My voice is finally starting to get somewhere!

[Melissa Jill]

Been doing a lot of work on it lately. Yesterday I was round a friends, drinking wine and we wanted to order some pizza but I couldn't get my card to work on the site. So we went out to get some cash.
Whilst out she saw some guy she knew and she started speaking to him. He kept giving me glances, she said he was checking me out. I used my voice a bit around him, just like the odd sentence here and there and he didn't seem to show any signs of confusion or horror so I think it passed!
Either that or he read me as soon as he saw me.

And the other day I realised I haven't talked with my actual man voice for a while (at work Ive been too scared to use my female voice, but my male voice seems to have transformed into a slightly lower version of my female voice) and my male voice is now all croaky and weak.

[Pamela Kay]

That's great Melissa!

I've neglected working on my voice as much as I should but have done as you said and softened and raised the pitch on my male voice. I use my female voice when I'm with friends or my support group but still slip back down after using for awhile. Mine gets tired, croaky and weak as well after about 30 minutes to an hour. I have been on the fence about buying the Kathe Perez materials a friend recommended and has had good results with. Most of the transwomen I've talked with did it on their own. Are you using any of the voice programs?

I feel silly practicing by myself but I'm going to have to get over that pretty quick. I had pneumonia at the first of August and have had allergies too since then so my throat has been irritated and not easy to work with and makes it even lower and raspier than normal. This is definitely not helping either.

Since I leave for FFS surgery two weeks from tomorrow and I go full time after that I'm getting down to crunch time. So soon I will be working on it every day.

[Melissa Jill]

Ive been seeing a voice therapist, I probably could have learnt it myself but I felt I needed a professional to help facilitate things to make sure I was going in the wrong direction plus I can sometimes be a bit lazy and I could see voice being one of the things I put off for ages.

[Pamela Kay]

That's what I've been thinking of doing too Melissa. I have to do quite a bit of public speaking in my job so want to get it right and time is running out too. I have already put it off way to long as it is.

[Myojine]

Ive been seeing a voice therapist, I probably could have learnt it myself but I felt I needed a professional to help facilitate things to make sure I was going in the wrong direction plus I can sometimes be a bit lazy and I could see voice being one of the things I put off for ages.

I focused on my voice as one of my first goals(well after getting on hormones and stuff) because I play Video games online and we wear headsets for communication and NO ONE online believes youre a chick and plays video games unless they hear you over the voicechat app.
I used to use a voice changer software but it just sounded strange and i had to use buffers to prevent feed back...other wise it was completely obvious. Natural female voice>voice changer.
Anyways story time over you gotta find that motivation that gets your moving towards the right direction, Weird motivation for me but hey you find out whats important in life and well... Cheers on moving along with it.

[Suzette Muguet de Mai]

:)I think that achieving a female voice is as hard as losing weight. The most important tool is the voice recorder, and the next is testing it. Congratulations Melissa, you are achieving the goal.

[Nicole Erin]

The thing about having a female voice is it either "passes" or it doesn't. The good news though is once it gets to where it is more woman than man, you are there. Unlike our appearance, which can send mixed signals, voice is just man or woman, not a whole lot of inbetween.

For me, I don't know if I will ever be truly happy with my femme voice but I have been using it full time for a couple years and have yet to have problems.

Once you find this female voice, you just have to get used to using it all the time. It can be tricky at times for sure. YOu will fine tune it, strengthen it etc...

And contrary to what some TS say - no you do not lose your ability to use your man voice. I mean maybe that is possible but myself and probably a lot of TS can flip flop back and forth at will.

The biggest hurdle for training the femme voice is getting over the silly feeling at first.

[Rachel Smith]

I have been developing mine for about 7 months now. It's OK unless I am startled or caught off guard then I slip back to my male voice. Oh and there's always laughter that's a killer. I just can't seem to get that correct but perhaps it relates to the surprise thing as you don't think before you laugh but it is just a reaction.

Success to all
Rachel