Hello everyone!
So I am in the process of pursuing vocal feminization surgery, but I am feeling a little lost and frustrated with the process.
I went to Dr. Mark Courey in NYC (which my insurance conveniently covers), and he said I needed the obligatory 3 sessions of Vocal Coaching/Therapy, which I welcomed. After I did those sessions, I saw him again, and he seemed frustrated with me, and I was a little confused.
During my first session with him, he told me he didn't think I needed surgery, which, to some degree, I could understand; my voice isn't the deepest in the world. It's in the androgynous zone, I would say, with some giveaway that I was AMAB. I don't get misgendered much in person, but I think that's because my appearance helps signal my gender more clearly. On the phone/mic, however, I have been misgendered a good amount. I was an avid DND and Video gamer, and whenever I went on voice, I would get misgendered a lot (playing video games, I would often be called slurs, so much fun) and all that has led me to avoid wanting to play with others. I've also had a bad experience with my ex, telling me the reason he didn't want me to meet his family was that my voice clocked me.
Needless to say, I have a complicated relationship with my voice, and I thought this surgery would help alleviate some of that pain.
During my second session, seeing the doctor, he seemed annoyed with me. He said something along the lines of "pitch before tone" or maybe it was the reverse, or maybe it wasn't tone but another word. To be honest, I am still kind of confused by all the lingo, as I've never really been introduced to it before this experience. The voice therapist said I had vocal fry, which contributed to my issues, but that's something I worked on with her as much as I could.
He asked to touch my throat, and he pushed really hard on either side of it with his fingers, I think, commenting that it felt tight and that I needed to learn to loosen it.
Dr. Courey felt that even with the surgery, my results wouldn't be great because I haven't made enough progress with the vocal training. I think his basic point was that the vocal therapy is more important than the actual surgery, and the surgery won't give me improvement if I don't work on my vocal fry or something along those lines, perhaps? He also said that it will be easier to achieve my goals with the voice I have now instead of getting an entirely new voice and having to train it from that point.
But I did everything the voice therapist told me to do, and I did the practices between sessions. One of the reasons why I wanted to get the surgery was because I don't always want to have to put effort into how I talk; I just want to talk and feel natural, but he made it seem like that's exactly what I have to do to change my voice, even with surgery.
The part that confuses me is that I've seen so many before-and-afters of trans women, and their results sound great. I get that voice training therapy is a part of that, but to me it doesn't seem to me as if I get the surgery, I won't get a good result from it at all. I guess I just want feedback and advice from those who have been through it.
Another thing I should mention is that he brought up a patient he gave the surgery, and they were not pleased with the results. He referred to her as an 'older big lady,' and that someone like that can only expect results to be so good. He also implied it was her fault for not having good results because she didn't take the vocal coaching seriously, so I felt like a lot of his frustration came from his experience with those types of patients (which I felt he was worried I was going to be one of).
Any insight, advice, or suggestions would be deeply appreciated. My voice has been a major struggle for me and something I feel has really held me back and caused me to miss out in a lot of situations and I want to do everything I can do to work on improving it.
Persephone
