Susan's Place Transgender Resources

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.

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.

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. 

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!

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

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

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.

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.

Quote from: Nina_Ottawa on January 09, 2017, 01:00:12 PM
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

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!

+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

Quote from: Sophia Sage on January 09, 2017, 12:26:20 PM
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.

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

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

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.  :icon_yikes: 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.

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...

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.

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. 


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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.

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.

Never  :)

I mastered my voice years ago

If anyone needs help, I do lessons for free

I have a perfectly passable voice, never get misgendered, even on the phone but despite being fulltime since 2005, those fears persist on a daily basis.

I sound like Lemmy with a sore throat, gave up caring a long time ago

I admire you and wish I didn't care. Maybe one of these days...

I won't feed my fears but I do acknowledge a personal conflict between an intense need for feeling authentic and being true to myself and what might make my presentation less discordant to the world at large.

I did voice lessons and began to resent the feeling that I was now trying so hard to fit into the stereotypical F box.  I learned once how trying to fit into the M box felt so awful and wrong.  Why did I want any box to define me?  Why worry about my truth being revealed or passing to please others?   My voice is strong and it remains a tool I use every day to tell my story and be clearly heard.

Defying the dominant paradigm feels better than feeling like I was faking it again.  Still, this is a personal statement and for those so inclined I salute their determined efforts to find their own voice.

Wise words from Tessa. Thanks for sharing. :)

Quote from: Tessa James on February 01, 2017, 04:16:58 PM
I won't feed my fears but I do acknowledge a personal conflict between an intense need for feeling authentic and being true to myself and what might make my presentation less discordant to the world at large.

I did voice lessons and began to resent the feeling that I was now trying so hard to fit into the stereotypical F box.  I learned once how trying to fit into the M box felt so awful and wrong.  Why did I want any box to define me?  Why worry about my truth being revealed or passing to please others?   My voice is strong and it remains a tool I use every day to tell my story and be clearly heard.

Defying the dominant paradigm feels better than feeling like I was faking it again.  Still, this is a personal statement and for those so inclined I salute their determined efforts to find their own voice.

Tessa

I have had so many conflicting thoughts about this exact thing lately. I feel like I am constantly saying "this is me take me as I am" and then thinking about changing something that is an intrinsic part of who I am. I don't know...I think there are several areas of my presentation that could "give me away" just as much as my voice will...but even then it is not just that...that feeling of faking it. I have a voice training program on my Ipad maybe I should be giving it a go...but then...Like I said conflicted

Liz

I KNOW it gives me away.  I had two recent incidents that pointed that out to me.

I did a presentation before a group a week ago.  One of the folks in the audience mentioned to a friend of mine that it seemed odd that the woman speaking had a man's voice.  Oops.  (It didn't help that the friend explained, "Oh, that's because Michelle used to be Michael."  Thanksabunch there, Larry.)

When I gave my little impromptu speech last Sunday in the congregational meeting, 170 people heard it.  Later, in town, one couple that was there, many rows away from me, spotted me.  The man said, "Hey, isn't that the guy...?"  Oops.  Fail again.

In both cases, I'n sure it was what they heard that triggered the 'man' identification.

Time to get speech therapy, I think.


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Always such a personal topic, revealing vulnerabilities, strengths, commitment and/or obstinancy...

Some hold on to the first voice the learned with defiance, other reject the same with repugnance, some easily find a new voice, others struggle onward with no such luck, some choose surgical interventions, some tough it out through therapy and practice, and finally achieve that which sounds the way they feel they should sound...

I find the whole topic and all the variations of experience simply facscinating...

Why?

Well, funny you should ask, lol..

Because I have multiple personality disorder. And though I am recently recovered from many years of constant, florid dissociations, I, well, 'we', all have voices of our own. Man voices, woman voices, teen voices, girl voices, child voices, and 'my' voice, the default voice that my core personality, 'me', 'learned', just like everybody else here learned theirs...

When I first de-transitioned from my forced FTM state of being, I was actually experiencing my life vicariously, as a silent pseudo-alter, silent, as were all the adult alters, and the first best voices used after going full-time, were those of small girls, 7 years of age, and her twin, a 6 year old. And then, their 14 year old big sister started speaking. They passed flawlessly, because they ARE female. Weird how perfectly obvious one's gender is and how immediately convincing one is, when one knows their intrinsic experience as well as a personality knows itself.

My then current dominant alter was a thirty-something woman, and she also 'passed' without a problem. The dominant alter before her, she/he is an hermaphrodite. This alter struggled and was gendered male more often than female. Her/his self-concept betrayed a lack of 'full womanhood' and she/he was clockable.

All of my infant and child and teen alters up to 15 years old, were girls. None of them ever had a problem being misgendered as male, never, not once.

Buuuut, all alters between 15 until the hermaphrodite and the thirty-something later, were males. And if they spoke up, at first, they were instantly clocked as males, and the whole system 'took the hit', as they might say. So, the dominant alter mandated, no pun intended, that they remain silent until HRT changed our body and brain sufficiently to allow them to access female speech patterns and to relent male syntax. They remained silent, mostly, until just last summer, when, one by one, they re-emerged, as fully transitioned MTF personalities. Fun stuff, huh? They still had to 'work' to stay in the female range and to forego past speech habits, but they now felt that being female was real, and that doing the whole female voice thing was the right and proper thing to do. So, they did it. All 19 of them...

Jump to early last December, when I, the original core personality, began to stir down in the rabbit hole, and I began to realize that I wasn't just another alter, I was the owner of this body, and something horrid had disabled my ability to function. I had a severe seizure 7 years ago while down-titrating off an 8 mg a day prescription Xanax addiction. My central corridor went dark, and my others eventually rose up, and ran the whole show.

When I stirred, and found my way out, I awoke fully de-transitioned, with a woman's body, as in breasts, a vagina, and all the beauty I didn't ever expect to have...

But, I hadn't learned to speak as a woman. And I wasn't sure if I really even wanted to learn, I already had a voice I was fond of, so why should I?

Well, I learned right away why. Because my original voice was a man's voice. I was no longer a man. Everything was now female, and when I used my man voice, it was distressing to the people I loved. It was distressing to all my alters, who though were now quietly witnessing without interfering, I could feel their grief and dysphoria returning. And, when I looked in the mirror, and spoke as I had pre-de-transition, it was disturbing, even to me. And I realized, that if I did not stop, I was going to undermine the wonderful life that now spread out before me. So, I have been vigilant, and determined, and constant. My others have experience speaking sooo splendidly, and if I relax, and quiet my mind, I can 'remember' how they spoke, and use their voices as I am trying to find my own..

Confusing? Ha! Not really, not for me, but I bet it seems so from the outside, looking in...

It has been just a bit less than two months since I took back control of my executive functions, and I am learning every day. Learning about who I really am, what I really am, and how to go about being both...

So, to wrap up my little novel here, do I fear that my original voice will give me away?

Yes, I do. Perhaps when singing spontaneously, or when I stub a toe, or when I orgasm, or whenever. And, yes, it is a pain in the butt to stay on top of what comes out of my mouth, even though I 'know' exactly how to speak as a woman speaks. But I get lazy, or distracted, and I drop down toward my fundamental pitch, the one created by testosterone poisoning, not by nature, and I have to catch myself. And this is new, for me, weirdly, after almost four years of passing without a problem, suddenly, I am capable of blowing it, in a big way, at any time...

I will keep at it, and do the best I can, but I will have my vocal cords tightened someday, so I cannot make such an error with pitch, and I can relax a bit more. The other stuff, I know how to handle, but just like all the T damage done to my body, this too must be repaired. I must be heard as I truly am. I must make it so...

Missy

I wish there was a surgery (with very little risks associated with it) to modify resonance which I consider is key to sounding female. High pitch with a male resonance would sound weird...

Quote from: KayXo on February 01, 2017, 10:46:50 PM
I wish there was a surgery (with very little risks associated with it) to modify resonance which I consider is key to sounding female. High pitch with a male resonance would sound weird...

I feel the same way, but I also know that my female and child alters never sound even slightly male, and their apparent resonance matches their identities, thus proving to me that such things are far more variable, and ultimately controllable than mere physics might imply.

For me, I find it especially empowering to experience how much overlap there is in gender dynamics and personality constructs, and just how much potential lay within all of us to make sweeping changes once we know which buttons to push. As humans, my feeling is, that we impose the greatest limits of all on ourselves, and that nature herself is exceptionally plastic and malleable. Our allegiance to former self-concepts and our current time/space alliance dictate far more sweeping limitations upon our futures than our actual potential might allow.

Just my thoughts, coming from a multiple-personality intersexed perspective, after having experienced a three gendered life...

Missy

i dunno ... im sure the ladybeard gives it away yet i like keeping it really queer.  I'm not sure how much adjusting I will do to my voice cause its not super deep yet working on it