My female voice is not as good as I thought it was.

[MiraF]

One of the first things I did was voice exercises, and I saw what appeared to be a massive improvement. My voice sounded to me like a very feminine voice, but then I recorded my voice and listened to it for the first time, and boom: dysphoria. I know practice makes perfect, and I shouldn't expect instant results, but it's still painful.

[Mmindy]

Good morning MiraF, and welcome to TransgenderPulseForums,

 

I have always been upset with my recorded voice. Even before I started transitioning, when I would here my voice in interviews, or voicemail playback. It made me cringe. Now I'm at a point in transitions that first time greetings when I'm with my wife, are Ladies, Mam, Mrs. Ms. As long as my wife does the speaking for us, it's all cool, however once I open my mouth and speak above a whisper. Pow! I'm outed as male questioning. Keep working on your voice, do more recordings, practice, practice, practice.

 

Hugs,

 

Mindy🐛🏳️‍⚧️🦋

[Jani]

Keep at it.  Remember the when we hear our voice it is with a lot of history.  I'm sure a side by side comparison would show the improvement. 

[Jackie C.]

7 hours ago, MiraF said:

My voice sounded to me like a very feminine voice, but then I recorded my voice and listened to it for the first time, and boom: dysphoria. I know practice makes perfect, and I shouldn't expect instant results, but it's still painful.

 

It took me an hour a day for something like eight months before my female voice was passable. I had a similar experience to yours early on: I thought, "OK, my voice is ready for prime time!" so I went to the store to buy groceries. Voice. Fail. The LOOK I got from the cashier said it all. I tucked my tail between my legs and scuttled home.

I didn't give up though, I kept working on it until I got it and then for about six months after that to refine it. Now, not only do I sound lovely, but I'm looking into recording audiobooks.

 

Don't give up on it. You're developing muscles and like every other muscle, it takes a minute to get it where you want it.

 

Hugs!

[Astrid]

5 hours ago, Jackie C. said:

It took me an hour a day for something like eight months before my female voice was passable. I had a similar experience to yours early on: I thought, "OK, my voice is ready for prime time!" so I went to the store to buy groceries. Voice. Fail. The LOOK I got from the cashier said it all. I tucked my tail between my legs and scuttled home.

 

Some folks, interestingly -- perhaps those with less sensitivity to aural clues -- seem to instead focus on visual clues.  For example, yesterday at the supermarket I was wearing my usual ponytail and t-shirt bra/open jacket (it being winter) with jeans, and I wasn't intentionally forcing my voice to sound more feminine as the cashier and I exchanged chitchat -- .  She handed me my receipt with a "There you are, m'am".  My response was a nice smile and.

 

Mind you, I'm non-binary and dress comfortably for my feminine-leaning identity, not to pass as a cis woman -- my ponytail is accompanied by a fair amount of baldness, for example -- meaning that I don't have a goal of consistently passing as a woman, but definitely appreciate such moments.

 

Astrid

[MiraF]

Thanks, it's nice from other people with the same issue.

PS, here's a tip for passing: if you say, "sorry for my voice, I'm a bit hoarse today" you will probably get an automatic pass, as long as it isn't someone you interact with regularly.

17 hours ago, Mmindy said:

I have always been upset with my recorded voice. Even before I started transitioning, when I would here my voice in interviews, or voicemail playback. It made me cringe. Now I'm at a point in transitions that first time greetings when I'm with my wife, are Ladies, Mam, Mrs. Ms. As long as my wife does the speaking for us, it's all cool, however once I open my mouth and speak above a whisper. Pow! I'm outed as male questioning.

[Mmindy]

Mira, thank you, and you know we're going to make it workout. I'm not going back into the closet.

 

Hugs,

 

Mindy🐛🏳️‍⚧️🦋

[Willow]

Rainy chilly morning, so not good morning today.  lol

 

@Mmindy I spent time with a speech therapist and I still can’t get it right.  Lots of time I realize I may have started in a higher register but revert to my old voice.  Most of the time after a few words I loose my voice to my flem. 

voice is one of the hardest things to get right.  I suppose if I restarted my vocal lessons I’d manage better.

 

Willow

 

[Mmindy]

3 hours ago, Willow said:

voice is one of the hardest things to get right

Good afternoon Willow,

 

Right now I would be happy if I sounded like a woman who smoked cigarettes her who adult life.

I'm not giving up, just being real about my vocal cords. Don't forget I had two different preachers ask me not to sing.

 

Hugs,

 

Mindy🐛🏳️‍⚧️🦋💖

[Maddee]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:00 AM, MiraF said:

One of the first things I did was voice exercises, and I saw what appeared to be a massive improvement. My voice sounded to me like a very feminine voice, but then I recorded my voice and listened to it for the first time, and boom: dysphoria. I know practice makes perfect, and I shouldn't expect instant results, but it's still painful.

Yes!
I need to practice, record, and listen more, like you are doing. 

As it is, I think   I could be acceptably passing hot…if only I could talking  

[Padma]

Recording always throws off. You know best , when you are on a customer service and the other side is a young women who can recognize a female voice and NOW, if she addresses you a mam -how can i help you and you conversed with her for the next 10-25 mins and still at the end she says -  Thanks for calling  abc company mam" . you know you have nailed it. because - Your voice is your second facial imprint "

[MiraF]

Update:

Turns out I was sick that day. My voice is still off, and I don't know how much of it is the sore throat and how much is just my voice.

Do I want my sore throat to go away? Yes, because then my voice will better. Also no, because then I have no excuse for my scheisse voice. Also yes, because maybe my voice is not scheisse. Also no, because I'll have to work on my voice a lot, and voice training includes recording yourself.

I can usually deal with regular dysphoria, but this is something different.

I'm calling it... Schrödinger's dysphoria.

[Padma]

when Jackie C says  - " Voice. Fail. The LOOK I got from the cashier said it all. I tucked my tail between my legs and scuttled home. "  - I probably would walk to my car and break down in tears .

[MiraF]

My voice is so much better now. In addition to not being sick anymore, I have put in a lot of effort to feminize my voice as much as possible, and the results are amazing.

Some context: I have never considered myself dysphoric before I realized I was trans. I have always hated my recorded voice, but I assumed that was just a byproduct of it sounding different than I was used to.

Now that I know how it feels to have a feminine voice, I realize that it was my dysphoria all along.

Every time I change something about myself to be more feminine, I feel great, and when the change gets undone for some reason, I suddenly get hit by intense dysphoria.

All in all, this was a net positive for me, as I am now much more confident about my identity than before.

[KathyLauren]

I'm glad you are feeling better about your voice.

 

I went to a speech therapist for a few sessions.  She was very helpful, but my main takeaway was that it was not possible for me to raise the pitch of my voice into the "obviously female" range.  I could hit the pitch, but it was enough of a strain that it would have wrecked my voice to try for any length of time.  Once we realized that, we concentrated on finding a pitch that I could hit without strain, and on developing my speech inflection into a more feminine pattern.

 

You can alter pitch and inflection consciously and have them become a habit, but you will never, even with vocal surgery, be able to alter the resonance of your throat and sinuses.

 

What is interesting is seeing how other people gender me.  My voice, even without much effort, does not "out" me when I appear in person.  They are seeing the whole package, and since I make an effort to present a specifically feminine appearance, the package looks like a deep-voiced female.  On the other hand, on the phone, I always get gendered as male.  Different packaging.

[Rein]

Quote

You can alter pitch and inflection consciously and have them become a habit, but you will never, even with vocal surgery, be able to alter the resonance of your throat and sinuses

 

The above is mostly not correct.

First of all, there are absolutely vocal surgeries that target the resonant characteristics of the vocal tract (including throat.) Some attempt to shorten the vocal tract by fixing the larynx to the hyoid bone above, elevating it in the process, some (like FemLar) rebuild the larynx box shape to make it smaller, plus, some surgeons also offer to narrow the pharynx. The results vary, and those are rather newer techniques, but they are out there.  Sinuses are not really important in this context as that area of the vocal tract is not used for non-nasal sounds anyways.

Secondly, a successful vocal training will require modifying the shape and size of the vocal tract.  It's not only possible, but required, and people who train voice do that all the time, at least nowadays.  If you change pitch only, add some feminine intonation ("inflections") on top and do nothing about your vocal tract shape and vocal weight (this part happens between the vibrating vocal folds,) you are likely to end up with a typical "gay voice".  During male puberty, the vocal tract size grows about 80% (in respect to just 20% for females,) plus the mass of vocal folds increases - human brains are very good at hearing the balance of those two elements, so addressing them is absolutely crucial for proper training. Pitch is not relevant directly (there's a large overlap between men and women in that area) - do not fall into the trap of training according to pitch and intonation.