There are a lot of idiosyncracies when transitioning and attempting to live as a new gender. While I feel that’s true for all trans people I want to clarify that anything I write
A lot of it comes as you’d expect. If you’re trans fem it might be learning makeup and new clothing proportions, as a trans masc you might be learning how to keep up with new body odor or newly sprouting body hair.
But there are plenty of things I didn’t expect, like my feet shrinking, just how wide my emotions could stretch, or just how different my personality and taste may manifest (including my sexuality).
But something quite silly that I came across recently had to do with my voice and voice training.
For those who aren’t familiar with the effects of feminizing HRT here’s some quick context.
Think of any kind of HRT as if you’re going through puberty all over again, with all the same types of effects that cis people can expect in their early teens. Trans boys get swathes of body hair and growing sex drives, trans girls may experience mood swings and breast growth. But the important thing to note for this piece is the voice.
Testosterone and masculinizing puberty permanently alter the voice. It’s why there are so many stories about squeaky teenage boys pretty suddenly waking up with much deeper voices, and why trans men taking testosterone experience very similar things.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about estrogen and feminizing puberty. Once you go through testosterone-fueled puberty, your voice is permanently changed, which leads to trans women wanting a more feminine voice to try voice training to find a voice they feel suits them better.
I’m one of those trans women, and while my voice isn’t exactly where I want it to be, it’s something I continue to work on.
While speaking in my trained voice, I realized something. I couldn’t do an accent that I do all the time, a stereotypical southern accent, in my femme voice. It was only when I switched back to a more masculine tone that I could do it again.
Feminizing voice training primarily focuses on shrinking the space in the mouth and lifting the larynx through methods like moving the tongue forward and breathing through the diaphragm instead of the chest.
All that means in this context is that until I relearn the accent in my new voice, instead of sounding like a sweet southern belle I come across as a beautiful racist farmer.
Thanks for listening to my rant.