To what extent does your voice have on your transition

[Sydney_NYC]

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.

I think iKate and I have had this same discussion. Voice does make a difference and helps, but it's not everything. However if something is questionable, I'm glad to have a decent female voice being 6'7". It's on the lower end of the female range (around 190 Hz), but being a tall woman gives me a little leeway.

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.

At one of my clients, one of the employees (who is extremely supportive) has a 20 years old cis daughter who has a very deep voice that is very male sounding. If you heard her from the other room you would thing there was a guy talking. On the phone she is gendered male, but in person no one thinks anything of it.

[Squircle]

I am actually sometimes jealous of you American girls because I always think an American accent sounds a bit more feminine sometimes. I am a northerner in England and proud of it, and I didn't want to lose that identity, but it is harder to sound female when you're accent is so blunt and full of flat vowels. At least I don't have a strong Manchester accent!

[Valwen]

I am terrible at doing character voices, I have no ear for music, I am pretty much tone deaf and my voice terrifies me, I have had more than one panic attack that left me half in or fully in tears which where heavily based on my weight, and my voice.

its bad enough that even when I try and practice i see how bad it sounds and how much work it will take even if I ever get it right and that tends to trigger me freaking out about it which end with me shoveling food into my mouth which makes me freak out about my fat/body shape which ends with more freaking out and going to bed a wreck. I watch learn to speak videos and they keep asking, do you hear that? or do you feel how that feels? and I am thinking , no i dont I dont hear anything I dont feel anything I have no clue what i am doing and I never will. Then I reach the point where I want to deafen myself so no one will ever expect me to talk. I don't think I would ever do it but my brain tends to go all excessive when I am freaking out.

All that said I don't think I am going to let it stop or slow me down from transitioning I will just have to accept the fact that I will never pass and get used to being treated like garbage by everyone I ever meet for the rest of my life.

--Serena

[Rina]

I don't care about frequency - I have female cousins with deeper voices than me. So as long as I manage to change my timbre and so on over time, my pitch is fine. I would only go for VFS if changing those things proved overly difficult; while VFS won't solve such problems, it could at least make them less noticeable.

Thankfully my voice has changed quite a lot over the last few months, partly due to less anxiety and dysphoria, partly to training, and I also suspect some muscular changes or something making it easier to use the voice differently. But this could also of course be my (although very limited) training having effects. Either way, since people seem to gender me a bit randomly on the phone now, I'm hopeful that I can have a passing voice within a few years, without surgery.

[iKate]

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.

Yeah. I hate talking with cashiers now. Short conversations I have trouble raising the voice. I like being chatty with cashiers and talking but it's either chat it up and get clocked or stay silent and pass. Patience for me though. In a few months hopefully I won't have this issue.

[jackeTT]

I'm currently pre-everything still unsure about transitioning and for myself if I couldn't pull off a good female voice it would make me highly unlikely to want to transition.

[Abby Claire]

My voice doesn't keep me from transitioning (I'm happier now than I've ever been), but it has kept me from being full time. It'll come in time though.

[akegia]

My voice doesn't keep me from transitioning (I'm happier now than I've ever been), but it has kept me from being full time. It'll come in time though.

Pretty much this. Hasn't stopped me from starting. But it is holding back full time. But working on it day by day, and plan on VFS soon.

[Lynne]

I've voted for "important but not enough to stop me" but it is holding me back somewhat(from going fulltime) because in my line of work I have talk to a lot of people and hold trainings and I can't say that, sorry I'm not up to it because I don't like my voice. So I'm trying to work on it to get to a level where it is good enough so people don't instantly clock me as I open my mouth. I think voice is highest on my priority list in my transition, and also that is the hardest to get right.

[Mariah]

My voice didn't stop me, but especially early on I was conscious of it and have worked hard on it. Could my voice be better, of course, but I'm happy with that it is at least generally very passable.
Mariah