith]

I jumped into transitioning and living full time very quickly, perhaps too quickly because I was sick of living a lie. For the first year I sometimes was too frightened to speak because of my voice, but by my second year I just did it anyway whether my voice was passable or not.  Over time though and I think mostly because training and working as a social worker meant I had to work face to face with people I started to get it together and produce a voice that worked for me.  The odd thing though is I get people asking if I'm Dutch, - even Dutch people ask me if I'm Dutch! - I don't know how I managed that, but at least I don't have to worry about speaking to people anymore.

The key is to practice using your voice until there isn't any need to think about how you'll sound when you open your mouth.  I used to sing baritone, so I suppose learning to sound female wasn't quite so difficult for me as it might be for someone with a seriously bass kind of voice.

[Emily E]

I knew a girl when I was growing up that had a very male voice and she did fine with it so having a male voice wouldn't stop me but given the opportunity I would like to get it fixed because it would help solidify my appearance as a cis woman.

[katiej]

iKate and I were discussing about voice and we both acknowledged that it is the swing vote when one raises suspicion on you. I'm blessed to have a decent sounding female voice that when I feel I am being scrutinized, I open my mouth (talk) and I can see them looking away.

Agreed.  IMO, voice is a really big part of blending in / being seen as a woman.

I've spent a lot of years as a singer and musician, so working with my voice came pretty easily to me.  My pitch and resonance are well inside female range, but I'm still working on the speech patterns...the sing-songy way that women talk.  It's still not natural for me.  I can't help but feel like I'm trying too hard.

The hardest one for me seems to be interacting with cashiers in stores, or any short conversation like that.  My voice is fine when having longer conversations, but I just don't do the chit chat very well yet.

[stephaniec]

so far I'm pretty much the opposite , I'm good at short bursts, hopefully I can get to the long version.

[Kaylin Kumiho]

It would be really nice if I could do something about my voice... but if I have to be 100% honest, I'm going to sound like crap no matter how much training I do... like not even just from a transitional stand point. Idk, I've been pretty successful with just about everything else thus far, I guess the voice is my one offset. It would be nice... but I'm not counting on it.