If you can do it without surgery, then you save that money and aggravation. Some people can do it, others need the help from the surgeon's scalpel.

Mine is pretty good and even on the phone I'm always gendered female unless it's a crappy phone line connection where even my wife can get gendered male on the phone. (It used to happen on my old original iPhone 5 on Verizon, but my iPhone 6plus hasn't been a problem.) I once went to pick up my prescription at Costco and the computer outed me by messing up my name with my dead name in part of the system. (And finasteride isn't normally given to women.) The woman caught it and changed it for me, but then she complimented me on my voice and asked if I had surgery. I told her I had not, that I trained my voice and it's automatic for me now. She said that she would have never known if it wasn't for the computer and one of her girl friends she grew up with has the exact same voice as me.

My voice was 100% unpassable without surgery. It was so deep that I would have a strong resonance and timbre in my speech, short of whispering or in a falsetto. To give you an idea, I sounded like George Takei. Ohhh myyy.

Well, not anymore. For the past several weeks post op, people have just been saying, "You poor thing, are you sick?" Or, "drink tea with honey," and of course, "Ah laryngitis, I had that a few weeks ago." No amount of training I did got me that far, and anytime I opened my mouth to speak I was instantly clocked. Now I'm just a sickly girl

Audree

Surgery won't do much as it only changes pitch. Resonance is key to sounding female and no surgery at the present moment changes resonance.

I'm happy with mine, nobody ever blinks when I talk and the slightly deeper/rougher sound of it seems to fit a butch woman of my size. My Mom keeps remarking on the difference. When I call her or my father now they don't have to guess if it is me or my brother.  I'm pretty open about being trans so sometimes I like being able to drop back down but I can't remember how I used to sound. It actually tends to sound like a girl trying to do a boy voice when I drop down. When I'm in a sketchy situation though I tend to soften it up though. It has gotten softer on its own too, so that helps.

My voice is naturally soft and gender neutral - my dad used to give me endless crap when I was a kid because my voice "sounded like the girl that lived across the street" - I guess he was trying to man me up or something by ridiculing me over something that I had no control over. When puberty hit my voice didn't drop very much.

Now that I'm older I fight issues with acid reflux and allergies - when I wake up in the morning I tend to sound froggy because of that, but it usually clears up once I'm up and around.

I did have some voice lessons but it wasn't "real" until I was living full time - that forced me into practicing and using my female voice.

I can usually hit a passable feminine voice unless the reflux or the allergies are hitting me. I get no weird looks when I speak, but sometimes I get "sirred" on the phone so there is more work to be done.

Trying to drop my voice back into the old male range has gotten progressively harder to do.

Quote from: Eva Marie on January 13, 2016, 08:56:09 AM
I did have some voice lessons but it wasn't "real" until I was living full time - that forced me into practicing and using my female voice.

This!

I found that if I used my male voice it made my female one decay. No matter how short my "male mode" was it had a real impact. Once I was full time my female voice improved in a matter of days

Quote from: Eva Marie on January 13, 2016, 08:56:09 AMTrying to drop my voice back into the old male range has gotten progressively harder to do.

I did half-heartedly try my male voice some time ago and I sounded like a woman impersonating a bloke so everything is good

My vocals will probably be going under the knife. I haven't been that satisfied with my staying power as of yet. Time will tell...

I figured I was good enough once I could sway people's opinions towards gendering me correctly by opening my mouth.

These days, I've been doing a bunch of radio shows, which will definitely force me to keep thinking about my voice. So far so good, though.

(I've been practicing for ~6 years by now, though.)

I need to practice on the phone, I usually don't try because I usually only call for a cab and it's the same company , but I'm thinking of starting to try and use my proper name when I call because the cab drivers keep asking if I called because I use a male name.

Voice has been my strongest suit when I first started my transition. I think if I didn't have my voice sounding like this it would definitely derail my transition until I can get VFS done.

As mentioned above, voice will be the swing vote when someone is trying to clock you more than your appearance i think.

Here's a sample of my voice - it is an old recording.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1EsTg4qru9G

April

I think it's pretty good it took me a lot of practice though. Biggest issue though is that I only trained it in English and not in Dutch my native language so online I can speak and people are pretty sure it's a girl but in Dutch while I have the pitch and all that down of course I don't know how to "say" words like a girl does from around here it's especially annoying knowing males and females don't sound that different in the using of words. And finding someone to listen to who speaks the tongue and preferably in the same dialect then the region I'm from its hard. So I end up not really having a lot of references

Quote from: April_TO on January 13, 2016, 11:14:36 AM
Voice has been my strongest suit when I first started my transition. I think if I didn't have my voice sounding like this it would definitely derail my transition until I can get VFS done.

As mentioned above, voice will be the swing vote when someone is trying to clock you more than your appearance i think.

Here's a sample of my voice - it is an old recording.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1EsTg4qru9G

April

sounds good

Quote from: April_TO on January 13, 2016, 11:14:36 AM

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1EsTg4qru9G

April

Yay someone else posted their voice!

You sound great! Amazing even.

Thanks Frae and  I also heard your voice - you sound amazing xo

Quote from: Frae on January 13, 2016, 02:42:55 PM
Yay someone else posted their voice!

You sound great! Amazing even.

I voted phenomenal, self trained

Shall post voice recording soon 

After two years of sppech therapy and tryibng hard my voice passing was still not good enough.

I recently had vfs and I am SOOOOOOOOOO happy. Was one of my best descision ever. My voice is still thin and hoarse but my passing is perfect. Now I do not have to care about laughing or other noises even whilst having sex. I am just recognized as the the woman I every was. Freedom!

Quote from: KayXo on January 13, 2016, 07:19:35 AM
Surgery won't do much as it only changes pitch. Resonance is key to sounding female and no surgery at the present moment changes resonance.

Yes and no. I had a lot of training and changed my resonance but still sounded male on the phone. Now I cannot talk in hest resonance really. If I try it really sounds different and still more feminine than masculine.

So vfs (I had surgery with Dr. Haben) changes a lot. Especially laughing and other noises just sound feminine.

Quote from: Lara1969 on January 14, 2016, 05:22:23 PM
Yes and no. I had a lot of training and changed my resonance but still sounded male on the phone. Now I cannot talk in hest resonance really.

Perhaps, you were wrongly trained in how to change resonance because if mastered, you should not feel any vibrations from under the adam's apple, ever.

Quote from: Lara1969 on January 14, 2016, 05:15:19 PM
My voice is still thin and hoarse

Yes, I heard. Unfortunately, that is often a complication of voice surgery. Hope it improves with time.

I choose other because I think I sound totally like a guy even when I do record and playback, but family has told me that my voice sounds fine. So I really don't know. My voice has never vibrated in my chest, but it has and continues to vibrate at the base of my neck no matter what I do. It ends up sounding like a guy faking his voice most of the time, so in public I just use my guy voice so people don't know it worries me. I have heard the woman sound come out maybe once or twice over almost a year, but that's it.