Hi,
My voice passes 100% of the time on the phone and in person, no problem. But, where I have problems is the fear that at any moment, due to uncontrollable laughter or coughing or crying or any kind of letdown, my voice will revert back to male despite the fact that it has become almost second nature to speak in female resonance.
Question: can voice surgery (which only modifies pitch) completely eliminate this problem so that I can completely let go, let my guard down 100% of the time (which would make feel freer, more relaxed around others) so that any kind of sound that will come out will be unquestionably female, that there is no risk of any sound ever coming across as male ever again?
I just don't see how changing pitch alone would achieve this or perhaps, it won't. I also don't want to take any risk damaging my voice which is great sounding and passes all the time except for these worries. Worth it?
Anyone's input would be appreciated. Thanks.
Imo I don't think it's worth it in your case since you're already half way there with how well your voice passes already. If you keep up with training you should get there. After I achieved my voice it took me another 2-3 years to master laughing, coughing, etc..all the uncontrollable stuff.
If your voice is in the upper male range, bumping up the pitch should do the job but the question, is it worth about $7,000 for you to have it. In my case, the decision was pretty simple. Before surgery the best I could do was a mid range male voice with my trained voice. Post surgical, my trained voice is in the feminine range. Voice surgery isn't right for everybody and I push at least some therapy before surgery to get a better feel for what is possible without surgery.
The risk of damage is pretty small with the two primary surgeons but healing time for some people (like me) can be quite long.
Some CIS women slip out of the feminine range when doing the things you fear so it isn't unheard of. Depending on how low your original voice was, your slips may not give you away.
It is a personal decision and I will answer any questions you have but you have to make the decision.
Quote from: KayXo on March 12, 2016, 05:58:57 PM
Hi,
My voice passes 100% of the time on the phone and in person, no problem. But, where I have problems is the fear that at any moment, due to uncontrollable laughter or coughing or crying or any kind of letdown, my voice will revert back to male despite the fact that it has become almost second nature to speak in female resonance.
Question: can voice surgery (which only modifies pitch) completely eliminate this problem so that I can completely let go, let my guard down 100% of the time (which would make feel freer, more relaxed around others) so that any kind of sound that will come out will be unquestionably female, that there is no risk of any sound ever coming across as male ever again?
I just don't see how changing pitch alone would achieve this or perhaps, it won't. I also don't want to take any risk damaging my voice which is great sounding and passes all the time except for these worries. Worth it?
Anyone's input would be appreciated. Thanks.
There have been numerous cases where the patient had a good voice already and, as you described, surgery removed any and all doubt and hesitation. Even when sick or early in the morning.
I will tell you, however, that I had a voice that I would say passed 80-90% of the time and I had surgery for the reasons you mentioned. Just wanted to remove any doubt and make it more automatic.
5 months later I still can't communicate normally, have a scratchy mess of a voice with almost no range and very little volume. There is still a chance that my voice will turn out okay eventually but I can definitively say that had I known the way things were going to turn out, I would NOT have had the operation. I'm the exception, not the rule, but if you want my advice: stick with what you've got and don't take a chance.
Moral of the story: don't be greedy. ;) Thanks for everyone's input.
My pre-op voice was very passable. I used to pass on the phone and in person with no issues whatsoever (I used to work in a call centre). At 170hz, my RELAXED pitch I was in the gender neutral/ lower female range. My trained voice was unmistakably female. I chose to have voice surgery to simply be totally comfortable in every situation: caugh, sneeze, sex, drunk, accidentally talking during my sleep while with my boyfriend (who doesn't know about my past), possible argument, screaming for help in a situation of danger,..... You name it!!
I am very glad to have achieved that. Today I had to call an ambulance because I was having violent palpitations qnd breathing difficulties. During a moment of panic, I spoke with my most natural pitch. Mind you, at 10 weeks, my voice is still a bit raspy and somewhat hoarse. I was passed through 3 stages of medical teams on the phone, and every time I was gendered female straightaway BEFORE giving my name.
It is such a relief to be 100 per cent comfortable with your voice. For me voice dysphoria was as strong as my body dysphoria used to be prior to srs, maybe even stronger. It was so severe that I couldn't operate in certain situations in public.
Having said that, the surgery came at a heavy price: 13000 dollars that covered the total cost (operation, medical fees, flights, hotel, taxis. food, downtime, adapted clothing, an extra 3 -unpaid- weeks off work on top of the 4 weeks initially booked, etc). Plus, recovery for me took a bit longer, not as long it has taken Kwala but still longer than the average patient. It's been a very emotional journey. Indeed.
I'm glad to have made it, but I would say vfs is not like you have a simple operation that will magically turn your voice female all of a sudden, and you can go back to work the next day. You have to be prepared for it at every single level. Thorough preparation and planning are absolutely paramount!
I hope my perspective and experience will help you see clearer hun.
Best if luck whatever you decide !
Rita
My pre surgery voice was cut in stone for me I did not have to think about it and never had an issue with dropping out of that voice. With that said I like many of us learned to create that voice by using my nasal passages to some degree.
Now after vocal surgery I just talk. There is NO choices there is NO other way but to talk. I am not using my nasal passages. I simply talk.
I don't know if that helps you a bit.....
Katie
I think it highly depends on what you do and did to your voice and on your psyche. As I understand it, yours is more of a psychological issue - you pass 100% but are afraid that it could be different. Have you actually experienced such situations? To be honest, there is often a lot of fear involved that is not needed - In uncoltrollabe situations many women sound much different than regularly, so I would maybe first observe if such situations realistically occur - maybe provoke them in safe situations... and act on the feedback.
For example my voice passed 99% when I was face to face, but only 50% when I was on the phone - so I was misgendered on the phone and a couple of times asked if I was trans or "a man" face to face - usually by children. This feedback caused me to decide for voice surgery. If that would not have been so, I think I may probably not have done it. One other factor though was how my voice sounded to myself - I felt even when my voice passed well to others, I heard myself "wrong" and wanted this gone.
Generally speaking - if it is mostly about insecurities, try other strategies first and only if you find that either the issues are real and not just in your imagination, or if you find you can not get rid of the insecurities by any other means, I would conisder surgery. It changes the voice, it will also have negative effects on the voice, even if that is only a minor issue with the top surgeons, but still one looses some power/volume, the recovery period is long - several months up to 2 years... it is hard to judge from what you said if it really would be worth all the effort that comes with it for you.
I remember once, in the elevator, first words that came out to an acquaintance of mine were definitely in lower male register and she had a surprised look, like some other people in the elevator. Perhaps, I have an exaggerated recollection of the whole thing and it really happened differently, that nothing was noticed but I wanted to cry inside and hide somewhere, far far away :'(. The first thought was "they know!" and I was upset, disappointed in me. I was nervous, to begin with, that day and I am nervous (due to the fear of not passing due to my voice) so my throat becomes dry and when my voice comes out at first, it can come out all scratchy and lower, that's what happened but then I continued speaking and right away, made the necessary adjustments so that my voice was normal, in accordance with the rest of me. See the problem? I can never relax, I'm always on edge. :(
Voice surgery, I find, has too many negatives. Not worth it. I guess I'll just wait and hope that soon, they will improve on surgery techniques. Until then, it is what it is.
If something like that happens - scratchy low voice - it probably does not even sound clean, you can always just cough and clear the throat and afterwards its better? This still happens to me post-VFS actually - sometimes I just have phlegm in the throat and then the voice sounds all gurgly and low pitch and raspy and I need to clear it and then the voice comes back to normal... I believe this happens to many other people as well - and as long as there is nothing else that says "trans" its just a weird voice moment. But I understand of course the insecurities and being constantly alert about the voice - if you need to watch your voice all the time, it can become a pain. This actually was part of why I wanted VFS, because for me it never really totally became second nature to do all the things needed - I slipped into female resonance patterns, but I had a hard time controlling pitch - it was always a conscious act - and I still struggle a bit with voice melody, which is for me however mostly a matter of mood and situation...
I think in the case of ciswomen who have a deep/ gender neutral voice, they still have the fact of being cis to fall back on. For me, that was and is not an option, alas.
I do not regret voice surgery, but I would say it is one of the most time consuming surgery in terms of recovery/ seeing results, not to mention the isolation it causes you during the imposed one month silence post op and all the inconvenience that comes along with it. Recovery is not a painful one, but it can be very emotional due to the uncertainty over the outcome.
I ended up with a lovely unmistakeably female voice. I used to be at 170hz (relaxed), and I am now at 240hz, well above the average cis female. All this came at a price I didn't expect.
Quote from: anjaq on March 14, 2016, 10:17:41 AM
If something like that happens - scratchy low voice - it probably does not even sound clean, you can always just cough and clear the throat and afterwards its better?
Cough? The way it's really effective at clearing the throat is if I fully cough, which sounds male. :(
Quoteif you need to watch your voice all the time, it can become a pain.
Exactly that.
In short, vfs gives you freedom so you can get on with your life but it comes at a price!
I am having the same thoughts about FFS - Its not really needed, I never have been told I have a masculine face, the changes would be minor at a high cost, but there are some situations where I feel bad or insecure or dislike my image... No clue at what point it is worth to go through a lot of trouble or better just let it go.
And then the question: will it ever end? will next surgery finally make us feel good or will it take yet another one and another one to eventually realize it's all in our minds or really, that we should stop caring and live our lives.
Which voice surgeons are recommended and appear to have best results? Has anyone seen Dr. Haben in New York for voice surgery?
We don't recommend doctors but we share our knowledge. Both Yeson and Dr Haben turn out good results but if you have a major pitch issue, Dr Haben may be able to move your pitch more. I used Dr Haben as well as several others on the site. Though it as taken a long time for my voice to recover from the surgery but I the results were as good or better than expected.
Thank you for the information regarding results, esp. Dr. Haben. How many weeks will one be able to speak and sound normally? I saw his site states 19 days.
Quote from: blepharoplasty on March 15, 2016, 07:57:16 PM
Thank you for the information regarding results, esp. Dr. Haben. How many weeks will one be able to speak and sound normally? I saw his site states 19 days.
LOL. Very unlikely judging from the results I heard. Girls? Recovery can take a long time...but for some, very worthwhile in the end. It's important to realize that resonance, very important for voice to sound female, is not changed with surgical intervention, only pitch.
A voice is half surgery and half therapy to learn feminine speech patterns. If you already have the speech patterns down, then you only need the surgery. Six weeks is about the minimum recovery time for a "normal" voice but it can stretch out to 6 to 12 months for some people. I am about 7 months and I have regained my volume and the pitch is pretty stable but it can get a little rough if I talk to loud or to long.
At 19 day, you can return to most normal speaking but don't expect the voice to be fully usable. It was about 16 days before the swelling went down enough that I could make noise. At 19 days I was a bit above a whisper.
Yeson ask you not to speak for 4 weeks and sometimes Dr Haben does as well. In both cases, the voice will not be ready for full normal usage.
Quote from: KayXo on March 15, 2016, 04:48:02 PM
And then the question: will it ever end? will next surgery finally make us feel good or will it take yet another one and another one to eventually realize it's all in our minds or really, that we should stop caring and live our lives.
We do need body positivity and self-acceptance just as much as cis women do, because at some point you do need to stop seeing yourself as somehow lesser just because you don't live up to an ideal, but the thing to remember is, at the end of the day, we're not cis women. We're not taking something that is fundamentally functional and getting it improved upon for purely personal-satisfaction reasons, often we're doing it because we're correcting a defect of sexual development which caused us to not develop something that we should have developed in the first place, or to correct the development of something that shouldn't have developed. For us, our reasons for surgery are much more commonly the equivalent of reconstructive purposes rather than cosmetic, and therefore our satisfaction rates with them are WAY higher than cis women's satisfaction rates with the same surgeries.
Take for example breast augmentation... according to studies, in the average transgender woman BA improves her satisfaction with her breasts by 59%, sexual well-being by 34%, and psychosocial well-being by 48%. In cis women, these numbers are only increased by 43%, 27%, and 33% respectively.
Studies on on voice feminization surgery are limited, but the one that did such a study showed an improvement in the self-reported dysphoria index in patients from a pre-op average of 0.2 to a post-op average of 1. (Not sure what the scale was, because I don't have access to the full article.)
Yes, there is a point where you need to accept how you are in order to be happy, and a lot of people do expect too much out of surgery, expecting it to somehow solve all of their social or loneliness issues, or take them from unpassable to passable, and obviously those aren't going to happen and one needs to have realistic expectations. But if there's something that, even after years, is still a persistent bother, almost every single study on surgery shows a decrease in neuroticism and anxiety afterward. (Except in patients with Body Dysmorphic Disorder, who consistently show no benefits from surgery.)
It can be a big deal. Just make sure that it really is because of a physical defect, a logical measurable difference that can be corrected in a logical measurable way, and not a defect in self-esteem or self-image or idealization/envy of other people. (Which is where most regrets and negative outcomes come from.)
Quote from: Dena on March 15, 2016, 08:21:00 PM
half therapy to learn feminine speech patterns. If you already have the speech patterns down
I never cared about feminine speech patterns. My speech patterns haven't changed, only my resonance and I pass 100% of the time...excluding my slight paranoia and fears. I don't think this is important at all. My 2 cents.
Unless you meant something else by patterns and I misinterpreted. ???
I agree about the speech patterns. I never focused on changing mine, that change just kinda happened on its own I guess but either way speech patterns themselves dont really matter, its modulation in the voice that does.
I can totally relate to what you are asking, Kay. However, in the end I'm still getting VFS, even though I pass 100% of the time, including when I have a 'bad' day. I think it's due to people making decisions based on the 'big picture', which voice is just one part of...
Still, I have this nagging dislike of my voice and I do know that my laughs and a few other things are just not right sometimes. Plus, I have an irrational lack of confidence at times, especially in circumstances like speaking to groups in public. Hopefully I'll address some of this.
Aside from some SRS correction at some time, I'll be done with surgeries after this. The only one I regret is getting a BA ages ago. It made me feel better at first, but now I wish I'd perhaps left them whatever size they'd be naturally today. Still, I'm happy. :)
Anecdote over! ;)
Quote from: Denjin on March 16, 2016, 02:21:00 PM
I do know that my laughs and a few other things are just not right sometimes. Plus, I have an irrational lack of confidence at times, especially in circumstances like speaking to groups in public. Hopefully I'll address some of this.
Aside from some SRS correction at some time, I'll be done with surgeries after this. The only one I regret is getting a BA ages ago.
Well - for me, VFS made me much more confident, but I also must admit that there are some corners where insecurities still hide. Coughing is not THAT much different, and the worst thing is if I get anxious for irrational reasons, my voice gets strained really fast and then sounds a bit fake and then that makes me more anxious etc - basically what happens is that I subconsciously try to force my voice to be more feminine to overplay the insecurities but post OP this causes no feminization but rather a voice distortion. I suspect it did the same pre OP but in addition to distorting the voice it made it somewhat higher pitched ?
I also regret having had a BA because they cut the nerves there. But on the other side I did not want to have the deformed breasts as they were back then - I just believe now that there would have been better ways to go about this and make them look good.
Kay you use a few key words that tell your frame of mind is WAY different than mine. I was born a woman. I did have a birth defect but I got it fixed. I am a woman. I am nothing more.
I dont use the P word because I am a woman. There is nothing for me to prove. I am a woman. You might not agree but thats totally your choice.
I got my voice changed because I wanted my voice to be as close as I can to the person I presnet to the world. If you or someone else is happy with who you are thats totally ok. I kind of think Hillary Clinton got a facelift to make herself look younger. I got my voice done so I sound better.
Finally I resent people that tell me I am different. I dont need to be reminded. I can only strive to be as normal as I can and that includes a frame of mine that is DEVOID of using the P word or comparring me to whats that thing cis women. Again I am a woman.
Katie
Katie, in a few words, you are saying you do things for yourself and you don't need others to validate you are a woman. You also don't care what others might think. I respect and admire this. I wish I was in that same state of mind but the outside world, how others perceive me, their feedback affects me. That's the reality for me. I'm not afraid of intolerance but of different behavior if indeed I am found out as a transsexual woman, that I will not be treated the same, etc. I just want to live normally as a woman. But, perhaps, if I was indeed found out, I'd realize that it's not bad at all, that I am happier this way, being vulnerable and out and that what matters most is not how others treat you or perceive you but the freedom of being you, no matter what. I need to follow my own advice to others. :)