Finding My Voice - Literally (Part I)
One of the areas that I have least looked forward to in my transition is finding my voice. This is not my metaphorical voice, it's a literal feminine one. First, let's level set. For transgender women, once puberty starts to affect their vocal cords, their voice is permanently changed. It's one of the not so fun things about being a transgender woman. No amount of testosterone suppression, estrogen, or otherwise can revert a transgender woman's voice back to what it was before it was exposed to testosterone. This works very different for transgender men, where exposure to testosterone does permanently change their voice. Transgender men have the opposite problem of growing breast tissue that never goes away without top surgery by entering puberty, which is a benefit to transgender women when we start on hormones. This is why non transgender people who say all decisions about gender affirming treatment should be made once someone is eighteen are wrong - there are lifelong consequences of entering the wrong puberty.
So this means that my voice is my voice, and there are only three options that I have. They are:
Do nothing. Just use the voice that I've used my entire life.
Adopt a new speaking voice
Get surgery
Number three is out for me, I'm not getting surgery. Things could change in the future, but voice box surgery for trans folks is a big deal. Complications can include losing your ability to communicate for a host of reasons. Even if the risk is small, it's likely not a risk I want to take.
That leaves options 1 and 2 (or some combination of the two). This absolutely is not an area that I relish working on. Growing up I had a significant speech impediment. I could not say the "R" sound that comes at the end of the word "other". It was so severe that I have distinct memories of being in school, having teachers call on me to give the answer to the discussion point, I'd give the correct answer, and the teacher would not know what I was saying. It sucked. I had speech therapy for years and it just never seemed to do any good. It seemed to only start clearing once I finished having braces and lost my retainer in college. There wasn't anything specific I did, I just seemed to finally outgrow it. But the idea of voluntarily going into voice therapy to change how I sound is a bit of a personal hell for me.
So, when I came out as transgender, I had done absolutely no voice work. I had spent a lot of time on my appearance, but my voice was the same as I had always used. Part of the protocol that I worked out with my therapist was to not overthink things. It wasn't healthy for me to have massive, multi-year plans for many different areas of my life in coming out. I was advised to try to live in the moment, day to day, as much as possible. When I needed to do something, I should trust myself and do it. But I did not need to create check lists far in advance and drive to those check lists. Hence, why I had done zero voice work when I came out. I wasn't living as transfeminine yet, so I had no reason to anticipate if I would want voice training.
Lets go to an experience in my first two weeks coming out. I was at a holiday party and it was my first significant non-queer event since I came out. The party was a lot for me.
I left the party and a friend who is half my age and I went to a local bar to get a nightcap. We grab our seats at the bar. She's at the end and I'm next to her and we each get one drink. We had been drinking at the party, so one is most certainly my limit. I'm talking with my friend and there is a guy next to me who is with others. He starts regularly falling into my space and it's pretty clear that he's hammered. He even puts his arm on me at one point, which was gross and a clear sign that he might be starting to hit on me. A couple minutes later, he drunkenly offers to buy us two ladies a drink. I look at my friend for help, and she looks at me with both derision at the situation, but also seemingly genuine curiosity on how I would handle it. This is when it hits me - FUCK! - I can't say ANYTHING to him because I haven't done any voice work. He has me gendered correctly (and is hitting on me) as a woman. But even saying one word is a tremendous risk because it could break the spell and cause me to be in immediate danger. You just don't know how a man hitting on you is going to react if he realizes you are trans. So I continue looking at my friend, as if I didn't even hear him offer to buy us a round.
"I know you heard me!" he bellows
Well of course I heard him, he’s saying this right next to my fucking ear. I'm still looking at my friend and we exchange knowing looks. But I have no other options than to not even acknowledge his existence. If I turn, it's likely he tries to engage me in even more conversation and he might start degrading me or worse because I acted like I was ignoring him. I am genuinely scared out of my mind of being read and outed at this bar. I have all these fears in my head that I am slowly working through, but you just don't know how he is going to react and it's genuinely dangerous if he realizes I'm trans. He does eventually move along and the moment passes. I had been out less than two weeks and getting hit on by a dude in a bar was not on my list of things I was prepared for. Screw that guy and him thinking that he can just buy me a drink and chat me up. I was there to decompress from my evening, not to be hit on. But it absolutely put into focus that I need to work on my voice. Not having the option of using a feminine voice is an active safety risk. I had no idea that in a relatively safe blue area of Chicagoland that stopping to get a drink at a bar with a friend could shatter my perception of safety. Things seem so safe here most of the time, but this is a reminder of how quickly things can turn. While I hadn't yet thought through how often I wanted to use a new voice, it seemed prudent to at least have the ability to bring it out, like bringing out the right tool for the right job.
As time passes, I start questioning if I really need to have a feminine voice again. How often am I really going to be going to a bar? I love to look and feel feminine. Intellectually, I shouldn't need to think about things like passing as female. The gender binary is a garbage concept and I should not be placing value in upholding that. My natural voice is fine. It took me a long time to get to the point where this voice is heard. This is the voice where I started truly being respected. It's a mind job to think that this voice could be abandoned for another one. I like my natural voice.
We'll fast forward about a month. While I got the name of a voice coach from my therapist, I hadn't actually done anything with that yet. I'm on a work call and it's late in the day because the customer is on the west coast. I'm on the call supporting someone who reports to me. I had actually forgot that this call was starting at 5:30 my time, so I had already taken my makeup off. The call starts.
The customer says: "I think we all know each other so we don't need to do introductions. Actually, who is Veronica (last name)?" As a note: while most people were on video, if someone was not on video it would typically show a preloaded picture of that person. For me though, it just showed my name, Veronica (last name). This is because I had all my past pictures purged and I was not yet at the point where I had a picture I was comfortable using in a professional setting. I'll also say I didn't want to be on video yet, even if I hadn't taken my makeup off. In my mind, I had significant dysphoria every time I look in the mirror. So even though I clearly passed a month earlier with the drunk guy at the bar, my dysphoria had me thinking that I'd be instantly read if I was on video. I hadn't been planning on talking anyway, so I kept the video off.
Me: "Hi this is Veronica. I'm (direct report's) manager."
Customer: "I'm sorry I didn't hear you."
Me: "Hi, I'm (direct report's) manager."
Customer: "The name on the screen says Veronica. Is that correct?"
Me: "Yes it is."
Well, that is really embarrassing. It's easy for me to push off a customer for being a jerk. But this customer was not trying to be a jerk. I got called out, because I set myself up for it not being on camera and not having a picture. In COVID times when everyone was on Zoom calls, it was common to have people on calls with names not matching their identities, because the identity was of someone else in the house. While that's nowhere near as common in 2024, I completely understand why the customer thought I might have had a different name. We need to get to the point in society where people don't have gender expectations when seeing a name or hearing a voice, but I equally can't expect my customer to magically live in a different society than the reality of the one we actually live in. If this bothers me (and yes, this really bothered me), it's up to me to take action to remedy it on my side. I need to start voice training.
Part II will post later this week about what has happened since I've started voice training.
Can’t wait for part 2!