Transgender Voice Therapy and Training for Trans Women

There are plenty of reasons why some transgender women choose to undergo transgender voice therapy. Some do it through surgery while others seek the help of non-invasive training. Please know that someone’s voice doesn’t determine their femininity.

We’re not trying to perpetuate that misalignment. Many cisgender women have naturally lower voices than others. Choirs even have a name for them which is alto. There are also transgender women and cisgender men who have naturally higher-pitched voices.

Now, if you’re a transgender woman who’s looking to change the pitch or tone of your voice for whatever reason. Or perhaps, if you’re just interested, keep reading.

The importance of voice for trans people

Notwithstanding the progress of the transgender movement, bigotry and transphobia still exist. This is why many trans people yearn to match their looks with the stereotypical tone that’s attached to their gender.

Simple situations such as:

• ordering coffee in a long line
• introducing oneself to new colleagues
• asking the locals for directions while traveling
• talking to a customer representative over the phone
• ordering something from a convenience store and more

where many people could hear them are common. They fear that people around them might laugh at the commonly perceived dissonance which can be humiliating and emotionally painful.

Others do it for reasons such as they don’t want to be trans sounding and prefer to have the stereotypical feminine voice to alleviate symptoms of gender dysphoria. While some just want to gain more confidence by taking steps into feminizing or masculinizing their voices.

Transgender voice therapy or gender affirming voice therapy

The common misconception that’s tied to transgender voice therapy is that people have to undergo surgery. In fact, many people get great results without going under the knife just by watching video tutorials.

Many of the feminine-sounding adult transgender individuals obtained their voices through training at a very young age. When someone modulates their voice into a higher pitch and gets used to it, they tend to carry it even past adolescence.

Transgender voice therapy courses are created in a way that’s very similar to guides that teach people to sing. They’re packed with exercises that one can do from the comfort of their own home to achieve their desired results.

These transgender voice therapy lessons can be found for free on YouTube, Daily Motion, Google, or any search engine platform that contains videos. There are also paid courses to go more in-depth and are structured for success.

Voice-changing apps (another option)

While other trans people undergo vocal training, there are many apps available online to change one’s voice. This is quite helpful for people who want to put themselves out there in the internet jungle with a voice that won’t trigger their gender dysphoria.

These tools mostly work with an internet connection and can also be used in real-time while talking to someone over the phone. These act as a proxy to provide the receiver with the outcome that the speaker wants to achieve. However, they’re not tools that one can use to change their voice when they’re talking to someone in person.

There are many voice-changing apps available online but they mostly require in-app purchases. The default ones that they have for free may sound robotic or unnatural.

Voice Feminization Surgery

While therapy can help with one’s:

• Prosody
• Resonance
• Pitch
• Quality
• Phrasing
• Speech rate and articulation

Others don’t get their desired results and go for surgery albeit it can only help with one’s pitch. The risk that it imposes is that one may have a harder time changing the pitch of their voice. This is not advisable for people who work professionally as singers and voice actors.

Apart from being costly, it also poses the risk of having a voice pitch that’s too high. Some even experience sounding hoarse, strained, breathy, or rough. Added to that, the results of a vocal feminization surgery are permanent.

Does HRT change your voice?

Transgender men are luckier in this regard as testosterone affects the voice’s change in pitch. This is why it’s not common for them to consider undergoing a voice masculinization surgery. Sadly, for transgender women, estrogen and anti-androgen don’t have any effect on changing the pitch of one’s voice.

The reason why transgender men achieve their desired results in terms of voice is how testosterone works. The abundance of it or being in an ideal male range produces thicker vocal thicker cords. This in turn results in a lower and deeper voice.

But some of them still couple medication with voice therapy because it encompasses everything that they’ll need to match their gender identity with how they sound. These are the cadence, intonations, speech rate, articulation, and more.

Voice feminization therapy lessons online

There are many free resources readily available online, especially on YouTube. Here’s a list of the ones that you can check out. Please know that we are not connected in any way with the ones we’ll mention. This guide is not sponsored in any way.

TransVoiceLessons

She has over 100,000 YouTube subscribers and her video called Voice Feminization for ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS | How to Get Started Now has over 2M views.

It’s not hard to see why she has a lot of supporters. Her lessons are done in a very friendly and non-condescending way.

She also knows how to explain things with incredible detail that’s easy to digest for novices.

Nicole Gress

Failing to do vocal warm-ups before doing exercises may cause fatigue and damage your voice. It’s very common for singers to do vocalizations before rehearsing or performing to avoid vocal damage. Nicole has a very good video called TRANS VOICE VOCAL WARM UP: Do This Everyday!

You can find her video on YouTube.

Eugene Speech Therapy

Once you’re done with the fundamentals and the warm-ups, feel free to check out Eugene Speech Therapy’s channel. She has a video called Resonance Exercise for Transfeminine Voice. You can bookmark or save it to your favorites to achieve your desired results.

Just like the two, her videos are also on YouTube.

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