Comments on: Just Call Me Ma’am: My Feminine Phone Voice

By: Matt Kailey

Matt Kailey — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:25:48 +0000

Thanks for the link. I hope guys check it out – at least guys who sing. When I was first transitioning, I talked to so many guys who were worried about losing their singing voice that I became hopeful. I have never been able to sing, and I thought, “If they’re losing their singing voice, then maybe I will get a singing voice.”

But I didn’t. I’m still a bad singer – just an octave lower.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:55:18 +0000

I felt I would post this link as it might be useful to someone here. It is a study on preserving ftm voices for the purpose of singing. My guess is it also might help with the hybrid type quality many ftms experience.

http://www.radical-musicology.org.uk/2008/Constansis.htm

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:05:29 +0000

I am planning on transitioning to live as a female and I personally wish most guys voices were not so monotonous and I like deep voices in men.

My personal feeling is if you want a really good voice to concentrate on eliminating stress and speaking on the breath. Generally, those factors tend to lower vocal pitch. It also may help to work who you are into your voice. Beyond that, there is not a lot you can do without sounding less than optimal.

I read a paper on ftms and the voice hybridization that sometimes goes on and how he worked to try to ensure that after transition he had a good singing voice. Basically, hybridization is when part of your vocal structure sounds like you are one voice type and another part proclaims you something else. I think the jist was that if testosterone exposure was too rapid, the thyroid cartilage tended to end up in a mezzo type configuration even though the vocal cord length was baritone. Of course, a mezzo has higher overtones than a baritone and that can throw people off as far as voice type is concerned. None of this helps you but if you could find the research it might help others transitioning to live as males.

Personally voice has never been a big issue for me but I do tend to stand out trying to live in the gender of birth. I guess my voice is technically a little androgynous but having a really artificial sounding voice would be worse. Still, sometimes it irks me although many transwomen envy my voice. But it really helps when you naturally speak in the female range.

Good luck.

By: Matt Kailey

Matt Kailey — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:46:18 +0000

Well, Lincoln, this is Denver. We’re very upscale here!

By: Matt Kailey

Matt Kailey — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:45:24 +0000

Monotone, Nick. That is definitely the way to go. I have never mastered it, but I think it’s the secret.

By: perspiciens

perspiciens — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:37:49 +0000

I had a problem with my bank recently and so I was on the phone with them a bunch and EVERY SINGLE TIME, they called me “ma’am”. Granted, I had just barely started T but my voice has never really been high-pitched. I guess I should just try speaking more monotone.

Thanks for posting this, Matt.

Nick Lemon

By: Lincoln Rose

Lincoln Rose — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 18:51:25 +0000

Matt:

You have a Subway with a Drive-Thru??? How cool is that?

We have a 24 hour Subway here. It’s down in the industrial end where the factory workers are.

I’ve never seen a Subway with a drive-thru.

By: plastbaronen

plastbaronen — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:24:32 +0000

I saw a guy on TV a couple of weeks ago, and was really fascinated by his voice. He was cisgendered as far as I know; If he was gay or not I don’t know. But he sounded like a girl. It wasn’t that he had a high-pitched voice – you can sound male even if you have a high-pitced voice. No, it was something else. I thought it was cool somehow.

I was misgendered once when I was about to cross a street and the cars stopped. A man who also wanted to cross te street, and stood right behind me, said it was so typical that the cars would stop for a girl. So I turned around and asked him “who’s a girl?” He got very embarrassed and said something about my hair. Which wasn’t long, but the typical short female haircut

By: Matt Kailey

Matt Kailey — Tue, 25 May 2010 12:40:35 +0000

My friend (also a non-trans woman) is a police detective and has a super-low voice, so even though her name is very “feminine,” she also gets sirred all the time on the phone. I guess people figure “cop plus low voice equals man,” regardless of her name.

It doesn’t bother her, though. Like you said, voices can be ambiguous. Because I work in LGBT space, my old supervisor used to tell people not to use sir or ma’am on the phone when talking to callers, and I really respected him for that policy, because I just don’t think it’s necessary.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 25 May 2010 04:31:52 +0000

I’m a cis-gender woman, but I’m a tenor (oh the joys, although my choir director loved me), and if I’m tired or just not thinking about it, I get “sir”ed. It actually took a lot of very conscious training in high school and college for me to learn how to speak “feminine” on a day-to-day basis. Although, being a cis-gendered girl, what people thought face-to-face was not that I was secretly male but that I was some sort of sociopath waiting to blow up the school.

I think voices are just ambiguous sometimes.