I ask this question because I like my voice, I have a wide range of voice impressions I can do and i think it would be a shame for me to give all that up, just because i want to present as a woman. In fact the more i think about it, the more it could benefit me cause no one would be expecting me doing optimus prime voice while looking super femme LOL. I am posting a link to some of the voices I do just to give you an idea. Now there is still a concern for me to learn to speak and resonate my voice in a more female way, because i do really want to be able to maintain that voice and speak feminine when I want to. Its a odd place to be though cause i am so used to hearing myself in my head and speaking a certain way. How many of you chose to speak the way they have all their life or don't really speak girly girl.

Cartoon and People Voice Impressions #1 That is a link to some of my voices, theres more there like furby (which is my highest voice and sort of falsetto) all the way to Optimus Prime (which is as low as i can go)

Quote from: Shawn Sunshine on December 09, 2012, 02:46:39 PM
How many of you chose to speak the way they have all their life or don't really speak girly girl.

Cartoon and People Voice Impressions #1 That is a link to some of my voices, theres more there like furby (which is my highest voice and sort of falsetto) all the way to Optimus Prime (which is as low as i can go)

When I started living full time, I had worked very very hard at developing a good passing voice. All the years of pent up femininity came gushing out. In short I went girly girl bonkers, including my speaking. But I began to realize that as time went on, I really wasn't a girly girl. In fact very few women in real life are girly girls.

My original voice was very good and it was very convincing even on the phone. But I dialed it back with time, to now a sort of half way between. I have all the right inflections and gender cues but speaking at XHz doesn't matter to me anymore.

I wouldn't recognize my old voice if I heard it on tape. But I hear my new voice so much that I know it's me. I sometimes find myself venturing into girly girl world, but not that much to be honest.

IDK what a girly girl voice is, tbh. I just speak in a passable voice and that's all I care about.

I don't know Shawn, the most important thing to me with voice is not getting sirred on the phone or in person. When I started figuring out voice, I was focused on those two things and then just somewhere along the line like right after I transitioned, it just wasn't an issue. I didn't set out saying "ohhh, I want to speak in a 'real girly' voice" or anything. I knew the range I needed to be in so I trained my voice to get there. Like Alaina said, the focus is on blending. Voice is important to me.

I don't really like my voice, I wish it were more naturally girly. I have tried to work on it alot but I can't seem to keep it up consistently and I am not sure if it sounds that feminine even when I try.  Though my natural voice is not deep at all. A speech therapist told me my natural voice is in an adolescent/young male range, but I have a bad glottal fry to my voice which does not sound attractive. I may get voice surgery someday, the surgery seems to be getting more refined with better results as technology advances.

If I'm being really flirty on phone then I will up the "girly" speak. Some are more responsive to it  . Other times it's the business as usual voice.

Nice Shawn just listend to your video, you are really talented.

If your natural voice is even lower than a typical males, you'd try to kick it up an octave, if possible, as well as do all the rest to try to have a reasonably passing female voice.

As far as speaking real girlie? Possibly as in Valley Girl girlie? Very hard to pull off if you're not 5'4" but 6ft tall... w/o heels and not 20 something but 50 something. Just doesn't fit the image, either way.

Being able to do voices/characters and developing a reasonable female voice are not mutually exclusive. A member of my group is a professional that does voice over work as well as essentially recorded audio dramas (picture old time radio shows). Her female voice is very good. She also specializes in cowboys and does a mean John Wayne, holdovers from a previous life.

I'm an AFAB middle tenor, and the best I can manage when I'm trying to raise it is a very low alto. My voice broke in middle school like a boy's, which is when I consciously trained myself to mimic female inflections and phrasing to avoid being mercilessly mocked for it. These days, I can get "sir" on the phone if I try (or rather, if I *stop* trying to sound female), but the combination of inflection and lack of typical male chest resonance generally signals "female" to people even though my voice is comfortably in a male range.

(My wife hates to make phone calls, so I sometimes pretended to be her on the phone back when she was presenting male - and always got away with it.)

I like my girl voice and it passes pretty well most of the time when I need it too, but for work and around town it's my boy voice wich is not that deep really.

A funny thing happened awhile back when I was in total girl mode talking with a friend and my phone rang and I answered it as my girly self....there was total silence before the man on the phone said, uh...I think I have the wrong number. Turned out it was one of my customers who only knows me in boy mode, oops

Michelle , do you find it easy to switch back and forth between voices? Can anyone else do that well?

Quote from: Shawn Sunshine on December 09, 2012, 10:28:18 PM
Michelle , do you find it easy to switch back and forth between voices? Can anyone else do that well?

I can't. I've been using my female voice for so long I have to concentrate to use a male voice and it feels scratchy after I do. The only time I ever use it is to freak people out. A while ago I tried to call my old employer trying to find out some info on an IRA but even they were like "Uhh no woman has ever worked here except the women working here now" ... i finally had to tell them my old name and they were like... "oh" rofl! And I wasn't even trying to use a female voice, I was just using a relaxed voice.

You get used to talking out of your mouth instead of out of your chest, and talking with waves in your voice and not so monotone... when you get those things down, the pitch of your voice doesn't matter at all. From what I've seen at least.

Quote from: Shawn Sunshine on December 09, 2012, 10:28:18 PM
Michelle , do you find it easy to switch back and forth between voices? Can anyone else do that well?

Shawn, it's not easy at all, that's why when I answered the phone he heard my girl voice, it takes me awhile to get back into boy character after having the luxury of being my real self.

Thankfully I work by myself and clients are by appointment only.

I also have raised more than a few eyebrows over the many years as when I get all passionate talking about my art designs my girl voice uncontrollably appears...it's something I have a hard time controlling.

I use my male voice although I'm trying to soften it. It helps me that I really don't care what people think and I go on in my life like a hurricane on steroids.

Shawn,
Ya know what's funny? I could do different impressions(probably some worse than I imagine) and it's fun to entertain people with them but when it came to speaking somehow my voice just took care of itself. I realize that's not typical but maybe it'll be the same thing for you and then you'll just do your impressions with a different voice still. Though sometimes I'm a little afraid when I do an impression that it might give something away somehow but that's just me being paranoid. I just think you probably have a better chance of making your voice work because you can understand other people's way of speaking and going with it.

Quote from: Alainaluvsu on December 09, 2012, 10:36:50 PM
I can't. I've been using my female voice for so long I have to concentrate to use a male voice and it feels scratchy after I do. 

This^

I can't sound like how I used to sound but I don't want to so it works for me.

I used to sing both parts of songs in the car, just for kicks earlier on.  'Poppa sang bass....momma sang tenor'....

But I'm not in a 'kicky thing" at this time of my life.  I am a woman, and use a woman's voice exclusively, so now, I can no longer imagine my old voice, just as I don't imagine my old face. My voice just, is.  My face just, is. 
My voice transitioned and socialized along with my body and mind.  Several years ago, I made a promise to myself to never invoke the old voice.  It was no longer fun when I did; it was depressing somehow, knowing that voice was still lurking in there, and a similar genuine male voice was NOT at the command of almost all gg's. 
I walk this life as myself, a woman.  And now....those male voice muscles have atrophied, as they should.....as the rest of my male self did.  Don't get me wrong, I am still me....my personality hasn't changed so much.....softened perhaps, but my voice is also, me.

Unfortunately, I have a very valley girl diction. I haven't arrived at a voice I am happy with yet, but if  I wanted to talk like a girly girl I probably would have an easier time than most. It makes people think that I am an idiot though. I say "like" all the time, and I say "totally" too often, and I even catch myself saying "like totally" way more often than any human should.

Combine that with having lived in the south most of my life and use several southern terms, with my really neutral mid-Atlantic accent and sometimes I wonder how people can take me seriously when I am talking unguarded.

Wow so many of you this seems like such a breeze. No issues it seems, your voice just stays higher and doesn't slip back into your old voice ever.  Trying to alter my voice has been the most challenging part of transition for me. And trust me I have worked on it. It bothers me more than anything else, even my small boobs.

You do what you want, and it's fine if you're comfortable with it, but you should know that looking like a woman and sounding like a man is the one thing that'll always get you looks and whispers. Well, there are others, like dressing up ridiculous, but when it comes to trans things, even looking super masculine but dressing feminine will not shock people as much.

Some people like to shock and that's fine, but if you want to pass and blend in, sounding passable as a woman is quite prioritary.