This may sound silly pardon the pun, but though all this the only real fear I have at this point is my voice. I can deal with the funny looks and other stuff as I am a strong person. (Well usually) and I really don't give a hoot about other people and if they like me or not. But my thought is when I do emerge as a women in the future all I'll have to do is open my mouth and poof, here comes the small minds and what not. (Nicely stated)

How do or did you girls deal with this issue???

Well well
its a tricky issue to be honest
depends on how masculine  your voice is

if you dont feel like "creating" a female voice you can try surgery...

I used to fear speaking a lot and when I was out speaking with a female voice made me really nervous
made me feel like I was pretending something for me personally it didnt feel right trying to make something I didnt had
so now I just use my normal voice , it doesnt sound so masculine rather androgynous so it doesnt give me a hard time...
even if people can tell I was born a guy from my voive I dont really give a damn anymore , I mean I ll try to fix it sometime , but nothing to worry and stress over for now

they do have places where they will help you train your voice into a female voice, I haven't done it yet but I know there are some places that do that. I would check it out online if you have time since its great help. you shouldn't worry about anything, even if you don't do your voice and it sounds masculine you don't have say anything to anyone I mean honestly who cares if your voice is fem or masculine its only your voice you will still look like a woman and u don't have tell no one that you were a guy believe me u don't want that kind of attention anyway, but if someone asks you just say this is my normal voice,  some woman have deep voices, my friend Julie has a really deep voice but shes a woman just making a point. so no worries even if you do or don't it wont matter since its how you feel inside that matters not anyone else around you. live your life how you want veronica all I can say and I dk if surgery is good it ccan really screw up your voice ive heard some bad things about it but just try your hardest and everything will work out for you.

Lavinia

Most of us have a rough voice, but oddly if you get the shape of the words feminine, and look feminine, no one will notice the pitch.  Women acutely say words differently.  I'ts trained behavior.  For instance, a woman will cut the glottal stop while it's still breathy, instead of making it a hard stop. AHhhhh  aH   Never really closing the airway all the way.

But don't worry so much.  Sure you and I can clock a t-girl from a mile away.  But they can't.

Watch these.  Its all I needed to learn and I never get clocked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbaj4tIX1kw&list=PLF4765311BB40432F

mostly for me, my voice is masculine but im gonna do voice therapy after HRT but its very influenced on the type of language im speaking too. my point was that there is a voice therapy you can do, I dk where though it differs in different states, but you can always look it up online also. that video is awesome Jennifer L and I agree with you also.

Lavinia

Quote from: Veronica M on March 21, 2014, 10:31:46 AM
This may sound silly pardon the pun, but though all this the only real fear I have at this point is my voice. I can deal with the funny looks and other stuff as I am a strong person. (Well usually) and I really don't give a hoot about other people and if they like me or not. But my thought is when I do emerge as a women in the future all I'll have to do is open my mouth and poof, here comes the small minds and what not. (Nicely stated)

How do or did you girls deal with this issue???

Several ways to approach this.

* Work on your voice with a professional. (I found that worthless but other people have been helped).
* Try it on your own. Especially over the phone. If people on the phone gender you correctly, you're probably OK. The CandiFLA series of voice videos on Youtube are helpful
* Be a proud, beautiful, non-passing trans woman. I know several women that pass completely except their voice. They don't mind. They love the women they've become.

Here's what worked for me:

1. I spoke in the highest, squeakiest voice I could manage. I concentrated on remembering the exact position my throat was in.

2. I would then position my throat exactly that way, but speak normally. Everything that came out of my mouth sounded female when I did that.

I hope this helps. It's the best way I can describe it.

Quote from: Veronica M on March 21, 2014, 10:31:46 AM
How do or did you girls deal with this issue???

I just hope Jenny is ok with me reposting a video of her below.  She's a member in the forums here.  After all, it was this video that convinced me (on the very first listen) to go with Laser asap.  I'm an unfortunate sort because of circumstances and heredity, so surgery is a must.

I'm not dealing with the slip-ups very well.  A persons perception of me can immediately change when I make a mistake with my voice, even though I look fine.  One sudden voice mistake has sent people running.  My voice has never been real steady, it's has a bit of lisp, and it tends to change through the day.  I'm too old to relearn anything real well, and speaking in a manufactured voice no longer works for an entire day.  Too many cigarettes in m youth probably didn't help much either.  When I was 9 years old I had speech therapy in school for a year because kids were picking on me, and I'd been beaten up pretty badly once.

Anyway, I told my therapist I planned on going to Yeson Clinic in Korea for laser voice surgery, and she thought I was nuts.  But she has never seen this. 

thanks for posting that kathyk I think I may do the same thing then, I was gonna do voice therapy but if laser surgery is gonna make my voice sound like that then I rather do that, lol im kind of lazy that's why

Quote from: Veronica M on March 21, 2014, 10:31:46 AM
This may sound silly pardon the pun, but though all this the only real fear I have at this point is my voice. I can deal with the funny looks and other stuff as I am a strong person. (Well usually) and I really don't give a hoot about other people and if they like me or not. But my thought is when I do emerge as a women in the future all I'll have to do is open my mouth and poof, here comes the small minds and what not. (Nicely stated)

How do or did you girls deal with this issue???

Do you have a university with a speech programme nearby? I have a university near me that does and they offer free speech therapy to members of the public so their students may get some real world experience while pursuing their degrees in speech therapy. That may be something to look into.

The voice is something that I hear that very many have problems achieving and I can understand why. Since the speech pattern and resonance and frequency is different between men and women this is hard.
I have read some of DeepStealths manuals and seen their videos and I believe that those might be beneficial to you.

I trained my voice by singing. First to a mezzo-soprano and then a soprano.   I had the advantaadvantage of having already trained my voice to sing, albeit in an entirely different range. The key is a little and often. Always stop when your voice starts hurting otherwise you risk permanent damage.    Always work at low volume otherwise you will be training your voice to screech, which is probably not the effect you want.

Rosie

Thank you everyone for the advice. For me surgery is a last resort option as I have read it is dangerous. Correct me if I am wrong. Besides that were looking a many medical procedures anyway so another one is really not what I am looking for. Perhaps I am stressing on this to much. After all there are plenty of other things to concentrate on at this point. In the end I am just going to be be with a new body.

Quote from: Veronica M on March 21, 2014, 01:55:18 PM
Thank you everyone for the advice. For me surgery is a last resort option as I have read it is dangerous. Correct me if I am wrong. Besides that were looking a many medical procedures anyway so another one is really not what I am looking for. Perhaps I am stressing on this to much. After all there are plenty of other things to concentrate on at this point. In the end I am just going to be be with a new body.

You will still have the same body, it will just change a lot. Relax and calm down. It's not good rushing things and your transition is an important part of your life. It's better that you take your time and get everything right than rushing it and giving up.

Quote from: 930310 on March 21, 2014, 01:59:08 PM
You will still have the same body, it will just change a lot. Relax and calm down. It's not good rushing things and your transition is an important part of your life. It's better that you take your time and get everything right than rushing it and giving up.

Sorry if I am giving that impression... Yes I'm excited but believe me I am not rushing anything. This is to important to screw up by rushing. I am more asking questions as they come up or as I think about them. I have to chuckle a little as to my new body comment as even when I wrote it I even thought it came out a little skewed..

Quote from: Veronica M on March 21, 2014, 02:09:18 PM
Sorry if I am giving that impression... Yes I'm excited but believe me I am not rushing anything. This is to important to screw up by rushing. I am more asking questions as they come up or as I think about them. I have to chuckle a little as to my new body comment as even when I wrote it I even thought it came out a little skewed..

Not a problem at all. I'm glad to help or at least try to help others with their questions and feelings regarding this.

I am about 5 weeks into voice therapy provided by a university.  The money has run out for them for now but I can get a referral for subsidised sessions with a speech pathologist to carry on with so I will be able to continue.  Demand for the uni service is just too great.  The therapists are all final year students who are supervised by the staff (through observation mirrors - read police-style interrogation rooms!).  The focus so far is in voice health, developing a fit larynx and diaphragm.  There are exercises on how to make female sounds i.e. where female create resonance compared to men and moving how you speak to there.
Pitch change is useful but if you still speak in a male pattern with a chest resonance, there is a strong chance that you will still like a high-pitched male.
Like anything else involving changing how muscles work and how the brain instructs them takes repetition over a long time. If all that isn't your thing, then the surgery options are getting better.

I still sing in my male register xD  I do karaoke at every straight bar in town.  I love watching people go from, WTF, to OH! to WOW! to Thats really good singing!  If I can get half the bar singing along.  Then thats  a few dozen that won't become transphobic.    Its a win

I have to laugh a little about the singing thing. When I was fifteen I was the only boy in the church choir that had a three octave vocal range...  But sadly age and smoking have taken its toll. But the cigarettes are gone now and so is church for that matter. I'll leave that for another thread. I have plenty of time to work on my voice so I'll give it a go. Not to mention the voice coach isn't a bad idea either.

Voice is a hard one. But also pretty important if you want to pass fully down the line.

There are really only a couple of options as other girls have mentioned. Surgery or training. I'll only talk about training...

Training takes a LONG time. I took about a year to get to a point where my voice passed consistently. And even now, I'm always fine tuning it and changing little things.   I tried DIY methods from the web, I tried coaching with Andrea James ( google her ), and finally coaching with a local voice therapist with almost 30 years experience with transwomen. Anyone in Melbourne is welcome to PM me for contact details.

Regardless of training approach, the aim is the same. However producing a female voice with a male voice box is hard. It has to be re-shaped, re-positioned, breathing has to be controlled, and the way you sound words has to change. There are muscles to learn to control that do all of that, and they need to be exercised to be of any use. If that sounds daunting, it should!

There are approaches that focus directly on the shape and position of your throat, and approaches that use other indirect, but more vocal methods, to teach the same thing. The later method is where I started, but it didn't work well for me. Once I started with the more direct methods ( forgetting speech and focusing on position and shape of my throat ), my voice improved dramatically.

And there's only an internet full of information with numerous different approaches.   Spend some time to see if any make sense to you.

What my voice therapist did for me was fantastic though. She helped me get the basics rights, and then move past the basics with skills not easily taught through other material. Such as modifying my resonance to make my voice carry, and a quality she called 'twang'. Those were all skills that built upon the voice I was still developing. More importantly, she was able to teach me and explain the physical changes happening to produce sounds. That's what worked for me with muscle memory etc.

My voice now is fantastic by my own high standard, and according to my former voice therapist. I've yet to be mis-gendered with it. And people who knew the old me and old voice are blown away. They say I sound like any other girl and would never be able to tell I was born male.

I guess the point with all of this... training can be so effective, but takes so much time and dedication while not knowing where the end is. But once learned, wow . It's been the same with other transwomen I've met in person.

EDIT: I've come to find that a female singing voice is a totally different kettle of fish. Even with upper vocal range that rivals some cis women, it's so different. There so much to learn! From what I've read, it takes many years to develop, and may even be impossible for some voice boxes to produce a female singing voice. Of course that won't stop me from trying