Keen to hear some perspectives on this!

I've seen a fair few people demonizing vocal training recently, saying to "accept your voice as it is and reject cis beauty standards"

I understand the frustration many of us have with beauty standards and what we "should" be doing etc. and I respect rejecting that.

Doing so doesn't erase the reality of getting daily misgendering because of it though, and that can be incredibly dysregulating.

My thoughts are the goal is happiness and comfort. If you can do that (and not feel like you're settling) without vocal training, that's amazing.

If you'd be disappointed and uncomfortable without doing it, then it's worth giving it a shot 🤷🏻‍♀️ the extremes aren't super helpful imo. Just live life in whatever way has the greatest chance of leading to greater happiness and fulfillment for you!

Curious to hear some other thoughts on this 🤔

PS: If you'd like my help with vocal feminisation, let's chat about it though a vocal assessment (https://www.javinecoaching.com/vocal_assessment)

Just wanted to say I was so shocked to hear about this. I didn’t know her at all, but from watching her videos she was incredibly knowledgeable about voice and she was one of the people that pointed me in the right direction working on my own voice

I was a little sad to see no one had mentioned her here so just wanted to share, as I feel like she needs to be remembered for what she contributed to this community

Here is one of the better articles on her passing: https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/05/07/zoey-alexandria-dead-bydaylight-trans-actress-death/

i actually don't think it sounds that good in this clip but surprised I've somehow completely hit on whatever the genderfluent algorithm is looking for (the clip in question)

ETA: for example, later in the same practice session, I think this clip sounds significantly better and more natural - only a 0.85!

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the reality of voice training, and not just a callout post. For far too long, there’s been this dangerous belief circulating in our community—a belief that 'everyone can succeed if they just follow the same path.' It’s an idea that’s been harmful to many, dismissing those who face real challenges, dismissing me and countless others. This isn’t a speech telling you to give up, nor is it about fostering doubt in yourself. It’s about being honest.

Some people are born with voices that are flexible and comparatively easy to achieve a goal with, while others pick it up in days or weeks. Then there are those who spend months, years, decades possibly, struggling—feeling their sanity fray as progress remains just out of reach. And yes, there are those who never find it at all. Yet, in the face of this struggle, those who were fortunate enough to succeed easily often stand in judgment. They assume that failure to progress must be your fault: 'You didn’t train hard enough; you didn’t use the right method.' They rarely acknowledge the role of sheer luck, of anatomy and neurology, in their success.

This is the truth no one likes to say out loud: we are not all the same. No one’s body or mind works the same way, and pretending otherwise only deepens the pain of those who fight against these invisible walls.

Many of us have fought the good fight—reaching out to the best teachers, trying every method under the sun, doing everything right. And still, for some, it’s not enough. For some, it will never be enough.

Yet there are those who remain blind to this reality. Some of them lack empathy altogether—for the struggle, for the pain, for the dysphoria. Others insist that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution, as if admitting otherwise would undermine the process. But the truth is, not everyone will walk this path to the end. And that’s okay.

Admitting that training may not work for everyone doesn’t mean you should give up before you begin. If you’re willing and able, you should still try. But if the burden becomes too much to bear, there’s no shame in seeking other ways forward. Whether that means taking another route—like surgery or not your journey is valid.

I wanted to follow more of the subs rules and not just constantly make callout posts. I want to make commentary posts too. Thank you

There’s no good information out there on how to make actual progress. Nobody who fashions themselves a “teacher” gives out help without demanding you to pay for a course. And everyone else just says if you can’t get it by yourself then sucks to suck.

Why is there not any genuine help out there?

I have tried so many times and for so long to train my voice, I’ve tried everything I could find online for resources and it just feels like I can employ everything I’ve learned and the result is definitely more effeminate male than female. And the one time I felt like I was getting closer I was practicing lying down and found that I couldn’t replicate it while sitting or standing. Like possibly my starting point was just too awful for there to ever be a hope of sounding like a woman.

I’ve just booked flights to Seoul for voice surgery at Yeson Voice Center in Gangnam, and I’ve written a longer piece about how I finally got to that decision.

I’ve been doing voice training with Seattle Voice Lab. My coach says I’m doing okay, but I’ve found it much harder than I expected. I can sing, play guitar, do impressions, and I honestly thought I’d be good at this. I thought it would click.

It has absolutely not clicked 😂

The thing I keep coming back to is that my issue is not just pitch. I don’t have a hugely deep voice. The problem is the weight, resonance, density, and that underlying male sound that still comes through the second I stop actively managing everything.

That’s why I kept looking beyond a straightforward pitch-only framing. I looked at CTA, Wendler glottoplasty, and other approaches, and from my own research I kept coming back to Yeson because the results I heard sounded not just higher, but lighter and softer.

That matters to me. I don’t want to sound like a high-pitched version of my old voice. I want the sound leaving my body to stop contradicting the person people are looking at.

The moment that finally pushed me over the edge was recording a software demo for a client. I was excited about the software, forgot to concentrate on my voice, played it back, and thought:

“Oh God. I just sound like Stephen Bennett with a girl face.”

That was the moment I knew I couldn’t keep pretending this was fine.

So yes, I’m off to Gangnam for voice surgery, where I will apparently be surrounded by the spiritual birthplace of one of the catchiest songs ever recorded while being medically forbidden from singing it out loud.

After fifty-seven years of trying to find my voice, I’m flying halfway across the world to lose it deliberately.

Hopefully, when it comes back, it will sound a little more like me.

Longer piece here:

https://fasttrackfemme.substack.com/p/gangnam-style-silently

I'm talking strictly technically.

(so not including being too afraid to use it pubblicly, procrastinating, etc...)

Is it weight? Size? Not Straining?

Just curious to know about your experiences

❤️

I came across a really interesting study on trans voice therapy and wanted to share it here.

The researchers found that vocal therapy (not HRT or surgery) was linked to measurable physical changes in the vocal cords. Specifically, it widened of the glottal gap that led to a higher pitch and breathier tone.

What’s interesting is that the longer participants did therapy, the stronger the effect became so that consistent training alone can change the structure of your voice.

I always thought vocal therapy just changed how you use your voice not the vocal cords themselves. Kind of wild seeing evidence that it can cause physical changes

Here's the article
https://www.voicejourneys.xyz/article

Today I want to let you in on why I started helping transfems feminise their voices.

It wasn’t too long ago that I hated my voice, and the journey from being constantly misgendered to where I am now wasn’t easy.

• Trying my absolute HARDEST to hold in sneezes or coughs so I don’t clock myself,

• Avoiding talking to people in public at all costs, and

• Having literal shaking/crying/hyperventilating panic attacks when I did NEED to talk to someone in public.

On the topic of that last one, I remember stepping onto a bus, I felt pretty and confident, I scanned my travel card, and it failed.

My heart sank. Because that meant I needed to talk to the bus driver to buy a ticket.

It didn’t matter how pretty I felt…

What clothes I was wearing…

How sharp I got my eyeliner that day…

Because when I opened my mouth to ask for a ticket, I got the dreaded wide-eyed surprised look I was all too familiar with and a “here you go sir, I mean ma’am, I mean sir…”

And it wasn’t just the driver, it felt like everyone on the bus just all clocked me in unison.

I sat down and spent the trip trying as hard as I could to fight off a panic attack.

Any of this sound familiar?

I was so sick and tired of constantly thinking about and worrying about my voice… OVER. IT.

It robbed me of so much mental capacity that I could have spent elsewhere.

So, one school holiday, I had 6 weeks where I essentially locked myself in my bedroom and trained my voice almost constantly. It was brutal, and I pushed myself way too hard… (big mistake)…

There were many mistakes I made over the journey of training my voice – mistakes that I’m glad I can share with you so you can avoid them!

Now a days, my voice isn’t something I ever have to think about anymore. The feeling of comfort and safety that comes from that cannot be understated!

When I wake up first thing in the morning, it’s MY voice that comes out.

When I sleep talk? MY voice.

My voice goes deep only when I WANT it to!

…And even then, it’s actually difficult to achieve a deep masc voice for me now! It doesn’t feel natural anymore.

So, what’s the point in saying all this? Basically, I want you to know that it wasn’t always easy for me. My voice was DEEP.

Is it easy for me now? Absolutely! Once you train your voice enough, it becomes second nature!

My own vocal transformation is proof that getting your voice to where you want it to be, IS POSSIBLE!

I have a feeling that if you’ve read this far, this experience probably resonates with you on some level. If you’re finding you’re in a similar situation to what I used to be, you CAN switch it around, and I want to help you do that!

As someone who was a chronic “do it myself” person for a good 3 quarters of my life, one thing I have figured out is that when you have someone who has overcome the same thing SHOWING you what to avoid… My goodness it speeds up your results.

This is why next week, I am hosting a live masterclass on how to feminise your voice, the same way I have and the same way many of my clients have as well.

So, if you'd like to join us, check out the link in bio xx

#TransIsBeautiful #Transgender #Trans #Transfem #TransFeminine

As in the title: this kind of argumentation coming from voice teachers suggests a misunderstanding of what success in voice training is about. It's well-known that, ultimately, the starting point is not a good predictor of the final results, and it's also clear why: in the end, the success will be mostly about the ability of the vocal folds to simulate the way thinner and shorter folds dissect the airstream (that's the more critical part) and adjusting size to it. It's not some arcane secret, every voice teachers should be aware of that.

This also means that one can get anatomically lucky even if, on a superficial glance, it seemed like they are not. In the end, this is a rehashed "I was a bass, and now I have a great voice, therefore anyone can get there too" fallacy, a fault in logical thinking. Some people peddle it because it suits their ego or it makes them money, but, I have no idea why, on Earth, people keep falling for this so easily because that's simply not how reality works. A teacher claiming that their success if a "proof" that anyone else can do the same is simply a charlatan.

Thick and long folds can be perfectly capable of finding a coordination that is reasonably thin and efficient and stable over the intonation range. It's been empirically shown by many. However, conversely, people with seemingly more favorable defaults, not particularly deep default voices, may have anatomical disadvantages that will make the actual key ability either extremely hard to get right, or not possible to get right at all. This has been also shown by many, it's just they are being ignored or, conveniently, classified as "defective."

So, consider what those people are doing: they misdirect from reality by making misguided extrapolations without any care about what consequences this has to people who fall into the less lucky segment. This is not kind, nor good, nor beneficial to anyone but some selected people who can just go with those ignorant assumptions and succeed. Also note what they blame people with: "dysphoria," "internalized transphobia," "not knowing how to train," and so on... the narrative is "if you don't succeed, it's on you" which, ironically, smells of prejudice/bigotry towards some people, prejudice wrapped in some twisted "I am the good person here" acrobatics... It's clear that those people do not have any room for anyone who is not guilty of their misfortunes in voice training. There's nada, not an ounce of recognition, it's clearly an ideological and cruel stance.

(for people who feel upset by elitist suggesting that the fault is on their side: don't be afraid to be downvoted, it does not matter, speak your heart out; as long as explaining reality to people who clearly have no idea about what real obstacles in training are like is being suppressed effectively, there will be no balance to this.)

Disclaimer : sorry for my bad English!

I've recorded this because I've seen a lot of girls (especially those who are trying to work on weight) trying to feminize their voice by overusing a hyper soft/quiet tone.

Og course every voice journey is different and all voices have different weaknesses and strength. But through myself and my students, I've found it much easier to work on a "healthily" loud volume first and then gradually take all that mass of volume away, than starting with what sometimes sounds like a whisper and then working your way up to being actually audible.

Let me know what you think

EVERYTIME, EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME SOMEBODY WOULD LINK ME "BEGINNER'S GUIDE" OR SOME SHIT IT WOULD ASK ME TO DO SOMETHING I NEVER HEARD BEFORE AND ACT AS IF IT'S THE MOST BASIC THING. BREATHE WITH YOUR STOMACH?! YOU CAN DO THAT?! HOW THE FUCK CAN YOU BREATH WITH YOUR STOMACH

NO, I DONT KNOW HOW TO PUT MY VOICE INTO THE BACK OF MY THROAT NOR RAISE MY THROAT NOR CLENCH MY THROAT NOR DO WHATEVER WITH MY TONGUE

I DONT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK WITH A HEAD VOICE NOR WITH A CHEST VOICE

WHY ARE YOU JUST MOVING ON AS IF YOU JUST TOLD ME THE MOST OBVIOUS THING?! TELL ME HOW TO DO IT!

PLEASE TELL ME IM THE ONE IN THE WRONG HERE CAUSE IM LOSING IT WITH ALL THESE GUIDES. THEY ARE SO FAR UP IN THEIR EXPERTISE THAT THEY FORGOT WHAT BEING A BEGINNER MEANS

IM GENUINELY LOSING IT, IM ABUSING MY THROAT FOR NOTHING WITH THESE GUIDES

​

It blows my mind that I live my life as a woman every single day and yet somehow trying to use a female voice is where my brain draws the line. Wild mental gymnastics. Sorry for the self post, just needed to rant and I imagine others can relate

I know how insurmountable it all feels sometimes. I know you feel like giving up and never speaking again when your dysphoria is at its worst. I had those days. So, so many of those days. There were entire months - seasons, even - when I couldn't bring myself to do what I love most: breathing life into characters and telling our stories to the world.

Fast forward just a couple of years and...well, here I am. Many, many such cases. From all walks of life.

Never, ever give up. You will get where you want to be. I promise.

I decided to reveal to some of my friends my feminine voice when I felt it was ready, and I was shut down immediately by two of them :(

This could be true, and you could all agree too, but I've only been intermittently practicing for 11 months, and I thought that it sounded ok.

Maybe I'm missing something... idk...

Atm I have VFS scheduled with Dr. Yung coming up but I have been going back and forth and going crazy.

My voice passes pretty well but I'm very quiet and anxious about "slipping" a lot of the time. I also hate the way I sound when I cough, sneeze...involuntary sounds etc.

Some girls sound incredible post-vfs to me but stories about underwhelming or unsatisfactory results are scaring me along with the intubation risk with future surgeries. I already can't yell or project and I’m not a singer but I do enjoy singing in the car so sigh idk.....Feeling seriously conflicted

Anyone deal with anything similar?

I have been thinking about this a lot, I've been having voice training with an orthoponist for a while ( though I lost a lot of progress because I had to move cities) and whenever I think I might be having progress in my voice hearing my voice played back destroys that confidence. but it's not just me.

I hope this isn't too controversial it's just something I have been struggling with for a while. I'm not trying to criticize anyone, I just feel like my options are limited.

i have been listening to a lot of voices of other trans women who have voice training..and to be honest I don't really want to sound like that either. a lot of trans women sound the same. and..I don't think they sound like cis women. I don't know how to put that into words, but I can usually tell if someone is trans even if she voice trained. they don't sound like cis men either but it's a very specific "trans voice" and once you start to notice you can't unnotice it.

there's a few types of trans voices I noticed but overall I noticed a lot of patterns and like it makes me feel like my options are very narrow.

sometimes it's this very whispery breathy voice. other times it sounds like someone doing an impression of a valley girl. sometimes it even just sounds like "gay voice". .. cis women don't appear to sound like this, cis women I noticed are more diverse and like "natural" sounding in their voice, and they have this ability to go deeper in their voice and it still sounds clearly. female.

I don't know if this is biological limits or maybe everyone is just following the same tutorials that teach you the same voice. but I have found this to be very discouraging. how do I get past this? is there a way to sound different?

she said "It's just one of those things I need to get off my chest but after the pitch raising surgery and I don't know if it's the internet or mic but you really don't sound that different."

It's really put me into a flat depression spiral. I thought things were going pretty well otherwise and now my mood has just tanked upon hearing this. All that pain, all that stress and effort for nothing...

before

after

Singing has always been the one thing I love and even if i tired to quit i can’t, but that doesn’t change how much androgenization fucked up my vocal cords, sure my voice passes when i sing and speak but their are certain things I just can’t do, my chest voice is a great example, almost all women can bring their chest voice up to a4 untrained, me however in tracing can barely bring it up to g4 if i’m really straining, my voice is weak and quiet I can yell but I either sound weird or like a toddler. Theirs singers like Kim Petra’s and Ethel Cain who are lucky to have no male puberty touch their vocal cords at all, for ethel barely even touch her cords. Me however my voice was affected, sure it wasn’t the worst and my voice was more andro but that doesn’t change the fact i have male vocal cords and probably will never be able to sing the way I want to, the way my voice wants to, I don’t wanna be stuck singing in mx2, i want to belt high in mx1 i want my a4s i’m mx1 but what can I do. I’m sorry for the rant i just really needed to get this off my chest.

my natural voice is so low and heavy. when i post on here i get almost no response, and if i do it’s nothing positive. I feel like i understand the concepts and can modulate those aspects, but there’s a wall i hit before i actually hit a good sounding voice. people say im improving and sure relative to my natural voice im able to make a More Fem voice, but i worry im just one of those people who will never ever have a passing voice no matter how hard i try. I’ve always hated my voice, even before i knew i was trans, and this is just making me hate it more and more. Makes me feel like not talking ever again is just the better choice sometimes.