im in the same boat as you because i was adopted and never met my birth parents.  welcome to the lottery, this one is free to play!

Quote from: chrissyboy on October 16, 2009, 03:45:14 PM
I'm a bit worried about the asthetic effects T will have on me as I have no living male relatives to compare to (other than my birth-father, who I've never met or seen). So there's a chance I could go bald/thin...or a chance I could sound like a deranged chipmunk...or a chance I could come out looking like a midget yeti.

I'm terrified of my voice just staying in the "unpassable" spot for the rest of my life.

Even bio-males have a 50% risk of all that happening. I believe it's cut by 25% for ftms, or so I remember someone cracking down on it in another thread. Either way, we all play the lottery... all I can say is, I hope I don't end up like my dad, but we all have a good enough chance that we wont go bald or sound like the men in our families.

Still, I could see why it'd be comforting to have some idea. I know not knowing my mother made medical issues a pain in the rear.

Quote from: Sebastien on October 16, 2009, 01:26:19 PM
Well... my voice sounds just like my brother's, but slightly lower. I still maintain genetics is a very good indicator. Of course, you'll still have the inflections and whatnot you had prior to T, unless you work on them.

Yep, genetics are a good indicator. They may not be 100% but they give us a good idea at least.

Inflection makes a huge difference as well. I hope I can beat the habit out of me before I get on T.

I have 2 brothers and we all have different fathers. I have never met my father and have given up trying to figure out who he is (I am a product of my mothers free love years 1969, haha). Anyway we all look nothing alike, but my voice seems to be headed closer to what my younger brother sounds like. So that is where I think I will end up. I only have one uncle and he is adopted so I really have no barometer to go by besides my brothers. I also started transitioning later , 39, and am not sure if that plays into it. I started T in March (very end) and my voice just took a dramatic drop again last week so I am still moving.
Myles

Genetics is fun! My dad died from a blood vessel exploding in his brain, just think, I may end up with his handsome looks, his low resonant voice, his large-ish um, equipment downstairs, and similarly die of a massive system failure at age 63.

Alex_C
"weak arterial walls" are in my family too. My Grandmother gave herself a brain-bleeding by eating one too many aspirins (though she survived that the tough old bat).
Just don't go bungee jumping.

My dad's got your standard issue, booming, deep, dark, viking voice.
Maybe a bit "too" male for me...

My dad had very high blood pressure all his life, never went to a good old standard allopathic doctor, tries all this new-age BS to help it, which didn't help, and because he didn't take care of himself, died young. While some quirk of genetics may have given him this high blood pressure problem, I don't seem to have it so far but who know, will it shoot up as I get older? At least I'll see a real doctor.

Quote from: chrissyboy on October 16, 2009, 03:45:14 PM
I'm a bit worried about the asthetic effects T will have on me as I have no living male relatives to compare to (other than my birth-father, who I've never met or seen). So there's a chance I could go bald/thin...or a chance I could sound like a deranged chipmunk...or a chance I could come out looking like a midget yeti.

I'm terrified of my voice just staying in the "unpassable" spot for the rest of my life.

Chances are, you won't end up with an "unpassable" voice. I've watched a lot of youtubes from a lot of transguys and even the guys whose voices are pretty high post-T are still distinctly masculine. I don't know if this is standard for all transdudes, but with my voice, it got the masculine quality (a little rougher, a little more throaty) before it began dropping. At that point, I was already being read as male on voice alone. I wouldn't worry about that, if I were you.

As per baldness, you can judge your likelihood of losing your hair by your mother's male relatives, and perhaps ask her if your father was bald/balding. Most guys have to look only to their mother's side to judge their susceptibility to baldness, since it's carried on the X chromosome (and in XY guys, that comes from the mother), but for us, we get the double whammy of having two X chromosomes. Thus, we have to look at both sides of the family. Of course, there's no guarantee that we'll lose our hair even if every male in our genetic line did; on the opposite side of that, you could go bald even if every guy in your family has kept his hair.

My dad lost all his hair at 17. On my mom's side, it's about half and half. I have about the same hair as my little brother now... his is thinning, it seems, every bit as rapidly as is mine, but I take some comfort in the fact that he's 8 years younger than me, so maybe I'm doing a tad better. Maybe not. ROGAINE!

SD

The balding gene is recessive, though, which means FTMs probably have less of a risk.

Quote from: Sebastien on October 17, 2009, 05:31:34 PM
...T gel/cream typically uses DHT rather than T...

no it doesnt.

Last time I quote something I was told by a trans-specific doctor.

Androgel and Testim are the 2 most commonly prescribed brand name T creams.  they are made with TESTOSTERONE.  even off brand that you get compounded at the pharmacy is T, not DHT.

DHT isnt even available in N. America.  your doctor must be misinformed.

see the thing is that there are cis dudes who have equally as "high" "light" and "feminine" or whatnot voices as the trans dudes youre talking about, but to them thats just their voice.  A lot of people probably think their just queer, and while a good bit of them may be there are also a lot who are not in any way.  The only reason it matters more to a transman is that its one of those annoying "oh so thats why their voice is like that" kind of things....

I do agree though that its a little bit of everything... part genetics, part usage, perhaps part developmental. (though I think the developmental aspect of it has less to do with the female-bodiedness and more to do with almost resistance to the lowering of the voice so really its like usage during the voice-transition period effects the outcome of the voice.) in my opinion.

i hope that was coherent... i tend to ADHD babble and i don't feel like re-reading this because im sleepy and want to get to bed =p sorry

theres part of me that thinks that a lot of time its how they use their voice.  this is because of my own voice.  a lot of the time i sound, well... ->-bleeped-<-gy.  i dont really mind or try to change it in any way, but i can, and do, sometimes speak without the lightness when playing around or imitating other people (like the kool-aid guy) and my voice sounds like a "typical" non-gay cis-guy with a deeper than average voice.  (seriously, if my wife left me, my dog died, and i ran out of whiskey, id start singing country)

OK testim and androgel are testosterone, there was a DHT cream you could get for rubbing on your little guy to make him grow, but you can't get it in the US any more.

As for voice I use mine a lot in my work, and to me it sounds all messed up (scratchy) and too high but it does in fact seem to be lowering.

Quote from: myles on October 16, 2009, 08:52:45 PM
I also started transitioning later, 39, and am not sure if that plays into it.
Myles

Yeah, I wondered that too. I had a deep voice for a woman but it was still female. I have not been called ma'am or anything like that over the phone for weeks now and I know my voice has gotten deeper because I can feel it in my chest.

I have heard that the later you start T the longer it takes to pass physical-wise. I don't know if it's true, but I have noticed the younger guys seem to pass well after a few months, where I have a long way to go.

Quote from: Radar on October 18, 2009, 12:37:52 PM
I have heard that the later you start T the longer it takes to pass physical-wise. I don't know if it's true, but I have noticed the younger guys seem to pass well after a few months, where I have a long way to go.

Well, my case is anecdotal, but I'm an older guy, and people definitely stopped calling me ma'am within five months. It could be that the younger guys can get away with a less mature-sounding voice because they're obviously younger; hence, they might be able to start "passing" consistently a little faster. But that's pure conjecture on my part.

I'm not convinced that older guys take longer to be read right; I know a few younger guys who are frequently misread after six, eight, even twelve or more months on T, but the older men don't seem to have this problem as much unless they're in the gay part of town and are read as butches. Their success might have something to do with overall confidence or maybe top surgery; the older guys might have an edge in these respects. (That is, they might have more general confidence, the kind that a lot of people acquire with age, and they might have more funds available to get top surgery sooner, which helps with appearance AND confidence.)

Our community is full of misinformation and rumors. I've even heard that T doesn't do much AT ALL for older transitioners, and that clearly isn't true.

Anyway, I think a lot of us worry about sounding like Mickey Mouse, but I've only run into one transguy in person who doesn't have a "passable" voice. And from what I understand, he wasn't consistent with his T. So I don't know the full story there.

As for Buck Angel and Loren Cameron, they are obviously accepted as male by strangers, so perhaps they never felt the need to try any kind of voice training that might have helped them to get rid of the "->-bleeped-<- buzz," as I've heard it called.

->-bleeped-<- buzz.   i like it.  hahahaha

->-bleeped-<- buzz LOL!

Much good observations about voice training in this thread, imagine I'm a teenage dude growing up with a bunch of teenage dude peers, all of our voices lowering together, so we all get used to it.

But my voice lowering now, I'm constantly thinking about whether I'm forcing my voice to stay high, expecting it to sound a certain way. Frankly my voice has that teenage sound, completely with the very annoying teenage-boy squeakiness thing going on. My laugh is changing, it sounds like a teenage dude laugh. I need to keep in mind enjoying my teenage dude voice and "own" it.

Quote from: Kes on October 14, 2009, 06:25:53 PM
I occasionally watch videos of ftms on youtube or whatever, and have noticed that a lot of the time their voices aren't very deep.  I'm not talking about guys still transitioning, but those that are already done and their voice has changed as much as its going to.  Not all ftms I've heard have this high voice but it seems like an awful lot of them do.  Is there any way to ensure your voice deepens properly during transition?

Ask any singer -- voices tend to deeper, even women's voices, with age.  Testosterone tends to drop the pitch considerably to a more "masculine" one (either via puberty or HRT), but one really shouldn't expect to stop sounding like he's fifteen after two years of HRT that began at the age of twenty-five.

So, yes, all voices are different and sometimes testosterone alone will make a *huge* difference in what your voice sounds like, but age (and length of time on testosterone) will make a difference as well.

If you want an example of how this works with natal men, go rent one of Johnny Depp's earliest films -- I'm talking Nightmare on Elmstreet or something.  Now go watch some promo materials (interviews, TV spots, etc...) for the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film.  There's a MAJOR difference in the pitch of his voice.  Watching interview clips of David Bowie from 1968 through to now will also reveal that he had a huge pitch shift through the years (my room-mate and I joke that "Young Americans is the album where Bowie's testicles finally descended") -- but it was gradual, over forty years.

So, yeah, you're not going to be guaranteed some awesome-deep George Clooney voice (and he's had comparitively little change to how deep his voice has gotten over twenty-plus years as an actor) -- but if that happens, don't complain! -- but chances are still doubtful that having however-many fewer years of testosterone-induced gradual vocal deepening, that there's going to be a huge change.


Also:
Something else you can ask a singer, you can still make your voice seem deeper by speaking from a different "area".  Basically, "feel" where the voice is coming from.  It's easier to acheive lower pitches from the chest, higher ones usually come from the head/sinus/etc....  Women typically speak from their "high voice" (even if they don't realise they're doing it -- after all "higher voice = more feminine" [eyeroll]); men typically speak from their "low voice" (anagin, even if they don't realise they're doing it).  You don't have to tuck your chin or contort your face to speak in a lower register, you just have to remind yourself where you're speaking from.

Again, the results aren't going to be "perfect", nor guaranteed to immensely less-high than before, but it's still possible to make one's voice seem at least a little lower.

Quote from: Jay on October 15, 2009, 02:11:34 AM
I guess it depends on there T and how much of it they take??!

No -- this has little, if anything, to do with how the voice sounds.  I'm pointing this out because I don't want something to see this and take that as a suggestion to start giving themselves an extra CC or two of T with their fortnightly shots -- that can actually be VERY dangerous.  DON'T MESS WITH YOUR DOSAGE!

It's largely about age, length of time with extra testosterone, and where one is projecting their voice from.  After that, you get what you get.


I think there may be something to the postulations that a lot of people end up trying to speak with their old registry.  There's probably something to that, as well.

George Cloony lol I totally see myself as a Dr Ross sort of character as an EMT.

My voice is getting a squeak to it, not fun. But it's certainly getting lower.