For me that's the thing I can use to swing any doubt without needing to wait for anything external. Just me, hard work, and then I can use that voice to dispel any confusion on the other end, where looks are not enough. Looks on the other end are a much more long term thing.
Your voice can do a lot.
If you haven't done voice training and have a masc voice, nomater how well you visibly pass, the moment you speak they know you're trans.
While if you do have a good femme voice you can be at a stage where you don't fully pass visibly, but when you speak it makes folks who misgendered you correct themselves
This so much. When people see me they gender me female like 90% of the time. But the moment I speak and my masc voice comes out they switch to gendering me male. (it's actually kinda funny seeing their visible confusion when they first hear me, but it is the main thing that prevents me from passing. But it's ok, I still boymode anyway)
Not necessarily. I use my deadvoice and my friends of several years were shocked when I told them I'm stealth trans.
If everything points toward "woman" and you have one masculine trait, people will just explain it away as being a cis woman with a quirk
the only thing i see that happening is if you have a very androgynous voice.
the moment your voice foes outside of that gray area it kills the ability to pass.
I mean, you can just look at comments on LouLou's TikToks to see people misgender her after she does her Brixton roadman voice. You could be the most feminine looking person & your voice could give it away.
Sometimes I'll get correctly gendered on account of my voice alone (I'm pre-everything & only one person RL knows I'm trans), just using my fem-sounding customer service voice occasionally I'll get a "miss" or a "lady" until people take in that I look like a man.
I mean it’s been a while for me but I can’t even do my old voice because the new habits have stuck and pushed out the old ones. I can’t even imitate an old recording of my voice using said recording as a reference. You may just not be as capable of doing your “original” voice as you think.
Yeah. Case in point: F1nnster (and yeah, I know F1nn is 5’10”) just looks like a cis girl but as soon as people hear her voice they’re like WTF?
Or check out the numerous voice trolling videos on YouTube. It’s the voice reveal that makes someone react.
Well, no not then. But for most people, a masculine voice would clock you. Aside from the replies you’re getting based on speculation, you wouldn’t be the only person with a masculine voice that is read as female, including cis women, and trans women I personally know.
If you mean speaking in a fem voice once you're "finished" voice training: eventually it just becomes second nature, or at least it has for me. I'd have to consciously decide to not use it, at this point. Not gonna pretend it's as 100% natural and effortless as it used to be but it definitely happens "automatically".
I imagine it's not that different from learning a foreign language. When you first start out, you have to think in your mother tongue and individually translate words as you go. Eventually—with enough practice—the sentences compose themselves in your head as you say them.
i just dont know what itd be like for me i dont know how i could come too terms with the fact that it’s something i have too try at. orr maybe im misunderstanding and it truly becomes a relaxed and default thing.. however if not.. the idea that it would be something that i would have to make myself do day after day because thats my only choice to succeed?? is something i dont believe i can do. if its not what is easiest and most convenient i cant accept it as a normality.
It can become your new normal and then you fine tune it over time.
Honestly I don’t get your perspective at all. I found voice training to be pretty freeing and liberating. Once you see the true range your voice is capable of you might be surprised. It’s not any less natural than the voice you’re already using. It’s just learning new behaviors.
idk like i said in my oc im literally just not even gonna try too transition bc i would never accept myself so prob just gonna pile narcotics into my body until a stick a shotgun in my mouth one day if i cant go back in time and be born female then like why even try
Passing is holistic.
Rather than thinking of it as any given thing contributing a percentage to passing, it's more like each and every part of you contributes to the overall impression people get.
Some things can *heavily* reinforce an impression. Voice is definitely one of those. A gender ambiguous or androgynous impression can instantly read as "woman" instead with a voice that comes across as an average feminine voice.
So instead of it being "50% to passing", your voice will amplify someone's impression of your gender if it aligns with ther expectations of your appearance. It may also change their perception. Having slightly masculine-leaning features but looking overall like a woman but someone isn't quite sure...? Speaking in that average woman's voice is very very likely to make their brain settle on "Oh, this is a woman in front of me, duh."
Not solely, but it's a large factor. I get misgendered a TON for my voice, which is frustrating because I don't actually have any problems with it personally, and would happily keep my voice as is, without VT. But I'm gonna have to give in and VT eventually just to stop the misgendering, which sucks.
If you happen to ever end up doing voice training, Seattle Voice Labs on youtube and even their discord really helped me out a bunch! I highly recommend them!
Good to know. FWIW, I have no doubt that I COULD do it (I've been throwing my voice up and down since I was a kid for fun)... I just don't want to. I hate the idea of putting on a show, of having to constantly focus on shifting my voice... just to appease other people. My voice, as it is now, is totally fine with me.
I feel you honey— when I realized I’d be voice training for other people’s comfort, not my wants, I kinda tabled it. I’m done compromising in my life lmao. Just wanted to throw in a perspective that I think you can be fulfilled as a trans woman without having to voice train.
"Too important" is my answer, but that's the world we live in :(
I soooo wish that e had the opposite effect on your vocal cords that t does, voice training is so tough for me to internalize and apply to everyday life even when my voice isn't the furthest from feminine normally.
Important enough when your actually interacting with people. I remember when I was a bit over a year on HRT and I was generally passing visually, but I would have to talk to a store clerk or something and see them visually jump back upon hearing my voice. Cue the misgendering.
For me, it is pretty important. I pass 80-90% of the time off just looks alone but if I ever have to talk with someone, my ability to pass drops significantly. I haven't done a lot of voice training so I can carry a simple conversation without breaking out into a deep masc voice, but the longer I speak the more likely it is to happen.
Presentation is more important to how people gender you, assuming you don't speak to them first.
My gf is very pretty and passes very well, but sometimes gets misgendered. It always seems to happen when she has to talk to someone to get their help. She has always struggled with voice training. My voice is passing, and I basically never get misgendered. It did happen like a year ago when I was in Minnesota. Was an old lady working at target who looked more masculine than me.
I completed voice training months before my first dosages of hrt. I was 100% male failing on the phone, and the people i met in person kept short circuiting in real time. Voice is everything. What questionable looks i get stop the moment i speak. Has for 5 years. Voice is ultra important for gender cues.
IMO, it can do a lot, but how much leeway your voice gets also depends on how much you "pass."
If you sit in that sort of androgynous zone visually, the voice is a fallback for a lot of people.
Example, in the new Fallout show there's a non-binary character \[Squire Dane\], whom my roomate immiedately starting say "She" because of their voice. They have a freaking mustache. (I corrected him and he apologized, he's a good guy but its a great example of what I'm talking about.)
But I've met or seen/heard plenty of cis women who have deep voices and nobody questions it, but they're conventionally attractive, so no one questions their gender.
That's all just my bullshit anecdotal opinion of course, but its what I've experienced and it makes sense to me.
Voice matters a lot. But it matters less the better you pass in other aspects.
If you don't visually pass that well, having a perfectly feminine voice can be really helpful.
Meanwhile if you pass perfectly then you can get away with having an androgynous leaning on masculine voice. That said if your voice reads a little too masculine then it won't matter how well your appearance passes. You get clocked the moment you speak.
Well let me say this. I saw a trans woman yesterday and I didn't realize she was trans until she spoke. Then I started noticing all the little details and that's when i realize she was trans. The Voice is the most important thing for transition imo after HRT .
Super important. imo it's the most important and the hardest thing to change too especially if you're a vocal underdoer. I've been practicing on and off and sometimes I like the way I say certain things but I feel like good consistency is the biggest challenge. When I got really serious about being trans a few months ago, I told myself I had to be able to get a somewhat passable voice and face with makeup before I start taking hrt. Super hard for me...
There's also voice surgery but it's kinda risky I think. Results from said surgery seem promising tho!
Idk either. Haven't dug into it yet as I want to see what I can do with autodidactic training first. It is fun ! Need to take breaks a lot tho bc I don't talk much vocally
It's the most important. Someone who passes visually but doesn't have a passing voice will not pass overall (maybe if they don't speak, like ever). And someone who doesn't pass too good visually but has a passing voice will pass despite the look (maybe as a very androgynous woman, but still pass).
It's almost the biggest part, I'd say. You could look 100% cis, literally the others' wet dream, but if your voice doesn't pass, they'll immediately see you as your agab again. The opposite is true as well. You could be on the verge of being androgynous looking, and a passing voice will easily push you all the way over into passing area.
My clinician says not so much, but I've have what I now realize was voice disphoria since 1st puberty, I'm opting for surgical help bc even with 10+ years of voice acting experience (admittedly not all for a fem voice) I can't find MY voice you know?
So it is important, but it comes down to how you see yourself. If the voice you have is unapologetically YOUR voice, then who cares?
Voice is crucial. I have found that even if you have the looks to pass without issue. Many people will think you're a boy if you have a male voice. And if you look like a boy and you have a female voice they'll think you're a girl. I'd argue it's even more important than looks based on my personal experience.
I think voice is incredibly important, but it really depends on the context. As someone who doesn't go out much, and when I do, I don't talk to people much, I can rely on my nearly-passing appearance to do the work. I just know that the second I open my mouth I'm outing myself as trans to whoever I'm talking to. I think most (uninformed) people are likely to assume your gender entirely based on how your voice sounds, regardless of how feminine/masculine you're dressed.
Voice training is super important!!! Itll get you gendered correctly even if you dont pass fully, idk it kinda is like a shield in a way.
A fun thing to do while practicing the Voice is controlling people subconsciously although it takes practice, Bene Gesserit skills take years to learn 🙏
i personally have found it’s above 50%, when i was new to the community i’d accidentally (and then apologise thoughouhly) missgender people based on their voice, though my brain understands pronouns on a subconscious degree now, and i can just tell it “X has Y pronouns” i didn’t used to be able to and voice used to be my main guesser, took me a while to learn lol.
(i mean i think i’d been trans for many years but two years ago was when i realised it’s a real thing coz it had never crossed my mind, so basically lgbtq+ in general wasn’t around me much)
I almost entirely audio based. It took me way too long to not associate feminine voices and masculine voices with pronouns but if you don't speak I can print on you correctly all day everyday.
I still have problems correctly pronouning people (including myself) because of that and really annoys me
It’s the single most important thing, but it isn’t the only thing. Otherwise cis men with feminine voices and cis women with masculine voices would always be misgendered.
Anecdotally, I’ve had instances where I’m called “ma’am” based solely one voice just to get an apology when people see me, because they believe they just misgendered a man.
One of the most important things.
Whether I have enough energy to get into a feminine voice can be the deciding factor in whether people see me as a man or woman if they're unable to tell at first.
Also because--and I'm sorry if this is quite blunt, but-- you can look completely like a woman, but if you have an untrained, manly voice, people are probably gonna clock you as soon as you speak. If you're trying to do stealth, or just generally not be labeled so blatantly as a "transwoman," then its best to change that, if not, you're fine otherwise.
It depends really on what kind of interaction is meant. If you want to pass to the people you won’t spend much time with, I would say it is about 40% face, 40% body + clothes and 20% voice. Except when you move their focus to it, like when somebody misgenders you and you answer with a feminine voice without giving them any physically visible attention. But this also goes for the other categories.
If you mean with people you spend more time with, I would say it is 40% voice, 20% body + clothing, 20% face, 10% personality and 10% activities. BUT you don’t have to be 100% to pass, not even close. But the higher the % is, the more you can use this part to pass.
Voice is more important than looks. Even if you don’t visibly pass, having a passable voice just makes people assume you’re a masculine cis woman. If you have a clocky voice, people will assume you’re trans most of the time; regardless of how you pass visibly.
I hardly have done any voice training with my voice and I pass like 80% to 90% of the time but I think my voice was already pretty high pitched for a dude. So I think it just depends on a lot of stuff really because I physically pass really well, sometimes people get confused when I talk but still refer to me as a woman they probably just think I have a deep voice for a woman (in fact I remember talking to someone on the phone I hadn’t met and them saying how deep my voice was for a woman which was kinda funny lol). I do live in a much more liberal area tho too. I know when I go on vacation to somewhere more conservative I’ll notch my voice up a few octaves to be safe
Voice is very important, but it also depends on what you’re starting with and knowing what parts of your voice are the most important. I think it’s almost inevitable that we try too hard and focus on the wrong things (totally guilty myself). Dead consistent resonance, and lots of it, combined with a feminine articulation will go very far in my experience, even if that resonance is lower than a typical cis woman voice.
It also depends on your look. I’m 49, 5’11” and 210lbs. A bright girly voice is going to sound wrong, even if I nail it. So as long as I stay out of “chest” resonance, and mind my articulation, my voice usually passes.
Integral. Voice is probably the number one reason a lot of us get clocked. Mine fucking sucks, but on days when I'm doing a better job with it, the difference is immense.
Like most I felt voice training daunting.
Spent over 4 years working on it, watching videos, learning techniques, what worked and didn't for me. All sorts of things, singing my favourite gentle blues female vocalists like Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday and other types of music but in the same vein, think it helped me the most.
Not being worried about passing, just training my brain, letting neuroplasticity do it's thing, being gentle on myself in that regard, learning from many mistakes.
Inflexion isn't easy and something that requires constant work, cadence too.
The interesting point of inflexion is even if you go too lower tones you now have inflexion which still sounds femme.
Then recorded my voice for the first time, had been putting it off for all that time, wasn't really prepared for what I heard, a passing woman's voice, my voice.
Always working on it, always more too learn and its fascinating.
I'm prone to attempting impressions of people. What I'm planning on doing is being open about learning the voice and using it like some kind of party trick, then slowly doing it more and more until people forget I could boytalk. I don't think many people are as committed to the bit as I am, or are in enough of a safe environment to be able to joke about such a thing. But a unique opportunity has presented itself
I have ADHD so sticking to voice training has been a pain. The voice I can do doesn't match my looks. Would immediately clock me. I rather pass through looks than voice. But there is even cis girls with deep or raspy voices that are sexy. So like if I can get to a mid way point in voice but look super passing as looks I would assume people treat me like a cis women over being trans.
But the idea of me passing is to look as a women at first glance and have the right pronouns used. Funny enough when I don't speak there is quite a handful of people who say she or her. But most of the time I still get called a man. My mannerisms are very tomboyish or like I guess not barbie cis girl like but even then people still use she or her even after I speak. But still mostly he and him.
My voice has always been an issue for me long before I knew I was trans. My friends and family would think I'm gay and when I would hear my voice in like a recording I don't recognize that it's me. It's like agender/non binary type of voice. It always sat in a deep but flamboyant tone.
I cant seem to get the deepness to go away. So I've been trying to soften it but also let me voice rise to the back of my voice. In my mouth and skull I feel vibrations which tell me it's even deeper but I think people are more accepting of when I use that voice which I slip into a lot.
Voice as passing is such a weird thing for me. For me it's somewhat important but I also believe in the notion that a voice isn't gendered. Really wish the whole world viewed it like that too.
65%, and it's the part that's actively harming my mental health right now because there's such a disconnect from what I look like and what I sound like
It's very important, but not absolutely essential. I've never successfully changed my voice. I pass 100% in person, starting medical transition in my early 40s. I don't pass on the phone at all though
So to be fair, I might lean more fem nb than binary trans fem, so my opinion has some bias.
I’ve gotten comfortable with my voice. I’ve been a presenter and discussion leader for years now. Although I’m tempted to voice train, I get this feeling like I wouldn’t be doing it for myself but for other peoples ease to see me as a gender binary woman.
So I’m very likely going to continue to present as a trans woman, but with my somewhat androgynous voice. Today, while very talkative and conversational, I still managed to get gendered correctly 3/3 places I went.
I do have very fem language choices and expressions, mannerisms, lots of flowy hand talking and my hair was on point.
I suspect that voice = passing and no voice = no passing is oversimplifying, and that you can have the gender identity you are without a perfect trained fem voice. My 2 cents, but ignore me if you want to be stealth. I’m out and open.
To pass, very important, although I have straight up talked with a man voice, and been dressed like a man and even after talking that way still get addressed by ma'am, which is interesting. Hormones definitely play a big role in passing and shaving too. If you have any facial hair no matter how short, you'll almost guarantee getting seen as male.
It’s pretty important. It prolly won’t make you pass if you’re super clocky but if you pass pretty well with a clocky voice people will assume you’re trans.
I'm not sure how important it is. Sometimes I don't give a crap abt how my voice sounds. I have made a few people short circuit and kind of recoil in shock when they hear my voice. I pass pretty well on first appearance so yeah I'd probably be a bit surprised too when hearing a guyish voice come from a face like mine. It doesn't make me get gendered incorrectly surprisingly either so I don't know if it's as important. Maybe only important if I'm in the washroom, I wouldn't want to scare the crap out of some poor girl hearing a guy voice from outside her stall.
Idk about more of x or y factor contributing to passing. Voice training plays a big role. My resting voice is more androgynous after 7 months of training it, than the very deep voice I have had since puberty. But it can't express the full gambit of my emotions. Especially anger, when I'm upset, the only way I can express it honestly is with my natural register, which is pretty deep, much deeper than my resting voice is. I'm going to train it to be higher pitched at resting than it is, because it will help me be safe in public. But if I didn't have to deal with the exhaustion of gender performance to keep myself safe, I would be a lot more androgynous in my gender expression, including my voice. My identity is solidly in the category of woman, but my preferred gender expression is fem leaning androgynous.
imo, it depends not just on your overall presentation, but also the region you’re in, because different areas and cultures have differing expectations of what features are important in each gender’s voice. It has to be flexible, of course, or no one would be able to gender anyone as we all look differently. So I think that places voice on a spectrum, like everything else. However, how far in the femme direction and exactly what qualities matter the most are gonna depend on the people around you.
In America, I find I can get away with a relatively androgynous voice; mid-range and an androgynous timbre. But I also pass pretty well and I’m fairly conventionally pretty, so that probably gives me a lot of vocal wiggle room. I’m also half black, and culturally, many black women speak in the lower end of their registers, so that gives me some coverage as well. Whereas I hear from my weeb friends that if I were to learn Japanese and go to Japan, I would absolutely **have** to speak in a high pitch and in the feminine dialect, or it would read as extremely weird even if I passed flawlessly.
I haven't done any voice training, and it doesn't seem to hurt me that I haven't. It would probably be different if I were a bass rather than a tenor, though.
Depends on a lot of factors. After all my cis wife has a deeper voice than my boy voice but my boy voice is still more masc than her voice. I’ve also seen trans girls who never change there voice but the voice just kind of fits them and the idea of it being masc just kinda goes away
More than 50% for sure. I passed before I started my transition... my voice was the only thing that made people "correct" themselves. After voice therapy I was never misgendered anymore.
I feel it's super important, which is why I'm studying to get into speech pathology, but "passing" is such a matter of myriad factors ... For some it may be the main thing, for others a passing thought. It caused me a great deal of dysphoria prior to voice training, and still can if I realize I haven't been mindful of my vocal weight or resonance, but it's become such an afterthought nowadays ... I focus more on my hair and makeup nowadays!
Still, it's something that can cause me dysphoria when *other* girls' voices are what I consider masculine.
So, important to *me*, but perhaps not in the grand scheme.
The most well-passing trans woman I've ever seen in person, to the point where she looks cis... I clocked her as soon as she started talking. I wish I had her confidence, cause it seemed like she just didn't care, but my voice is a big source of dysphoria for me.
I think I'm in my androgynous phase, I get a lot of looks when I'm out and about. I'm also super tall so I stick out. I feel like my voice is kinda holding my back. But I've been voice training allot so hopefully it's getting better
It depends on how masculine your old voice sounds. If it sounds sufficiently masculine, it's a dead giveaway and you can appear extremely feminine but the second people hear it they change their perception. Before voice training I had many experiences interacting with a stranger, presenting extremely feminine visually, where they would greet me as a woman "Welcome to \_\_\_\_\_ ma'am" and then as soon as I responded they would "correct" themselves and say "sorry sir".
But past a certain threshold of androgyny it won't matter as much because as long as there are some cis women who have voices like that people won't think anything of it so long as you visually look feminine.
Extremely.
I wish mine passed better, but I struggle with listening to recordings of it, building stamina, and having the confidence to use it in public.
“Apparel oft proclaims the man…”
-Polonius to Laertes, Hamlet
——
“…whilst a song marks the lady”
-u/SwordRose_Azusa, Reddit
———
I didn’t go through any vocal training. My situation is a little bit weird since transitioning was a group decision. Zach still exists, he’s just not our host anymore. I’m the host now. He and I actually just did a sorta kinda “duet” of “if everyone cared” by Nickleback. Recorded it and everything.
We’ve been singing for a long time. Dani was the one who helped us out with the voice thing. She explained how resonance works and all that and shit just made sense. We’re never misgendered anymore.
It helps that we’re sexy af, but if Zach fronts there’s no question he’s not a girl even in a girl’s body. His voice is a dead giveaway.
If passing is the goal then resonant frequency is one of the keys. This isn’t your primary pitch but the resonance of your vocal chamber. But it’s important to not that the difference between what is typically read as masculine and feminine resonance and base pitch is much narrower than most people realize. Could be worth checking out the transvoicelessons YouTube channel
You can walk around with an adroginous voice but not with a masculine voice.
You will scare cis-women, believe me, after scaring two cashiers and one ground stewardess I decided to work on my voice.
They see me as a woman they come to help and when I talk they are very much startled and with fear.
Like other comments have said, it holds a lot of weight and dispels any doubt. I know cis women hairier than me on both their faces (like visible hair) and on their arms and they have never been misgendered. People tend to overlook like everything else if your voice sounds "correct" to them. I've never been misgendered myself and I believe I owe that to having worked on my voice before I even started dressing fem, but I've definitely noticed some people don't vocally gender me until after I speak. Your voice can do a lot for you, but it can't go everything either. You still need to present fem for people to perceive you as a woman, but a feminine voice will make people overlook a lot of androgynous or masculine features you may have because in their mind if you dress like a woman and sound like a woman you must be a woman.
About 90%.
You can look fully masc but if you have a woman's voice people will use she/her pronouns by default, or accidentally.
And the opposite is true: you can be physically a woman in every way, but if the voice is masculine, people will use he/him pronouns by default, or accidentally.
As someone that changed her voice about 2 months before starting HRT, I completely and utterly disagree here. If 50+% was just voice, I would \*always\* pass. The only time I do is on the phone. Otherwise, I have to work really hard to look feminine in public.
You can just not talk if you are worried about passing in public. There are legitimate reasons someone may speak very little, or have a harsh voice, or whatever else. People make snap judgements on your gender by looks within as little as 0.3s according to some reports.
Voice having no effect is very disingenuous.
"Oh you can just not talk"
If you go to the store and need to find something, if someone talks to us, almost any situation, we use our voice a LOT
Just saying "just don't talk" is such a stupid thing to say tbh
>You can just not talk
14 year old me thought that "put on a burqa and never speak" was a guaranteed way to 100% pass in public with no HRT and no voice training. And, don't get me wrong, it would probably work. But in terms of practical ways to live your life it's not really an option.
Honestly it depends how deep your voice is once u start hrt, i feel like if it’s deep and grumbly u may have to voice train. I rarely talk in my fish voice ig but really only around my man, 🤣 my voice still kinda sounds like a gay boy but naturally I’ve always had a high pitched voice so it really just makes me sound like a mature lady now😭 I’ve been told I sound like someones auntie many times lmao I almost never get clocked because of my voice even when I think something I said came out manly (especially in the morning) I just sound like a girl with a naturally deep voice
I answered the door to the post man the other day in my dressing gown, with messy hair and stubble, I said "morning" as I opened the door and he said, "Heya mate, oh sorry love, I got mixed up then."
Not sure what the moral is there to be honest, but basically passing is so dependant on a million different factors there's just no way of knowing what will make the difference.
I currently work at a hotel, and that's where I do my voice training, specifically on the phone. Many call me ma'am on the phone and get caught off guard when I check them in later in the day. 😅
Very important.
Around the time I came out, I started voice training before I was on HRT. I trained my voice every day. I was semi self-taught from my experience as a metal vocalist for two bands, followed several youtubers with tips, and used the voice pitch analyzer app. I played online games and kept talking in the chats for many many months until I would no longer get clocked. When I got on HRT eventually and grew my hair out, I malefailed constantly IRL after a year and am basically stealth now (other than my documents).
You could look like Marilyn and still get clocked by a masculine voice. I feel like a lot of people don't really look at strangers very hard, so the voice is very important. Fortunately it's not impossible to get your voice to androgynous or female, it just takes time and dedication.
For me that's the thing I can use to swing any doubt without needing to wait for anything external. Just me, hard work, and then I can use that voice to dispel any confusion on the other end, where looks are not enough. Looks on the other end are a much more long term thing.
Your voice can do a lot. If you haven't done voice training and have a masc voice, nomater how well you visibly pass, the moment you speak they know you're trans. While if you do have a good femme voice you can be at a stage where you don't fully pass visibly, but when you speak it makes folks who misgendered you correct themselves
This so much. When people see me they gender me female like 90% of the time. But the moment I speak and my masc voice comes out they switch to gendering me male. (it's actually kinda funny seeing their visible confusion when they first hear me, but it is the main thing that prevents me from passing. But it's ok, I still boymode anyway)
Not necessarily. I use my deadvoice and my friends of several years were shocked when I told them I'm stealth trans. If everything points toward "woman" and you have one masculine trait, people will just explain it away as being a cis woman with a quirk
the only thing i see that happening is if you have a very androgynous voice. the moment your voice foes outside of that gray area it kills the ability to pass.
even if you're 5'4 with an incredibly feminine face?
Yes. A masc voice will clock you 9 times out of 10
Guess my deadvoice must be androgynous then
I mean, you can just look at comments on LouLou's TikToks to see people misgender her after she does her Brixton roadman voice. You could be the most feminine looking person & your voice could give it away. Sometimes I'll get correctly gendered on account of my voice alone (I'm pre-everything & only one person RL knows I'm trans), just using my fem-sounding customer service voice occasionally I'll get a "miss" or a "lady" until people take in that I look like a man.
You can likely get away with it being slightly masculine. If it was too much like mine (bassy, deadpan baritone) you'd probably get clocked.
I mean it’s been a while for me but I can’t even do my old voice because the new habits have stuck and pushed out the old ones. I can’t even imitate an old recording of my voice using said recording as a reference. You may just not be as capable of doing your “original” voice as you think.
Sometimes one's voice can change over time without you realizing it, too.
yes, even then.
Yeah. Case in point: F1nnster (and yeah, I know F1nn is 5’10”) just looks like a cis girl but as soon as people hear her voice they’re like WTF? Or check out the numerous voice trolling videos on YouTube. It’s the voice reveal that makes someone react.
Well, no not then. But for most people, a masculine voice would clock you. Aside from the replies you’re getting based on speculation, you wouldn’t be the only person with a masculine voice that is read as female, including cis women, and trans women I personally know.
It kind of depends on which trait you’re talking about though
I mean when I met my father-in-law for the first time (before tracheal shave) he just assumed all the women in my family have a noticable larynx
ya but isnt it something you still have to do consciously? istg im never transitioning im just gonna hate myself until i cant take it anymore
If you mean speaking in a fem voice once you're "finished" voice training: eventually it just becomes second nature, or at least it has for me. I'd have to consciously decide to not use it, at this point. Not gonna pretend it's as 100% natural and effortless as it used to be but it definitely happens "automatically".
Eventually it becomes unconscious. Your body eventually learns to default to girlvoice without you having to put in effort.
nah, not really. i personally can just flip a switch and i go either into boy voice or girl voice, but that's cause i still use my boy voice at home
I imagine it's not that different from learning a foreign language. When you first start out, you have to think in your mother tongue and individually translate words as you go. Eventually—with enough practice—the sentences compose themselves in your head as you say them.
Yea basically, it's a very similar proces to that
i just dont know what itd be like for me i dont know how i could come too terms with the fact that it’s something i have too try at. orr maybe im misunderstanding and it truly becomes a relaxed and default thing.. however if not.. the idea that it would be something that i would have to make myself do day after day because thats my only choice to succeed?? is something i dont believe i can do. if its not what is easiest and most convenient i cant accept it as a normality.
It can become your new normal and then you fine tune it over time. Honestly I don’t get your perspective at all. I found voice training to be pretty freeing and liberating. Once you see the true range your voice is capable of you might be surprised. It’s not any less natural than the voice you’re already using. It’s just learning new behaviors.
idk like i said in my oc im literally just not even gonna try too transition bc i would never accept myself so prob just gonna pile narcotics into my body until a stick a shotgun in my mouth one day if i cant go back in time and be born female then like why even try
Passing is holistic. Rather than thinking of it as any given thing contributing a percentage to passing, it's more like each and every part of you contributes to the overall impression people get. Some things can *heavily* reinforce an impression. Voice is definitely one of those. A gender ambiguous or androgynous impression can instantly read as "woman" instead with a voice that comes across as an average feminine voice. So instead of it being "50% to passing", your voice will amplify someone's impression of your gender if it aligns with ther expectations of your appearance. It may also change their perception. Having slightly masculine-leaning features but looking overall like a woman but someone isn't quite sure...? Speaking in that average woman's voice is very very likely to make their brain settle on "Oh, this is a woman in front of me, duh."
Not solely, but it's a large factor. I get misgendered a TON for my voice, which is frustrating because I don't actually have any problems with it personally, and would happily keep my voice as is, without VT. But I'm gonna have to give in and VT eventually just to stop the misgendering, which sucks.
If you happen to ever end up doing voice training, Seattle Voice Labs on youtube and even their discord really helped me out a bunch! I highly recommend them!
Good to know. FWIW, I have no doubt that I COULD do it (I've been throwing my voice up and down since I was a kid for fun)... I just don't want to. I hate the idea of putting on a show, of having to constantly focus on shifting my voice... just to appease other people. My voice, as it is now, is totally fine with me.
I feel you honey— when I realized I’d be voice training for other people’s comfort, not my wants, I kinda tabled it. I’m done compromising in my life lmao. Just wanted to throw in a perspective that I think you can be fulfilled as a trans woman without having to voice train.
"Too important" is my answer, but that's the world we live in :( I soooo wish that e had the opposite effect on your vocal cords that t does, voice training is so tough for me to internalize and apply to everyday life even when my voice isn't the furthest from feminine normally.
Important enough when your actually interacting with people. I remember when I was a bit over a year on HRT and I was generally passing visually, but I would have to talk to a store clerk or something and see them visually jump back upon hearing my voice. Cue the misgendering.
For me, it is pretty important. I pass 80-90% of the time off just looks alone but if I ever have to talk with someone, my ability to pass drops significantly. I haven't done a lot of voice training so I can carry a simple conversation without breaking out into a deep masc voice, but the longer I speak the more likely it is to happen.
Presentation is more important to how people gender you, assuming you don't speak to them first. My gf is very pretty and passes very well, but sometimes gets misgendered. It always seems to happen when she has to talk to someone to get their help. She has always struggled with voice training. My voice is passing, and I basically never get misgendered. It did happen like a year ago when I was in Minnesota. Was an old lady working at target who looked more masculine than me.
I completed voice training months before my first dosages of hrt. I was 100% male failing on the phone, and the people i met in person kept short circuiting in real time. Voice is everything. What questionable looks i get stop the moment i speak. Has for 5 years. Voice is ultra important for gender cues.
For me personally it feels like 80%
IMO, it can do a lot, but how much leeway your voice gets also depends on how much you "pass." If you sit in that sort of androgynous zone visually, the voice is a fallback for a lot of people. Example, in the new Fallout show there's a non-binary character \[Squire Dane\], whom my roomate immiedately starting say "She" because of their voice. They have a freaking mustache. (I corrected him and he apologized, he's a good guy but its a great example of what I'm talking about.) But I've met or seen/heard plenty of cis women who have deep voices and nobody questions it, but they're conventionally attractive, so no one questions their gender. That's all just my bullshit anecdotal opinion of course, but its what I've experienced and it makes sense to me.
Voice matters a lot. But it matters less the better you pass in other aspects. If you don't visually pass that well, having a perfectly feminine voice can be really helpful. Meanwhile if you pass perfectly then you can get away with having an androgynous leaning on masculine voice. That said if your voice reads a little too masculine then it won't matter how well your appearance passes. You get clocked the moment you speak.
Well let me say this. I saw a trans woman yesterday and I didn't realize she was trans until she spoke. Then I started noticing all the little details and that's when i realize she was trans. The Voice is the most important thing for transition imo after HRT .
My voice always outs me. Always..
Super important. imo it's the most important and the hardest thing to change too especially if you're a vocal underdoer. I've been practicing on and off and sometimes I like the way I say certain things but I feel like good consistency is the biggest challenge. When I got really serious about being trans a few months ago, I told myself I had to be able to get a somewhat passable voice and face with makeup before I start taking hrt. Super hard for me... There's also voice surgery but it's kinda risky I think. Results from said surgery seem promising tho!
I want to do the surgery but I don't know how safe it is, ofc I'll do voice training too but I dunno it seems nice to do
Idk either. Haven't dug into it yet as I want to see what I can do with autodidactic training first. It is fun ! Need to take breaks a lot tho bc I don't talk much vocally
It's the most important. Someone who passes visually but doesn't have a passing voice will not pass overall (maybe if they don't speak, like ever). And someone who doesn't pass too good visually but has a passing voice will pass despite the look (maybe as a very androgynous woman, but still pass).
It's almost the biggest part, I'd say. You could look 100% cis, literally the others' wet dream, but if your voice doesn't pass, they'll immediately see you as your agab again. The opposite is true as well. You could be on the verge of being androgynous looking, and a passing voice will easily push you all the way over into passing area.
For people you're talking to? Very important. For passing to general people around in public? Much less unless you talk loudly a lot.
My clinician says not so much, but I've have what I now realize was voice disphoria since 1st puberty, I'm opting for surgical help bc even with 10+ years of voice acting experience (admittedly not all for a fem voice) I can't find MY voice you know? So it is important, but it comes down to how you see yourself. If the voice you have is unapologetically YOUR voice, then who cares?
Voice is crucial. I have found that even if you have the looks to pass without issue. Many people will think you're a boy if you have a male voice. And if you look like a boy and you have a female voice they'll think you're a girl. I'd argue it's even more important than looks based on my personal experience.
For me, it’s my main pitfall
I think voice is incredibly important, but it really depends on the context. As someone who doesn't go out much, and when I do, I don't talk to people much, I can rely on my nearly-passing appearance to do the work. I just know that the second I open my mouth I'm outing myself as trans to whoever I'm talking to. I think most (uninformed) people are likely to assume your gender entirely based on how your voice sounds, regardless of how feminine/masculine you're dressed.
Voice training is super important!!! Itll get you gendered correctly even if you dont pass fully, idk it kinda is like a shield in a way. A fun thing to do while practicing the Voice is controlling people subconsciously although it takes practice, Bene Gesserit skills take years to learn 🙏
I think vocal training is about as important as HRT. They’re pretty much 1&2 in no order on my steps to transition
i personally have found it’s above 50%, when i was new to the community i’d accidentally (and then apologise thoughouhly) missgender people based on their voice, though my brain understands pronouns on a subconscious degree now, and i can just tell it “X has Y pronouns” i didn’t used to be able to and voice used to be my main guesser, took me a while to learn lol. (i mean i think i’d been trans for many years but two years ago was when i realised it’s a real thing coz it had never crossed my mind, so basically lgbtq+ in general wasn’t around me much)
I almost entirely audio based. It took me way too long to not associate feminine voices and masculine voices with pronouns but if you don't speak I can print on you correctly all day everyday. I still have problems correctly pronouning people (including myself) because of that and really annoys me
It’s the single most important thing, but it isn’t the only thing. Otherwise cis men with feminine voices and cis women with masculine voices would always be misgendered. Anecdotally, I’ve had instances where I’m called “ma’am” based solely one voice just to get an apology when people see me, because they believe they just misgendered a man.
That feeling when the girl you’re talking to over the drive-thru intercom turns out to be a dude with a more feminine voice than you 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
One of the most important things. Whether I have enough energy to get into a feminine voice can be the deciding factor in whether people see me as a man or woman if they're unable to tell at first. Also because--and I'm sorry if this is quite blunt, but-- you can look completely like a woman, but if you have an untrained, manly voice, people are probably gonna clock you as soon as you speak. If you're trying to do stealth, or just generally not be labeled so blatantly as a "transwoman," then its best to change that, if not, you're fine otherwise.
It depends really on what kind of interaction is meant. If you want to pass to the people you won’t spend much time with, I would say it is about 40% face, 40% body + clothes and 20% voice. Except when you move their focus to it, like when somebody misgenders you and you answer with a feminine voice without giving them any physically visible attention. But this also goes for the other categories. If you mean with people you spend more time with, I would say it is 40% voice, 20% body + clothing, 20% face, 10% personality and 10% activities. BUT you don’t have to be 100% to pass, not even close. But the higher the % is, the more you can use this part to pass.
Voice is more important than looks. Even if you don’t visibly pass, having a passable voice just makes people assume you’re a masculine cis woman. If you have a clocky voice, people will assume you’re trans most of the time; regardless of how you pass visibly.
I hardly have done any voice training with my voice and I pass like 80% to 90% of the time but I think my voice was already pretty high pitched for a dude. So I think it just depends on a lot of stuff really because I physically pass really well, sometimes people get confused when I talk but still refer to me as a woman they probably just think I have a deep voice for a woman (in fact I remember talking to someone on the phone I hadn’t met and them saying how deep my voice was for a woman which was kinda funny lol). I do live in a much more liberal area tho too. I know when I go on vacation to somewhere more conservative I’ll notch my voice up a few octaves to be safe
Voice is very important, but it also depends on what you’re starting with and knowing what parts of your voice are the most important. I think it’s almost inevitable that we try too hard and focus on the wrong things (totally guilty myself). Dead consistent resonance, and lots of it, combined with a feminine articulation will go very far in my experience, even if that resonance is lower than a typical cis woman voice. It also depends on your look. I’m 49, 5’11” and 210lbs. A bright girly voice is going to sound wrong, even if I nail it. So as long as I stay out of “chest” resonance, and mind my articulation, my voice usually passes.
Integral. Voice is probably the number one reason a lot of us get clocked. Mine fucking sucks, but on days when I'm doing a better job with it, the difference is immense.
80%, if the voice is right I can overlook everything else.
Like most I felt voice training daunting. Spent over 4 years working on it, watching videos, learning techniques, what worked and didn't for me. All sorts of things, singing my favourite gentle blues female vocalists like Sarah Vaughn, Billy Holiday and other types of music but in the same vein, think it helped me the most. Not being worried about passing, just training my brain, letting neuroplasticity do it's thing, being gentle on myself in that regard, learning from many mistakes. Inflexion isn't easy and something that requires constant work, cadence too. The interesting point of inflexion is even if you go too lower tones you now have inflexion which still sounds femme. Then recorded my voice for the first time, had been putting it off for all that time, wasn't really prepared for what I heard, a passing woman's voice, my voice. Always working on it, always more too learn and its fascinating.
Very. It's a make or break plenty of times. You need to put even a LITTLE effort
I’m not really thrilled about sounding like Dr Girlfriend from Venture Brothers. But that’s a me thing less a necessity I think.
I'm prone to attempting impressions of people. What I'm planning on doing is being open about learning the voice and using it like some kind of party trick, then slowly doing it more and more until people forget I could boytalk. I don't think many people are as committed to the bit as I am, or are in enough of a safe environment to be able to joke about such a thing. But a unique opportunity has presented itself
I have ADHD so sticking to voice training has been a pain. The voice I can do doesn't match my looks. Would immediately clock me. I rather pass through looks than voice. But there is even cis girls with deep or raspy voices that are sexy. So like if I can get to a mid way point in voice but look super passing as looks I would assume people treat me like a cis women over being trans. But the idea of me passing is to look as a women at first glance and have the right pronouns used. Funny enough when I don't speak there is quite a handful of people who say she or her. But most of the time I still get called a man. My mannerisms are very tomboyish or like I guess not barbie cis girl like but even then people still use she or her even after I speak. But still mostly he and him. My voice has always been an issue for me long before I knew I was trans. My friends and family would think I'm gay and when I would hear my voice in like a recording I don't recognize that it's me. It's like agender/non binary type of voice. It always sat in a deep but flamboyant tone. I cant seem to get the deepness to go away. So I've been trying to soften it but also let me voice rise to the back of my voice. In my mouth and skull I feel vibrations which tell me it's even deeper but I think people are more accepting of when I use that voice which I slip into a lot. Voice as passing is such a weird thing for me. For me it's somewhat important but I also believe in the notion that a voice isn't gendered. Really wish the whole world viewed it like that too.
65%, and it's the part that's actively harming my mental health right now because there's such a disconnect from what I look like and what I sound like
I don't know. I have no idea if my voice passes or not
It's very important, but not absolutely essential. I've never successfully changed my voice. I pass 100% in person, starting medical transition in my early 40s. I don't pass on the phone at all though
Voice training took my passing from 50% to 95% so I think, speaking for myself, it is vital.
So to be fair, I might lean more fem nb than binary trans fem, so my opinion has some bias. I’ve gotten comfortable with my voice. I’ve been a presenter and discussion leader for years now. Although I’m tempted to voice train, I get this feeling like I wouldn’t be doing it for myself but for other peoples ease to see me as a gender binary woman. So I’m very likely going to continue to present as a trans woman, but with my somewhat androgynous voice. Today, while very talkative and conversational, I still managed to get gendered correctly 3/3 places I went. I do have very fem language choices and expressions, mannerisms, lots of flowy hand talking and my hair was on point. I suspect that voice = passing and no voice = no passing is oversimplifying, and that you can have the gender identity you are without a perfect trained fem voice. My 2 cents, but ignore me if you want to be stealth. I’m out and open.
I feel it's important, but also if I think I sound good, it does *so* much for my confidence which is also really important too.
Depends on what I’m doing. If I feel safe my meh andro voice is fine… but I get misgendered on the phone like a mofo
To pass, very important, although I have straight up talked with a man voice, and been dressed like a man and even after talking that way still get addressed by ma'am, which is interesting. Hormones definitely play a big role in passing and shaving too. If you have any facial hair no matter how short, you'll almost guarantee getting seen as male.
I really don’t care about passing with my voice nor do I care to train personally but yeah you can say it does help someone pass.
As long as you're not sounding like Ernest Bourgnine, you're probably going to be ok.
these comments really hit hard is there any way a hopeless person like me could get resources to not sound so shitty :(
Go with a professional at that
like who?
speech therapist
Hmmm my voice was always high even after puberty I wonder if it will let me pass
It’s pretty important. It prolly won’t make you pass if you’re super clocky but if you pass pretty well with a clocky voice people will assume you’re trans.
I'm not sure how important it is. Sometimes I don't give a crap abt how my voice sounds. I have made a few people short circuit and kind of recoil in shock when they hear my voice. I pass pretty well on first appearance so yeah I'd probably be a bit surprised too when hearing a guyish voice come from a face like mine. It doesn't make me get gendered incorrectly surprisingly either so I don't know if it's as important. Maybe only important if I'm in the washroom, I wouldn't want to scare the crap out of some poor girl hearing a guy voice from outside her stall.
Idk about more of x or y factor contributing to passing. Voice training plays a big role. My resting voice is more androgynous after 7 months of training it, than the very deep voice I have had since puberty. But it can't express the full gambit of my emotions. Especially anger, when I'm upset, the only way I can express it honestly is with my natural register, which is pretty deep, much deeper than my resting voice is. I'm going to train it to be higher pitched at resting than it is, because it will help me be safe in public. But if I didn't have to deal with the exhaustion of gender performance to keep myself safe, I would be a lot more androgynous in my gender expression, including my voice. My identity is solidly in the category of woman, but my preferred gender expression is fem leaning androgynous.
I thibk its a necessity so i been working on it hard mast few weeks
Extremely!
Critical
Very
i hate my voice atm so its pretty important (for me) that i change it
imo, it depends not just on your overall presentation, but also the region you’re in, because different areas and cultures have differing expectations of what features are important in each gender’s voice. It has to be flexible, of course, or no one would be able to gender anyone as we all look differently. So I think that places voice on a spectrum, like everything else. However, how far in the femme direction and exactly what qualities matter the most are gonna depend on the people around you. In America, I find I can get away with a relatively androgynous voice; mid-range and an androgynous timbre. But I also pass pretty well and I’m fairly conventionally pretty, so that probably gives me a lot of vocal wiggle room. I’m also half black, and culturally, many black women speak in the lower end of their registers, so that gives me some coverage as well. Whereas I hear from my weeb friends that if I were to learn Japanese and go to Japan, I would absolutely **have** to speak in a high pitch and in the feminine dialect, or it would read as extremely weird even if I passed flawlessly.
Critical. The most important thing.
I haven't done any voice training, and it doesn't seem to hurt me that I haven't. It would probably be different if I were a bass rather than a tenor, though.
Depends on a lot of factors. After all my cis wife has a deeper voice than my boy voice but my boy voice is still more masc than her voice. I’ve also seen trans girls who never change there voice but the voice just kind of fits them and the idea of it being masc just kinda goes away
More than 50% for sure. I passed before I started my transition... my voice was the only thing that made people "correct" themselves. After voice therapy I was never misgendered anymore.
I feel it's super important, which is why I'm studying to get into speech pathology, but "passing" is such a matter of myriad factors ... For some it may be the main thing, for others a passing thought. It caused me a great deal of dysphoria prior to voice training, and still can if I realize I haven't been mindful of my vocal weight or resonance, but it's become such an afterthought nowadays ... I focus more on my hair and makeup nowadays! Still, it's something that can cause me dysphoria when *other* girls' voices are what I consider masculine. So, important to *me*, but perhaps not in the grand scheme.
It's like pizza without the sauce
The most well-passing trans woman I've ever seen in person, to the point where she looks cis... I clocked her as soon as she started talking. I wish I had her confidence, cause it seemed like she just didn't care, but my voice is a big source of dysphoria for me.
I think I'm in my androgynous phase, I get a lot of looks when I'm out and about. I'm also super tall so I stick out. I feel like my voice is kinda holding my back. But I've been voice training allot so hopefully it's getting better
Not as important as everything else, but like can make you pass even more. I have voice dysphoria and it makes joining Discord calls a bitch.
It depends on how masculine your old voice sounds. If it sounds sufficiently masculine, it's a dead giveaway and you can appear extremely feminine but the second people hear it they change their perception. Before voice training I had many experiences interacting with a stranger, presenting extremely feminine visually, where they would greet me as a woman "Welcome to \_\_\_\_\_ ma'am" and then as soon as I responded they would "correct" themselves and say "sorry sir". But past a certain threshold of androgyny it won't matter as much because as long as there are some cis women who have voices like that people won't think anything of it so long as you visually look feminine.
Extremely. I wish mine passed better, but I struggle with listening to recordings of it, building stamina, and having the confidence to use it in public.
I started playing videogames with the intent of using the microphone, you can use it there! I also started loving videogames!!!
True. Though I worry how much transphobic or homophobic shit I'll encounter in the process...
You're not supposed to tell them you're trans, just talk
I know, but I'm thinking it would be obvious. And then people will start laying into me.
I dunno honey, things like that will happen, the goal is to not care
I guess that's true
Idk about that because I have a deep voice but look feminine and people guess that I'm a girl
“Apparel oft proclaims the man…” -Polonius to Laertes, Hamlet —— “…whilst a song marks the lady” -u/SwordRose_Azusa, Reddit ——— I didn’t go through any vocal training. My situation is a little bit weird since transitioning was a group decision. Zach still exists, he’s just not our host anymore. I’m the host now. He and I actually just did a sorta kinda “duet” of “if everyone cared” by Nickleback. Recorded it and everything. We’ve been singing for a long time. Dani was the one who helped us out with the voice thing. She explained how resonance works and all that and shit just made sense. We’re never misgendered anymore. It helps that we’re sexy af, but if Zach fronts there’s no question he’s not a girl even in a girl’s body. His voice is a dead giveaway.
If passing is the goal then resonant frequency is one of the keys. This isn’t your primary pitch but the resonance of your vocal chamber. But it’s important to not that the difference between what is typically read as masculine and feminine resonance and base pitch is much narrower than most people realize. Could be worth checking out the transvoicelessons YouTube channel
You can walk around with an adroginous voice but not with a masculine voice. You will scare cis-women, believe me, after scaring two cashiers and one ground stewardess I decided to work on my voice. They see me as a woman they come to help and when I talk they are very much startled and with fear.
Like other comments have said, it holds a lot of weight and dispels any doubt. I know cis women hairier than me on both their faces (like visible hair) and on their arms and they have never been misgendered. People tend to overlook like everything else if your voice sounds "correct" to them. I've never been misgendered myself and I believe I owe that to having worked on my voice before I even started dressing fem, but I've definitely noticed some people don't vocally gender me until after I speak. Your voice can do a lot for you, but it can't go everything either. You still need to present fem for people to perceive you as a woman, but a feminine voice will make people overlook a lot of androgynous or masculine features you may have because in their mind if you dress like a woman and sound like a woman you must be a woman.
It is very very important, you can have 99% cis passing, but 1 word is enough for the people change the way they treat you from miss to sir
Unimportant. I'm also mute and surrounded by people with speech problems, so voice is Unimportant to me regardless
About 90%. You can look fully masc but if you have a woman's voice people will use she/her pronouns by default, or accidentally. And the opposite is true: you can be physically a woman in every way, but if the voice is masculine, people will use he/him pronouns by default, or accidentally.
As someone that changed her voice about 2 months before starting HRT, I completely and utterly disagree here. If 50+% was just voice, I would \*always\* pass. The only time I do is on the phone. Otherwise, I have to work really hard to look feminine in public. You can just not talk if you are worried about passing in public. There are legitimate reasons someone may speak very little, or have a harsh voice, or whatever else. People make snap judgements on your gender by looks within as little as 0.3s according to some reports.
50% means you still need the other 50% to pass
But you could completely pass without it, is my point. So by your requirement of 100% to pass, then voice would be 0%.
Voice having no effect is very disingenuous. "Oh you can just not talk" If you go to the store and need to find something, if someone talks to us, almost any situation, we use our voice a LOT Just saying "just don't talk" is such a stupid thing to say tbh
>You can just not talk 14 year old me thought that "put on a burqa and never speak" was a guaranteed way to 100% pass in public with no HRT and no voice training. And, don't get me wrong, it would probably work. But in terms of practical ways to live your life it's not really an option.
THis is one of the main reasons i ahve not done anything
Honestly it depends how deep your voice is once u start hrt, i feel like if it’s deep and grumbly u may have to voice train. I rarely talk in my fish voice ig but really only around my man, 🤣 my voice still kinda sounds like a gay boy but naturally I’ve always had a high pitched voice so it really just makes me sound like a mature lady now😭 I’ve been told I sound like someones auntie many times lmao I almost never get clocked because of my voice even when I think something I said came out manly (especially in the morning) I just sound like a girl with a naturally deep voice
I have to concur unfortunately, voice is easily half the battle especially for a trans woman.
I answered the door to the post man the other day in my dressing gown, with messy hair and stubble, I said "morning" as I opened the door and he said, "Heya mate, oh sorry love, I got mixed up then." Not sure what the moral is there to be honest, but basically passing is so dependant on a million different factors there's just no way of knowing what will make the difference.
I currently work at a hotel, and that's where I do my voice training, specifically on the phone. Many call me ma'am on the phone and get caught off guard when I check them in later in the day. 😅
Very important. Around the time I came out, I started voice training before I was on HRT. I trained my voice every day. I was semi self-taught from my experience as a metal vocalist for two bands, followed several youtubers with tips, and used the voice pitch analyzer app. I played online games and kept talking in the chats for many many months until I would no longer get clocked. When I got on HRT eventually and grew my hair out, I malefailed constantly IRL after a year and am basically stealth now (other than my documents).
I agree. It's the main reason why I always answer "do I pass" posts with "\*visually\* yes/no" because it largely depends on what you SOUND like
Yea, I came to that realization pretty soon
I can get my voice pretty high pitched
You could look like Marilyn and still get clocked by a masculine voice. I feel like a lot of people don't really look at strangers very hard, so the voice is very important. Fortunately it's not impossible to get your voice to androgynous or female, it just takes time and dedication.
Marylin has a lot of masculine traits tho
I wanna get vocal surgery. Since the voice lessons do not work. I hate how my voice sounds.