The more I dislike…

Someone wrote…

I’ve rarely felt at all uncomfortable with my body, but the older I get, the more I dislike my speaking voice.

What’s your experience?

And what are you thinking about gender right now?


Posted by on April 5th, 2011 at 08:00 am

Category: your voice 10 comments »

10 Responses to “The more I dislike…”

  1. Angelica

    Same with me, though I’ve disliked my speaking voice since I was in middle school. :/

    [Reply]

  2. Meike

    Same here.

    [Reply]

  3. Jessica

    The father of a friend of mine served with Patton’s army across Europe in WWII. He said that he loved the George C Scott movie, but the Real General Patton didn’t sound like that. He sounded a lot more like Don Notts (Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show).

    This is common among veterans of the artillery, whose hearing gets destroyed in the lower registers, they speak higher and higher as they got older so they can hear themselves talk. His father’s speaking voice was higher than his mother’s when they were both 70 yrs old.

    [Reply]

  4. Rich

    I lucked out on this one. I was born with an androgynous voice. Depending what your issue is you could try speech coaching.

    [Reply]

  5. Elias

    I remember being really concerned that my voice what ‘too low for a girl’ when I was a kid. That totally turned around in my favor :)

    [Reply]

  6. Vanessa Steele

    I feel you. Lately, most of my interactions with people are online, who know im trans, have seen me, and refer to me as a girl… until we end up speaking, and then everyone ends up starting the mass downhill plunge to fuckupsville. Introducing myself as Vanessa, and having people say “You sound like a dude”… takes the wind out of my sails.

    [Reply]

    Jessica replied:

    I guess I should tell my “regular” story about going to find a co-worker at his desk and finding him gone. There is a pair of legs protruding from under his desk in a tangle of wires: somebody from IT. So I engage this person in conversation about where the person I am looking for might be. We chat for a couple of minutes, he finishes and gets up, looks around quite seriously and asks, “Where did she go?” “She went that way,” I reply, pointing at me. “Oh,” he says, looks me appraisingly up and down and hastily concludes our conversation with minimum politeness. I leave and as I go around the corner, I hear him say, to whoever is listening, “What the hell was that?!”

    Sort of ruined my whole day.

    [Reply]

  7. math

    your voice will always have a dialogue with your physical body, it’s true

    but you can also change the way your voice sounds to others, via your manner of speaking, if not the biological character of your voice

    w your voice, like w all things, take what you’re born, see what you can bring to that, have fun

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  8. math

    *take what you’re born with, see what you can bring to that, have fun

    [Reply]

  9. Theo

    Trying vocal exercises, make videos of yourself and watch videos of others, and do research about the relative speaking ranges of different people. You’ll be very surprised with the range within all the biological sexes.

    If not, discuss with a physician about ways to intervene safely to alter your voice and speak to a counselor regarding your feelings on that subject.

    [Reply]


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