How much do you fear your voice will give you away

[stephaniec]

I try not letting it get to me. I think I do all right. I just go an octave higher and softer. I also try to present as best as possible to try to make up for the voice.

[KathyLauren]

I should be working on it more, but I'm lazy.  I took some voice lessons last fall.  I can't get an octave higher (220 Hz) without straining, but I can comfortably get a fith higher (165 Hz), which sounds plausibly female enough.  More significant are the other aspects of voice: the range of pitch variation, lengthening the vowels and softening the consonants, etc..  When I pay attention, I think I can get a plausible, if a bit deep, feminine voice.

[Sophia Sage]

I selected "other" because my voice isn't a source of fear, it's a source of confidence.  Not only has it never betrayed me, it's pulled the fat out of the fryer on more than one occasion. 

[flytrap]

Same for me.  It was fun learning to use my voice to sound like like I did when I was small and now people can tell I'm a girl even on the telephone!

[Nina_Ottawa]

I gave up caring in 2010.
Life is way easier when you're comfortable and confident in oneself and not care what others think.

[stephaniec]

yea, I kind of quit caring. I try to do my best , but I'm not going to let it bother me

[SarahElizabeth1981]

My Voice is my biggest source of dysphoria. I have a referral for voice training but have been waiting over a year. It's covered by healthcare so I don't want to pay for it. Can't afford to anyway. I will get there though. I'm only a year and a bit into transitioning and things have been going great.

[staciM]

Sarah, I'm in Alberta as well.  How long did you have to wait for your Gender psychiatrist appointment?  I'm being told 18-24 months, which would include voice training referrals.  Fortunately, my psychologist can start HRT without that long wait.

[Inarasarah]

I gave up caring in 2010.
Life is way easier when you're comfortable and confident in oneself and not care what others think.

I did this too back in 2004, it wasn't until recently that the disphoria with my voice resurfaced.  In fact, that is what brought me here to this site.  All of my friends have no problem with my voice, and not one of them think I am anything but a girl.  But there are always those random phone calls, and strangers in stores or on the street.  And once this summer while camping with a few friends, their were some college kids camping in the next campsite that popped into our site and mentioned that one of the "guys" in our site sounded like one of their friends.  Well there was only one guy in our site, my friend's husband.  He corrected the kids, but I still felt it in my gut.  I hid how upset I was from my friends, but I did secretly cry myself to sleep that night.  If it was not for pure frustration and the desire to find a solution, I would have never found Yeson.  Several videos on their site and on YouTube literally changed my outlook.  Now I do not know if it will work for me, but I am willing to take a leap of faith into the unknown in an attempt to be more authentic and to hopefully have a voice that is more me.  Now I have 28 more days before I have my surgery. 

I wanted to thank a number of you who have personally reached out to me and to those I have had conversations with on the forums.  You have helped me feel supported and welcomed.  I am not a religious person, and my mom knows this, but she said she was going to add me to her churches prayer chain.  I love this gesture as it is her way of supporting me through her faith.  My close friends promised to torture me when I cannot talk for a month, so I got that too.  But most of all I love that I have reconnected with the community through this forum.  Thank you ladies

Hugs,
Sarah

[Codia]

I came to a point in my transition where I started to love myself and decided I'd rather feel this new sensation than worry about what other people were thinking.  I still do it, but it seems silly to concern myself with such things.  This is my life, and as long as I'm happy, others can think whatever they want.  Not all cis-women have wide hips, or lighter voices or big tits.  I feel like there are such high expectations portrayed on women through the media that it can be hard for any woman (cis or trans) trying to meet these unreasonable expectations to feel confident or 'good enough'. 

Just try and remember that at the end of the day, you're beautiful!  If someone feels differently, that's just too bad for them!

[Miharu Barbie]

+1 for 'other'.  I spend a lot of time on the telephone at my job.  My voice has never betrayed me.  I can't think of a single instance over the past 15 years or longer that my voice has ever come up as an issue.  I also spend a lot of time in noisy pool halls; my  high, musical voice cuts through the background noise so that I'm easily heard in the next county.  I've never had any voice training or surgery.  I reckon I'm just blessed that way.

Love, Miharu

I selected "other" because my voice isn't a source of fear, it's a source of confidence.  Not only has it never betrayed me, it's pulled the fat out of the fryer on more than one occasion.

[Kristinagl]

I'm absolutely worry about my voice. It's one thing behind closed doors but once it's in front of someone else it's front and centre in my head. But ty SarahElizabeth1981 I had no idea that voice training was covered under health care. I'm definitely gonna make a call to see what kinda wait I have here

[JoanneB]

With a voice tonality that can make most professional male radio/tv voiceover people jealous.... What can I do accept it as it is what it is?  Like my big hands, big feet, and bald head. Ain't much I can do. No sense loosing sleep or getting hangovers over it

[Lynne]

I voted for constantly but it's not just fear. Sounds and voices around me affect me a lot emotionally, so my own voice which is with me everywhere I go affects me even more. I spent a lot of effort on getting the best sound out of everything I listen to on a daily basis, quality is important for me. So when I analyze my own voice while practicing I tend to set a very high standard, probably too high for my own good.
I'm at a point where I have very hard time seeing male in the mirror and people tend to think I'm female until I prove otherwise. I want a voice that I can call my own, which enables me to express myself the way I wish.

It's a source of constant dysphoria for me and even if my voice passes sometimes in certain situations, it's not good enough for daily use as a female.

Just to give one example how the state of my voice affects my transition, I'll write down what happened yesterday at work.
We were discussing the company party that will be later this month and one guy said that he will not come because he doesn't have a suit to wear and this place looks like one those places where it would be required. That was the point where I said I'll stay home if I have to wear a suit and I thought maybe this would be a great conversation starter with my boss for coming out.
But then I imagined the party, I'll be in my best dress, wearing my new shoes I just bought before Christmas, my hair looking great and then I'll have to say something in front of people who knew me as a man officially.  I would probably fail to get anything feminine sounding out of my mouth as I would be nervous and would ruin everything. At this point, coming out did not seem to be the best idea.

I don't want people I know to see me like that, I want them to see me when I feel confident about myself and when I can be myself in totally comfortable way, not trying to force my voice to sound a little less bad and it just feels plain wrong to me when my voice sounds manly in any way. I'm like that in other things as well, I don't like to show half-baked things, only if it's something really cool in that state as well, but in this instance my voice is far from really cool in a half-baked state.

It affects me so much that sometimes I would gladly spend the money for VFS before spending anything to get my own apartment.

[PrincessCrystal]

I sound a bit like Johnny Rotten, and have a very distinctive voice.  It's not possible for me to pass though, no matter how pretty I am, so I don't worry about it...

[Barb99]

I said nearly never. I've been working on my voice for over a year now, and since I've been off work for the last 6 weeks recovering from SRS I've had a lot of time to work on it and it's sounding ok.

I go back to work next week and am a bit worried that I will slip back into the dominating male voice. (Its a male dominated environment.)

My voice therapist is working on some exercises to prevent that from happening. Curious to see what she comes up with.

[Michelle_P]

Voice is so damn hard.  I'll constantly slip.

I run an app called Singscope on my iPhone to check pitch.  When rehearsing presentations I've been running it constantly and glance at it to check pitch during the presentation.  I'll be happy when I can consistently hold it up there.  Then it will definitely be time to start work on cleaning out all the bad vocal mannerisms.

I'm half-baked in so many ways right now. [emoji17] I don't worry about my voice 'giving me away' as there isn't much to hide. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jenna Marie]

Yeah, there's no real option for "never" or "it's an advantage"? I honestly don't think my voice is fantastic, but I've never had issues after the first year or so with people being confused or misgendering me, so I don't worry about it. I did notice I tend to pitch my voice higher and softer when I'm nervous, but I was amused to realize my wife does the same thing. I used to switch back and forth between a fully female voice outside the house and my old voice at home, too, but somewhere in there (maybe a couple years after transition?), I realized that trying to do a male voice just sounded like a woman badly pretending.

[Pandora Now]

I do get a little worried about my voice. I have no trouble keeping pitch up (220hz) comfortably despite my natural bass voice, but resonance and tonality still leave much to be desired.

[Lady_Oracle]

Never 

I mastered my voice years ago

If anyone needs help, I do lessons for free