Should I do voice surgery ?

[Fluttershy95]

Hey there i got a very big problem.

I am now training my female voice for over one year and i still don't get satisfactory results. I naturally have a very thin and quite voice that still sounds manly. I had problems with being ignored or misunderstood for my whole life because of my voice and it never got better. When i start talking in my female voice this problem just gets worse nobody understands me, I have to say things like 5 times over and again until people know what i want from them. I also let my boyfriend talk for me on the telephone because they just can't understand me in my female voice and I would always need to go back to my male voice. I also went to voice therapy twice and both therapist said that i am just not able to have a female voice.

So would voice surgery be an option for me or would it just make my problem worse ?

[Laura_7]

If you naturally have a voice that only needs to drop resonances imo training could help.

There is a pc program called overtone analyzer. Its free in basic fuctions. It shows what frequencies are present.
You could try to avoid frequencies below 150 hz.

Reading a book in a slightly higher voice regularly, a few minutes a day in the beginning, later longer.
In the beginning it may be necessary to stop after a few minutes, it should become more easy over time.

You could try:
-a more breathy voice. This should show instant results.
-practising exact pronunciation while reading. After a while this should help a lot.

Females tend to be overheard much more than males. So part of it may be part of the social transition ...

Imo reading, practising exact pronunciation and recording from time to time and listening to results could help a lot.

Many people have succeeded by simply practising and being persistent.


hugs

[Dena]

My voice was unable to hit the feminine range and to get close I had to work well above the comfortable zone. You can expect a 60-80 HZ improvement on your working voice which in my case was my trained voice and not my original male voice. Some have had up to a 100 HZ shift but you shouldn't expect it. Recovery can take as much as a year or as little as 6 weeks depending on your body.

Consider it carefully and if you decide to contact a doctor, provide as much information as possible about your current voice as they will attempt to provide you with very detailed information as to what is possible.

[anjaq]

I had problems with being ignored or misunderstood for my whole life because of my voice and it never got better. When i start talking in my female voice this problem just gets worse nobody understands me, I have to say things like 5 times over and again until people know what i want from them.

I also went to voice therapy twice and both therapist said that i am just not able to have a female voice.

That is a mean thing to say - I think everyone is able to get a female voice with proper training - just for many it may be too much effort or straining the voice over time. But to dismiss it straight away is unprofessional.

I think your problem mainly seems to be volume and power of the voice, if that is an issue you had before changing the voice already. So I would first concentrate on that issue, because after a voice surgery, usually volume and power are even less , with good surgeons that phase lasts 8-12 months, with a bit of bad luck or a surgeon that is less skilled, it may be a permanent loss. So clearly this is not what you need to happen, so if you choose a surgeon, check to make sure that the type of surgery and the skill of the surgeon will allow you to recover your volume later on.
However as I said, your issue is already power and volume, and these are topics adressed by conventional voice therapy and are also part of post op voice therapy to recover a surgically altered voice. A lot has to do with proper breathing and relaxation of the voice.  May I ask: Did you have voice therapy sessions and if so how many and with what goal - dis you ever have voice therapy for the lack of power in your voice, did you have voice therapy to feminize the voice, did you self-train the voice to make it feminine and last question, did you ever let a voice doctor have a look at your voice issue to see if it may have some medical cause?

[KayXo]

The current state of voice surgery being what it is, I wouldn't, not yet (to me, results are FAR from impressive)...until technique is further improved. I disagree with those who put any importance on pitch, inflection and anything besides resonance. I sound female 100% of the time and just changed resonance, nothing else. By using the upper part of my larynx, above the adams apple and NOT the lower part when speaking. This will shorten the vocal box and you will sound female. Practice makes perfect and after some time, it becomes second nature.

[anjaq]

Resonance definitely is the key, indeed. The other parameters add to it, but if resonance is wrong, its impossible to get a female voice. The caution I would put onto this comment however is: Train this with a specialist. If not, it is likely that you learn to use force and tension to press your voice into a "female" resonance. The voice may sound pressed, might have less volume, may become nasal sounding - and the larynx gets strained and your voice will get strained and then maybe you can only use the voice for some time before you have to take a break... This shoould be avoided by using the proper feminization technique and while a lot can be done DIY, it really makes sense to have a specialist at least check occasionally if you are doing the right thing or getting into bad habits.

[KayXo]

Resonance definitely is the key, indeed. The other parameters add to it, but if resonance is wrong, its impossible to get a female voice. The caution I would put onto this comment however is: Train this with a specialist. If not, it is likely that you learn to use force and tension to press your voice into a "female" resonance. The voice may sound pressed, might have less volume, may become nasal sounding - and the larynx gets strained and your voice will get strained and then maybe you can only use the voice for some time before you have to take a break... This shoould be avoided by using the proper feminization technique and while a lot can be done DIY, it really makes sense to have a specialist at least check occasionally if you are doing the right thing or getting into bad habits.

I never resorted to a specialist and I am doing fine. In my opinion, better to use money for other things. Technique is quite simple. My 2 cents...

[Katie]

I have met a serious number of trans women. ALMOST all of them could benefit from vocal surgery. That is my observation...........

[KayXo]

I have met a serious number of trans women. ALMOST all of them could benefit from vocal surgery. That is my observation...........

Maybe they just don't care (good for them!) or they ignore the right technique to change their voice resonance.

[GeekGirl]

I never resorted to a specialist and I am doing fine. In my opinion, better to use money for other things. Technique is quite simple. My 2 cents...

I think the problem is many non-VFS transwomen have to consciously speak a certain way to get their voices read as female. Even those that say it's a part of their subconscious still have to be somewhat conscious of speaking a certain way. But what happens in the <10% cases where the old voice starts coming out again? Surgery helps fix those cases.

[anjaq]

I never resorted to a specialist and I am doing fine. In my opinion, better to use money for other things. Technique is quite simple. My 2 cents...

Well good for you. Lucky. I think that in some cases it can be like that - but in others its not. Some have tried instructional videos on voice techniques, had speech therapy and still cannot maintain a good voice all the time. Your personal experience cannot be transported to everyone.
I had this too - a simple technique from the Melanie voice tapes helped me to feminize my voice even at a lower pitch (the trick changed resonance and increased pitch by about 20-30 Hz) - but my pitch was just too low to not be strange to people. They read it as female mostly, but some did not and some just asked me what happened to my voice to make it that low. So it was sticking out. If I had started at a higher initial pitch (upper male range instead of mid-lower range - so maybe 150 Hz instead of 110), maybe that never would have happened and I would never have thought about voice surgery.
So everyones voice is different and some need more and some less change.

[KayXo]

Some have tried instructional videos on voice techniques, had speech therapy and still cannot maintain a good voice all the time.

My feeling is they are using the wrong technique.

So everyones voice is different and some need more and some less change.

But I just find results from voice surgery very unimpressive considering how much they cost, the risks and inconvenience associated. If they actually modified resonance without compromising voice strength and loudness, ok. I would wait but that's me. We disagree.

[Denjin]

I'm still on the fence, and I had the surgery 7 weeks ago.  If you honestly have a very low voice where you can't even get to 150 or 160 Hz, I'd not hesitate, but it remains to be seen if its worth it when you can go higher.

I had it since it was getting harder to keep my good pitch after many years and it was taking a toll on my vocal cords and I was slightly self conscious about things still.

Resonance is of utmost importance, of course, but if you have an insanely low voice it may be hard to get proper resonance, etc.

[anjaq]

KayXo, so you have found a technique that is working better - thats cool. I tried two online instuctions and I had voice therapy with a therapist for several months - it always came down to getting a good resonance, which was fairly possible, but my pitch had to be low to not strain the voice. Going into a female pitch range was taking effort and as with Denjin took a toll on the vocal folds after many years, almost 2 decades. Also what really got to me after a while was that I had to consciously control my voice if I wanted to be sure it works. About half the way was subconscious and second nature, but that was not enough so I had to push it further, which was eventuall harmful. If I did not do that last push, my voice was mostly gendered a very low female voice - some even liked that about me - when I was visible - but gendered 50% male on the phone. In face to face situations it was usually accepted as female even though it was in a clearly male pitch range, but I was often asked why I had such an extremely low voice, that its unusal for a woman and so on - occasionally the connection was made to "trans".

What technique did you use and what was your original pitch of the voice before changing it?

I think everyone is different - some even say they just talk as they did talk before and they are recognized as female all the time.

[KayXo]

I just use muscles over Adam's apple when I speak, not muscles under. The result is a female sounding voice all the time and no vibration under Adam's apple or in chest. I have no clue what my pitch was or is now. Don't really care. If I speak using muscles under, I sound like a male.

Using only those muscles has become second nature, I honestly don't even have to think about it anymore but when I'm insecure, especially around girls, I will force my voice a little until I feel comfortable again. But I don't need to, it's all in my head. I pass as female 100% of the time on the phone.

In person, there were times I could pass as female even with male voice because I looked female and I was a tenor.

[Dena]

KayXo, there is the difference. You were a Tenor so moving to a feminine voice wasn't much of a stretch for you. I was a Bass and couldn't move that far up the scale. From me, the surgery did something it's not supposed to do and it increased the range my voice could cover. I use the same process both pre and post surgical that you do but before surgery, even using a proper trained voice, I still sounded like a male. Surgery is something to be considered carefully but for some of us, it's the only way to hit the feminine range.

[anjaq]

Kayxo, that is the method I used for almost 2 decades - ist not that special. It was described to me online by Melanie Anne Phillips who wrote something about it and did audio tapes with lessons how to learn this in the 1990ies. It works really good and I use this still as it changes the resonance and this is fundamental for a female voice no matter what pitch you are having. You can have a 220 Hz voice and still sound male if you do not have some level of resonance control. I used that technique on my voice and it helped me a lot, I was passing voicewise very well, but on the phone I ran into problems.

Also there is the major difference between us, which is what I said - everyones needs are different:
You were a tenor, this means you have been more in the upper part of the male voice spectrum (140-160 Hz) already. The technique you described adds a little bit of pitch to that so you end up with an alto female voice. Perfect and thats all you need - no surgeries required. I was a bass-bariton - this is the lower part of the male range (110-130 Hz) and others are a bass (<100 Hz).

From there of course using that technique works as well, but you end up with a female tenor or bariton voice. And that is extremely unusual and women who have that are sometimes misgendered on the phone as well. So what we do is then to add a bit more pitch to the training and voice control to get into the range you have - but that causes strain and one can slip because it is not something that works well subconsciously.

And this is where the surgery helps - basically what it did for me was to make my voice from a bass-bariton into a tenor voice and I add the voice technique you described to it and end up in the alto female range, just like you.