Susan's Place Transgender Resources

My voice has been pretty deep for a while, but one thing I've noticed since it dropped that people often mistake me for being gay. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that per se, but it can get pretty annoying to be constantly asked about it. Anyways, I figure it has a lot to do with my speech patterns. I'd say I still have female speech patterns; I'm pretty dramatic when I talk, I raise my voice a lot and emphasize things. I know there are speech therapists that specialize in this kind of stuff, but I don't really have the time or money for one so I was wondering if anyone had any tips on helping to achieve more of a "masculine" way of speaking.

Guys typically speak more monotone. Try recording yourself talking to someone (it's the most honest you'd be as opposed to just reading from the paper.) perhaps call a friend or family member and just record yourself. Try to notice any inflections in your tone that sound effeminate. Watch videos of speech therapy and such on YouTube, I'm quite sure you can find them I haven't looked but I'm sure they're there. And most importantly, practice.

Quote from: AeroZeppelin92 on May 09, 2015, 06:01:09 PM
Guys typically speak more monotone. Try recording yourself talking to someone (it's the most honest you'd be as opposed to just reading from the paper.) perhaps call a friend or family member and just record yourself. Try to notice any inflections in your tone that sound effeminate. Watch videos of speech therapy and such on YouTube, I'm quite sure you can find them I haven't looked but I'm sure they're there. And most importantly, practice.

I try to listen to my voice a lot, and I think it's mainly an issue when I'm getting really into things. Like if I'm just having small talk I don't think it's as much of an issue. But when I consciously try to talk monotone I feel like I just sound completely emotionless, almost like a robot, and I just wish I could find some kind of middle ground. Are there any trans-specific videos that you recommend?

I personally don't know of any, as I've never looked into it. I watch accent videos on occasion to try and learn different accents just for ->-bleeped-<-s and giggles, and I've noticed it's definitely made me more aware of how I speak.

I'm certainly no expert on speech patterns, I've still got to figure out how females do it, but for male's I've always tried to be almost monotone, perhaps just a little deeper at the end of a statement than the beginning.

Stoic, emotionless, almost annoyed at having to make anything more than a grunting noise to communicate your idea.

While that's a fairly extreme way to describe it, that's pretty much the idea.

I can give some random examples from youtube if that would be helpful.

That's for talking to strangers or in a formal setting of course. If you're hanging with your buds or trying to establish an emotional connection with someone you can open up a little and use more range to emphasize words, but there's an unspoken line where if you start letting too much emotion in it gets weird.

Also, watch those T's and S's. Keep them short and clipped.

The whole thing about ending deeper at the end of the sentence seems to me to be an American thing; here in Ireland I have heard plenty of straight men use higher notes for emphasis and end their sentences on higher notes (especially down the south of the country). And in England, too - male British RP (received pronunciation, or 'posh' speak if you will) is perhaps a little less inflected than female RP, but is not monotonous, and is articulate. I'm no expert on accents, of course; these are merely my own observations. I end up sounding distinctly American when trying to pull off the monotonous grunting act. My own accent is a dubious combination of the west of Ireland and RP. I'm very fond of words, and often speak for the pleasure of speaking, tasting each syllable in my mouth. And it does sound a bit gay, but then again, I am gay...
Do other Europeans here have any thoughts? As previously stated, I am no linguistic expert and could easily be mistaken.

One thing that has just occurred to me: speaking slower can have a masculinising effect, irrespective of accent. It also gives a chance to pay more attention to one's speech. The difficult thing is of course is remembering this in the heat of conversation! It is something I'm trying to work on.

That's a really interesting observation! When I made my post I had just watched Lord of the Rings, and the person's voice I was thinking of was Hugo Weaving, Elrond. Wikipedia says he's Australian-English, but in the interview I watched on youtube in order to help come up with words to describe what I was thinking he definitely goes down towards the ends of sentences.

But that could be because of the Australian thing, or perhaps he's Americanized a bit, having spent so much time doing movies here and traveling all around the world, or doing an interview for American audiences or something even.

Another Englishman we Americans are familiar with is Jeremy Clarkson, whose random interview I just watched on youtube was also deepening at the end of sentences.

Also I'd like to point out that on the perceived masculinity scale male British RP may fall well below someone else who doesn't use as much inflection?

I think that's what it comes down to in the end, deciding where you want to fall on that scale and therefore how many stereotypes and cliches you want to pick up in speech and mannerisms.  To actually sit down and quantify the how of all this has been very enlightening for me. Also pretty messed up when you start thinking of the why. Someone could probably write a very interesting paper on it, if it hasn't been done already. Cool thread!

On
nyspeechandvoicelab dot net/transgender/voice-masculinization/

you can find a few general hints concerning masculinization...


hugs

I've seen a lot of men, straight and gay, become pretty animated when they talk so I don't think there's anything wrong with that. There are a few things though that women specifically do when they speak that men don't and they all seem to be relatively new phenomenon too so your speech patterns have just as much to do with your generation as they do with your gender.

Uptalk - where a girl will raise her voice at the end of a sentence, making it sound like a question.

Vocal fry - almost the opposite of uptalk, it's when women let their voice trail off and become raspy at the end of a sentence.

Whistling speech - it seems that women are more prone to whistling their S and T sounds.

Slang words - Using "like", "oh my god", and other such words or phrases is going to instantly get you read as female or people will assume you're gay.


Basically, don't do any of those. These aren't just my observations either. A lot of research has been done on the current trends in female speech patterns. If you look up some of the terms you'll find a lot more information and examples on YouTube.