Voice dysphoria

[Iona]

Inspired by nyx's post I thought I'd start a thread about voices. Feel free to share advice, experience, insecurities and anything else voice-related here.

I'll start...

On the positive side, I'm feeling less dysphoric about a lot of things now, but that seems to amplify my dysphoria with my voice.

And I'm not sure that's entirely gender-related, but that is what causes the most discomfort.

A big part if it is my assumption that that's what 'men' sound like, and whatever I am, I'm not a man. So, that's already problematic. But also, I know my voice is born in a place of insecurity - I mumble a low monotone because I don't feel like I should be heard. Yeah, that's very problematic too.

It means I find it very hard to even start training my voice - whether I'm wanting to 'feminise' it, make it more androgynous, or just speak more clearly. I find it so hard even to get sounds out.

What matters most to me is finding a voice that feels right to me, which isnt necessarily related to gender at all. However, I do think is something more ambiguous, ideally.

Weirdly, where I do feel far more comfortable is when singing. I'm certainly not a great singer, but I find the relative versatility of my voice when singing feels pretty euphoric.

I guess all I want is to be able to get my comfort in my speaking voice to the same sort of place.

Well, that's quite a bit, but only really scratches the surface. Feel free to share your own thoughts, if you like.

[nyx]

Wow, I was just wondering if I should open a thread on this, so thank you for your answer and the thread, Hana! 

As I wrote before, I experienced extremely painful dysphoria concerning my voice when I was in a setting that I would have thought of as a safe place - there were only people around who knew about me being nb. It was so bad I couldn't bring myself to speak any more and felt the need to escape from this situation, what I then did. I have never felt such intense dysphoria before.
I was thinking that maybe it went like this because I was out there, wanted to act as myself and simply be myself but then my high-pitched voice reminded me that my body is still biologically female - so even if I could be who I wanted to be but still within physical boundaries. When acting out around people I'm not out to, I know they see me as a woman so it does fit to what I expect them to expect from me.

Jan 25, 2021 21:02:48 GMT 8 Iona said:

Inspired by nyx's post I thought I'd start a thread about voices. Feel free to share advice, experience, insecurities and anything else voice-related here.

I'll start...

On the positive side, I'm feeling less dysphoric about a lot of things now, but that seems to amplify my dysphoria with my voice.

And I'm not sure that's entirely gender-related, but that is what causes the most discomfort.

A big part if it is my assumption that that's what 'men' sound like, and whatever I am, I'm not a man. So, that's already problematic. But also, I know my voice is born in a place of insecurity - I mumble a low monotone because I don't feel like I should be heard. Yeah, that's very problematic too.

It means I find it very hard to even start training my voice - whether I'm wanting to 'feminise' it, make it more androgynous, or just speak more clearly. I find it so hard even to get sounds out.

What matters most to me is finding a voice that feels right to me, which isnt necessarily related to gender at all. However, I do think is something more ambiguous, ideally.

Weirdly, where I do feel far more comfortable is when singing. I'm certainly not a great singer, but I find the relative versatility of my voice when singing feels pretty euphoric.

I guess all I want is to be able to get my comfort in my speaking voice to the same sort of place.

Well, that's quite a bit, but only really scratches the surface. Feel free to share your own thoughts, if you like.

I think you are right about the assumptions we often make because of our internalisation of the binary: the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about voice and gender is that women have higher voices and men lower ones. We all learned that. So I guess part of accepting ourselves as nonbinary would be to unlearn these ascriptions, at least to an extent that we can accept that a certain voice doesn't automatically indicates a certain ascripted gender.

On the other hand, I think we should take ourselves seriously enough to note that there are reasons for dysphoria and it is scientifically proven that it can be alleviated by making use of available treatments or trainings. To accomplish a higher congruence with yourself, it seems to me as an absolutely fair wish to make your voice sound more feminine (or else)!

I am also a bad singer (the worst I know, really) but I experienced too that I don't care much about the highness (is this even the correct term? well you know what I mean) of my voice when singing. I think it just feels good to sing - at least I feel better even if I just hum a bit around instead of being silent.   I do it way too seldom as I am most of the time afraid of annoying people because I really barely strike any right tone... my voice would suffice for a perfect soprano but I am... bad bad bad 

Well I started to try to lower my voice by talking not my head voice which I usually do but more the other one (what is it called in english? no idea). I think it makes a huge difference and feels very... interesting! But when answering the phone, I automatically switch to my mousiest voice, don't know why. It also happens when I am excited. You must know I can sound as squeaky as an anime girl if I want. But I don't want to! Ahhh it is so crazy, it is fun when joking around but I really think I would prefer a lower voice at the moment... For now, I've decided to watch how these feelings evolve by time.


To be continued...

[Leena]

Voice training seems hard, but once it clicked, I found it takes little effort to use the voice I want. I just had to find it. I actually found it by just laying on my back and humming rather than trying to talk or sing.

There are lots of free videos and apps that can help you, though some people pay for training. Women usually use a head voice and men usually use a chest voice. There is an androgynous range as well, but it's actually pretty small. It isn't just pitch, it's also resonance. This video explains resonance a lot better than I can.

My head voice is what I just use most of the time now. I do still use my old voice talking to my family on the phone, and I sometimes find it hard to even find. Maybe it's also because I hate it. I was a much less introverted person before my first puberty. I wonder now how much voice dysphoria was a cause for that.

Switching back and forth does make it more likely to use the wrong one at the wrong time, where I still mess up is when someone asks me an unusual question. My umms and filler words tend to be in the masculine range, but it's a habit, just as using filler words itself is.

[Trinity]

I'm wasted tired tonight so I can't really join in very well.

I use voices in theater, they naturally grow out of the characters that I play.

Even the trans females, the modding is interesting.

On the street and stealth, its an airy whisky voice for me, and I seem to get by with it. I don't pitch the voice. I guess its more of a Lauren Becall sound.

But singing, no mods. Full out or not. And I have heard trans musicians sing and they sound exactly like cis females. Namoli Brennet for one.

Yes its a source of dysphoria, in a way, or discomfort more likely. And the pitch of my voice naturally rises around trans women.

I just have this kneejerk reaction to modding, like, why should I have to do that?

I do get it though, and I know other afab pre testosterone folk that have a lousy time with this.

[Ativan Prescribed]

Kids are pretty hard to identify by voice alone, and yah sure they are kids and sound like kids, but listen closely and as they get older, you find that males often try to sound older by lowering their voice pitch,
And girls copy the feminine versions of how they think they need to sound, but its true that there are physical differences, but everyone goes through that training phase for lack of a better word for it.
Listen to men speaking when they think other men are around or women they want to be impressive with, why speaking in a lower pitch to impress is beyond me, and the same for women around other women and around men they want to impress.
I suppose the manly man needs that extra manliness and women need that higher pitch to use as a part of the attractiveness package they throw out there, but once that is settled and their more normal for them voices return, it can sound very different.
I've always noticed that when its just females who can hear me and we're talking, I tend to have a more higher pitch, it sorta goes with however it is they are talking and if it is a normal speaking voice, the pitch tends to blend much more.
I've listened to women talking and when they have no idea that a male is listening, they generally speak in lower pitches if its with other women they know, same for men, the pitch is not that low if its among friends.
So a lot of what you hear in voices isn't their real voice at all, it is the one they use to be either manly man or feminine woman, but then there is this range that everyone has anyways, it overlaps to a definite degree, sometimes by voice alone you don't know.
But there is a distintion that everyone uses for the most part and thats their social voice, the one trained to use from day one and of course there is no shortage of people talking that without trying, they are training yet another generation.
Society rewards behaviors in subtle way that we generally don't pay attention to and it is just another considered the normal, like the confusion of sex and gender, to entirely different things although one can easily be mistaken for the other, they are still different things.
We tend to not react to voices that come a lot closer to the opposite sex, we hear it and override that impression as a thats just how they talk, and some people are built to have that very high or low register to their voices, but still, a lot of what you hear is simply training.
It can be undone, and success depends on how much you want to change it from what you have naturally, but there is that distinction that women tend to talk with their head and men with their chest, but how much is that a part of the training?
One thing that is for sure, if it is a falsetto voice or very intentionally powered register, it sounds fake and most of that is because only very very rarely do we hear people talk in those registers, but you do hear sometimes that one woman who has the incredibly high register and the booming voice in a male, but again, is that their real voice or so practiced by training that its just stuck like that or do they consciously do it because most people have no real idea what they actually sound like.
A good way to practice voice is to record yourself and compare it to others, because most people couldn't recognize their voices in a recording if they had to, I know my voice to me sounds a lot lower than it actually is, and I can and do use higher and lower registers with ease.
But when I intentionally try to use them, its pretty hard to get to the further reaches of them, for one, I can't actually hear my voice as I'm doing it, I have to rely on whether it is resonating or not, but depending on who might be listening always trips it up, regardless.
The training is there and I know it, and I just don't take the time to undo it, because then I start to feel strange as to how I sound, and then it becomes this self conscious thing and it all just gets weird, I accept how I sound and don't really care, its me and if it isn't the same as the voice in my head, only I could care.
But then my presentation is what it is, I could really give a shit what other people think, if gender is the driving force in their life to the point that it makes a difference, then thats on them, not me.
(Does a swaggering hip walk and squeaks for the fun of it on my way to the kitchen for ice water...)

[Ativan Prescribed]

There is a thing that is used in singing mostly when recorded that is used to change the pitch, thats the thing that when taken to far you know that the voice you hear is intentionally pitch changed, it can get robotic in a hurry.
But its used a lot to get the pitch perfect with the notes musicians are playing, you can actually just be more or less not even trying and with pitch bending, you can sound dead on for the most part.
But its a useful thing if you have access to it to change the pitch of your voice to give it a higher or lower register, voces are a lot of complicated sounds all at the same time and uniquely individual, using one would give you a good idea of how your voice would sound changed.

[Trinity]

Heres the thing for me, whatever happens with my voice needs to happen naturally, not a forced thing or an act. So if it is happening naturally, its going to sound natural, and with me and gender, most of what my body does and all that is very natural, depending on what the circumstances are it will be read different ways, its hard to explain, but it just is natural.

And I have had trans females call me out and say "woment don't stand like that" while I am full out sh'e, and its like, do I look like I care....

I'd care in a threatening sityuation through. And the originator of the post concept Nyx that is so nicely built upon and relaunched by Hana and everybody else joining in - they were talking about the trigger, the mismatch of who they are with what came out of the mouth in terms of tone.

And I suppose that's part of transition, nb style, is if its not fitting in with who you are, there are things that we can do about it so it is more natural. I went pretty far but just with hormones, Leena went real far and has done the facial hair removal thing which I don't think I could handle, there are others that just shave or don't shave, there's a million ways of self expression that are either comfortable or not.

I am super uncomfortable playing the male game. Vocally inflections can be nb, the way things are said. There's apparently characteristics of expressions that get gendered one way or the other.

Interesting thread.

[Trinity]

Jan 26, 2021 10:40:43 GMT 8 Ativan Prescribed said:

There is a thing that is used in singing mostly when recorded that is used to change the pitch, thats the thing that when taken to far you know that the voice you hear is intentionally pitch changed, it can get robotic in a hurry.
But its used a lot to get the pitch perfect with the notes musicians are playing, you can actually just be more or less not even trying and with pitch bending, you can sound dead on for the most part.
But its a useful thing if you have access to it to change the pitch of your voice to give it a higher or lower register, voces are a lot of complicated sounds all at the same time and uniquely individual, using one would give you a good idea of how your voice would sound changed.

And if you screw up the recording process you get Alvin and the Chipmunks and wind up rich if it was 1965....

[Iona]

We've just been playing online boardgames with a friend this evening, and chatting on Skype. Our speaker kept echoing our voices at this end, and, yeah, big, big dysphoria.

Otherwise all is good though

[Trinity]

Jan 31, 2021 11:04:06 GMT 8 Iona said:

We've just been playing online boardgames with a friend this evening, and chatting on Skype. Our speaker kept echoing our voices at this end, and, yeah, big, big dysphoria.

Otherwise all is good though

dysphoria really sucks.

Hugs

[Ativan Prescribed]

Depending on who I am talking to, my voice will be more from my head or more from my chest, it can alternate in a sentence at times, depends on what I'm saying and why usually.
But the ability to switch is just pretty much on autopilot, but it is influenced a lot by who I'm talking with.
I aware of how I'm speaking, and to me it is not different than what I'm saying, it can easily go from gutter to sophisticated, from simplistic to technical, from scary to nice, from head to chest is not all that different from my perspective.
But so much more we are judged by what we have to say and to a lesser extent by how we sound, listen to others when they speak, most people stay in about the same range and the range overlaps a lot.
Do you say words in a sharp and halting manner, are you loud and overbearing, do you use that FM radio voice that is breathy and low or is it airy and light, but overall, the words we choose has more effect on the people listening than how we sound.
Not to discount how we sound, but think about this, do you remember what was said or how it sounded, as in a gendered way, I'll bet you hear more gendered words than you can recall gendered sound.

[nyx]

Jan 31, 2021 11:04:06 GMT 8 Iona said:

We've just been playing online boardgames with a friend this evening, and chatting on Skype. Our speaker kept echoing our voices at this end, and, yeah, big, big dysphoria.

Otherwise all is good though

Hugs from me, too! This seems very similar to what I have experienced. Although I think our friends don't judge, the problem is that we do it to ourselves which can be very painful.

I tried to use my chest voice more often and yesterday, I chatted with some people, using only my chest voice. It felt better. But I think it's really only myself who pays much attention for it. 

[Leena]

Jan 31, 2021 11:04:06 GMT 8 Iona said:

We've just been playing online boardgames with a friend this evening, and chatting on Skype. Our speaker kept echoing our voices at this end, and, yeah, big, big dysphoria.

Otherwise all is good though

*Big Hugs*

You know, if you can sing in a voice that isn't monotonous, you can speak with one too. My old voice was pretty monotonous too, and I hated hearing it. I really like my new voice even if I do sometimes slip into my old voice. I'm not sure this is entirely a bad thing for now, so far, I just have been working it in slowly when I'm talking with my family. I'm not sure they even notice. In any case, they recognize my new hello as me.

[Droomvlucht]

Jan 25, 2021 21:02:48 GMT 8 Iona said:

Weirdly, where I do feel far more comfortable is when singing. I'm certainly not a great singer, but I find the relative versatility of my voice when singing feels pretty euphoric.

I guess all I want is to be able to get my comfort in my speaking voice to the same sort of place.

Well, that's quite a bit, but only really scratches the surface. Feel free to share your own thoughts, if you like.

Funny, recently I discovered that I maybe am a better singer than I thought if only I would allow my voice to get higher when I sing. I think I was preventing myself to sing higher. I'm still a very bad singer nevertheless though It's good to hear that you feel more comfortable when you sing, I hope you'll achieve that when you speak too.