Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hey, guys!

I've been on T for almost two months now, and I haven't noticed ANY vocal changes whatsoever. I keep reading conflicting things about when the voice should START to change. Some say three weeks, others say six months, one person told me a year...

I know that it'll probably deepen on its own at least in the next few months, but I'm getting so impatient! :P Sometimes I'll be fine (not happy, but -okay-) with how I sound, but other days, I hear myself sounding so high-pitched and feminine and it really gets on my nerves.

Do you guys think it's worth it/advisable to do vocal exercises, try speaking from my diaphragm, etc ahead of when the T will change my vocal cords? I don't want to sound "fake" or to make myself feel worse by putting in too much effort but I also would love to sound more masculine.

Something we see is we tend to fall into the old speech pattern and we resist pitch changes. This is even true when we have voice surgery and should see a relatively large pitch change. To see the best results, you will need to learn how to  speak in the chest voice. If you are a singer, you should already know about it. If not, we can work with you. I have seen FTMs who where having difficulty speaking and little pitch change because they were trying to maintain the head voice that woman commonly use. Testosterone doesn't alway automatically lower the voice and sometimes there are a few old habit to break.

When I started T I was really impatient, heck I still am (13 months later). But the voice piece was a struggle for me as well. I can't remember where it was, maybe Hudson's guide FTM (not sure about links so I'd recommend doing a Google search), and it talks about what is beneficial or not. I know I TRIED to deepen my voice and I sounded ridiculous. For me the biggest advantage or take away I learned was to look and act confident. I knew I was a man so I thought I looked and sounded like it too. The hard part is being misgendered, I have a "phone voice" inflection that I still do where I'll sometimes get misgendered now. I will say it took me about 5 months or so to start getting the pubescent voice cracks and I was giddy as a schoolboy!
It's hard waiting though and I wish I had better answers for you. You're on an exciting journey that I'm only just beginning myself. But I understand the desire to lower your pitch as it can speak volumes (no pun intended) for how people will gender you, fortunately and/or unfortunately.

Even though I'm 9 months in I still don't have the masculine voice I want which is disappointing. I tend to talk quieter and from my chest as much as possible which helps a bit; although I have the habit of my voice going up in pitch at the end of a sentence which doesn't help. You could look up voice tips on YouTube as well as Google to speed things along. My voice didn't start stabilising until 3 months on T when before it would constantly go up and down. Unfortunately my doctor said it can take upto 6 months for your voice to start to drop :/