Learning to Talk Like a Woman (or Man)

Voice modulation is a special process. It is unfortunate that som one should feel compelled to change their voice for others to accept them, but accent descrimination is a reality. Speak-Well.org offers instruction from top NY therapists and I hear their results are quite astonishing.

This article incorrectly states that Ms. Marat transitioned from male to female. This is of course impossible and Ms. Marat remains a biological male no matter how she presents and identifies. Although everyone should be called by the name and pronouns they prefer, the Times and others should not erase the biological reality of a class of people (women) by claiming that being female is an identify.

I have a lot of misgivings about people surgically changing their anatomy in order to conform to the gender they feel themselves to be deep down inside. It's hard to understand where these feelings come from, if not from gender stereotypes. Yet whenever I read a trans person's personal account of their quest to feel happier inside their bodies, I have to sympathize. Seems like they've been suffering for a long time and have turned to this option in desperation. I hope it does make them happy. I guess we don't have any long-term studies to track the success rate.

But I draw the line when it comes to kids. It's ridiculous and very possibly harmful to let children decide to change their gender. I sympathize with those who are being bullied for being different. But surely anatomy-changing surgery isn't the answer.

I am a gay man who doesn't understand why transgendered people feel such a powerful need to conform to traditional gender stereotypes. I'm one of those feminists, gays and lesbians who have been fighting to break down strict gender roles for (literally) decades. I thought we were making the world safe for anyone to be a womanly man or a manly woman or anything in between.

Where did I go wrong?

Is it the same in every language? Or even in Romantic rather than Germanic languages like English?

And a new industry is born- where there is money to be made their is no shame. I have a feeling that these "learned" voices sound affected and weird. I say be yourself and sound like yourself. Lauren Bacall never tried to make her voice sound more feminine even though it was quite low-- because it never mattered one little bit. She was still fabulous.

I would probably suggest that Sophie might try practicing 'Up speak,' since any professional woman that I hear speaking on any topic imaginable, either on radio or t.v., seems to have adopted this speech pattern. You know what I'm describing; every sentence ends as if she was asking a question(?) I find it infuriating; especially since it's become so rampant. Or better yet, you can alternate it with the voice 'fry' where you lower it unnaturally. Quite a few women anchors on cnn fry their voices to the point where they almost sound like they're quacking! It's actually painful for me to listen to; I always have to lower the volume, since there's a creaking/shrill quality to it. I'd love to know what the attraction to this style of speaking is for these women.

"Voice is an important part of gender identity if you are trans."

Voice is an important part of identity, period.

I never mind an accent -- I've heard fine scholars with stutters and prize-winning historians with magnificently thick Bronx accents -- but any sort of mannered speaking, that awful coo of young girls and older women who'd like to be thought of as young -- or that pretentious, grammatically foul lingo ("It is definitely between he and she, and no one else") -- or the obscenity-laden talk of teenaged boys -- all fascinating.

One of my favorites is the Manhattan accent, in which the mouth, wide open, moves every which way and the sound comes out choked.

Lots of fun to sit on a crosstown bus or slow Lexington Avenue local train and just listen.

Mary Astor had a low-pitched voice. Didn't hurt her any.

Since this was about voices, I finally listened to the recordings and was surprised by the changes. Then I reread to figure out that this is a very long process, and discovered an answer to one question: it does take more effort than speaking "naturally." But does it become the " natural voice?

More questions: the early voices seem very much male -- doesn't the use of hormones itself change the voice?
After watching a tv presentation about young transgender children who take drugs before puberty so that their "birth" gender doesn't express itself -- wouldn't their voices - when they start transitioning with the correct "female" hormone treatment - naturally be more feminine ( feminine on a wide, wide, spectrum - i don't mean cloning Marilyn Monroe). I'd guess that the levels of hormones affect the way vocal chords develop -- as they affect everything in the body.

Sophie Marat has not transitioned "from male to female." Sophie Marat remains biologically male. What Sophie Marat has done is to present "as [if she were] a woman," and she can do that because "woman," unlike "female," has a social component. This is what Simone de Beauvoir referred to when she wrote "one is not made a woman, one becomes one." Gender is learned, imposed, and policed as part of the system of maintaining male dominance in a patriarchy. Transwomen who are more stereotypically feminine in presentation help to uphold that system.

We live in crazy times. Reality is what one wants it to be.

According to a poll from the PewResearch Center in 2016, only 30% of people know a person who is trans, which means there may be a 70% chance that people here who are criticizing people who are transgender has never met someone who was, or at least someone they knew who was transgender.

One of your friends could be transgender and could never have told you, or your coworker, or even a family member if they hid the fact so well. While you're complaining about bathroom safety. you could have just shared a bathroom with a trans person. I understand it's so easy to get caught up in the whole SJW phenomenon where you see internet videos of trans people who are far more open about them being trans than the rest of us. Or those videos where people are saying just about everybody is sexist or racist. Some trans people are like this, but you will probably find that many of us are normal people who are trying to live their life normally.

I encourage people here to go talk to someone who they know is trans, ask if them if they are willing to tell you about their experiance, and it's possible you won't find us as horrible as people here make us out to be.

Being female all my 77 years I have always been anoind by grown women who if your eyes were closed, you'd think for sure they were 5 years old.
And while I'm at it why isn't the sound of someone's voice not considered before they are (men and women) hired for TV and Radio word?

They sound a lot better after the voice therapy. Caitlyn Jenner really needs this. She sounds like a man.

To be male is to have economic, societal and political privileges that women don't and will probably never have. Do transwomen transition out of using that? Or does it go with them out into their "new lives," along with the cat eye glasses, the makeup and hair styles, and other stereotypical trappings that they adopt, to appear female?

You can simulate another gender. You can't appropriate it.

Does anyone who has commented here actually identify as a man or a woman first, and a human being second? I think not. Yet having a sense of gender seems to be fundamental to who we are. Why is that? I certainly don’t know. I find the question why a sense of gender is fundamental to us — so fundamental that someone can feel sex and gender sometimes don’t match — much more interesting than what any of us thinks male or female is.

As much time as I've spent dealing with gender-based oppression, I don’t think that seeing gender simply through the lens of oppression is adequate. A sense of gender seems to helps us express the different parts of ourselves. I’m not trans. But I reshaped much of how I expressed my gender identity as an adult simply so I could breathe.

Gender is fascinating, and Sophie is brave for having shared her experience.

The 2013 Transgender Summit sponsored by WPATH, an organization very supportive of transsexuals, included a study that examined longterm outcomes for SRS individuals and individuals receiving treatment with cross-sex hormones.

The outcomes are sobering and anyone considering sexual reassignment surgery or hormone therapy should definitely take a closer look.

Male to female transexuals died at much higher rates from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and AIDS than female to male transexuals. In addition MTF individuals were more at risk of violent assaults and suicide.

The link: http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/pdf/2013-Summit/Cardiovascular-Health-Bone-H...

(Tenth slide from the top.)

The presentation is in a slide show format and it is possible I am misreading the data, but the outcomes seem to reinforce the notion that it's a man's world. Transsexual men, that is, female to male transgender people have a much healthier and happier life than a male to female change.

I do a lot of choral singing and lady tenors are a key component of any decent choir.

Ironically, the indignation in the negative comments here seems to flow from the failure of trans people to sufficiently conform to whatever the commenter's strict idea of gender is, rather than any reasoned criticism or thought about gender. Most of the negative commenters seem to think that binary *gender* (how women act and are in the world) is determined by binary *sex* (gene expression under influence of hormones). Hence they think that gender (how women and men talk, for example) is natural. This is an ignorant notion. It is also an ideology that holds patriarchy in place, but that's a different topic; every relation of power tries to portray itself as natural.

The reason transgender people generate such negative feelings from some is that trans people put a crack in the foundation of the self-delusion that most people carry around in their binary gender identities, which is that their gender identity and expression is natural and determined by their sex. It is not, and transgender people demonstrate that by their sheer existence.

Criticizing transgender people for trying to do exactly what cis people do--which is, generally, to conform and be as masculine or as feminine as they can be--is a reflection of insecurity about one's own cis-gender identification.

Transgender people have been around since the beginning of humanity. I fail to see how helping someone who is biologically a male or female but firmly believes that they are the wrong sex is a bad thing. Is it better for them to spend their lives being miserable or suicidal? We have the capability to help them change their gender to what they believe is correct. It's not done on a whim despite what some commenters here seem to think.

Children who believe that they are the wrong biological sex undergo testing and counseling with their families to explore exactly what it means to them and their families. Adults are not prescribed drugs to help them become the opposite sex on their say so. They undergo testing as well. And while none of them become genetic males or females, their appearances are and their voices ought to match. Before judging them or deciding that you know what they need, try watching and listening to some of the documentaries out there about them. I knew someone who transitioned. The difference between this person as a male and a female (what he transitioned to) was incredible. She was much better and happier as a woman.

Transitioning is not done for frivolous reasons. It's done after a serious exploration of why the person believes he or she should be the opposite sex. The reason we're seeing so much coverage on this is because it can be done and because our country seems to have a problem with who uses what bathroom.

After my other comments, I'd like to make it clear that I have no issue whatever with men wearing female attire or makeup, per se. That would be a courageous and creative performance - a man in female attire, quietly demonstrating or proudly stating that he's as male as the next man. Expanding the oppressively narrow definition of masculinity.

The problem is when the public is required - under threat of sanction, social or legal - to go along with an individual's fantasy of being literally the opposite sex.

The fantasy of attaining the impossible (literally changing sex) might arise from a mental health issue or from an erotic impulse. But in any case, other people should not be required to validate someone's imaginary biological transmutation.

I'm a biological male. I'm full of testosterone and as hairy as a silverback. I've always disliked my speaking voice. To me, it sounds prissy and effeminate.

I wish my voice were at least one octave deeper, preferably two.

I'd also like to be much taller, be far better looking, and not balding. Bigger hands would be nice too. Oh, and a higher IQ please.

Kim from SF: "A woman is whatever is defined as such by law."

In a week which sees the premiere of the tv version of 'The Handmaid's Tale' this kind of rhetoric is as horrifying as it is prescient. Female is not a feeling. Female is not an abstract concept. Female is not merely a thought in a man's head.

A great deal of money has been made off this delusional group of people. They are a continuous revenue stream for the drug industry, psychologists, all manner of therapists, the medical profession, the law profession, advocacy professionals, the insurance industry, the custom shoe industry, the custom clothing industry, wig makers, and physical trainers--and that's off the top of my head. Once they commit to this path, they are a veritable cash cow for these businesses. More than enough reason to enthusiastically support them.

And the fantasy women they want to emulate always seems to be the various pop culture cartoons of women, young and old. How about walking the walk of a 22 year old Somali women with four children who can't bring water back to her family without getting raped in the process. Or a single mother with two children who has to work three jobs to keep a roof over their heads. Or a young girl in Afghanistan forced by her family to marry her rapist. Or of the women over sixty who are virtually invisible in this country.

I agree the voice is awful and ridiculous. Women have been expected to keep their heads down and accept paternalism and all its many ugly manifestations--however they play out--all over the world. Trans women celebrate that paternalism when they speak with that sing-song little whisper.

But with the fawning support from the earnest stakeholders mentioned above, they can't tell what's ridiculous anymore, anyway.

The NYT sure gives a lot of ever shrinking space in the newspaper to trans issues. From reading the paper alone I would guess that 51% of the NYC's population are trans. A quick google search reveals that number is more like 0.6%.

Voice is an important part of gender identity if you are trans. So is learning how to move like the gender you identify with. It's a whole package and it's hard even if you do switch. Being a man or a woman is much more than just looking like one. I'm glad this sort of care/training is available to trans people.

Apparently this is not a new problem. Recently knighted Sir Ray Davies of the Kinks made these observations in 1970 with one of his many classics, "Lola":

Well, I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walk like a woman and talk like a man
Oh my Lola, lo lo lo lo Lola

Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls.
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world,
Except for Lola.

Well I'm not the world's most masculine man,
But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man,
And so is Lola.
Lo lo lo lo Lola.

Here's the 'two cents' worth' from this cis-gender, straight, middle aged woman who, as a teenager, was mistaken for a boy over the phone, and who, as a middle aged woman with short hair, has been mistaken for a man.

The voice 'after' voice training was too high, too airy, too ditzy sounding. Add in a couple of 'um, like, I'm so sures', and you've got the stereotypical valley girl. If that's what the patient was after, then - success!

The first voice 'before' vocal training, sounds more stereotypically male, however, with a small tweak, could actually sound gender neutral or more feminine.

The wide disparity between the before and after voices reminds me of what commonly happens when cis-girls or trans-women first start experimenting with and learning how to apply cosmetics/make up to their faces - they go overboard and do too much. But with time and practice, they usually find a good balance eventually.

I thought both people sounded very good and very convincing after their voice coaching. If I heard them I would assume they were women. The voices in fact were pleasant and nice to listen to.

Maybe I need this. I am a cisgender straight woman who presents as pretty feminine in person, and I have always thought in intonation as well, but I do have a rather deep voice (think Tracy Chapman, I sing tenor). Invariably, despite this, on the phone I always get "hello, sir" which is sort of irritating.....

Okay, I will start this off. Sounding like Minnie or Mickey Mouse is a definite possibility when it comes to the speaking voices of M-F transgender people. I know my ex-husband sounded like that. He also suffered from somewhat flat intonation as mentioned here. But there was also a lack of animation, verbally and physically, and almost no use of descriptive words or voice hesitation or pausing for dramatic effect or using his voice like an instrument. He simply transferred what he said and how he said it to a higher vocal range. But sounding like a woman is a whole package, because we cis-women have to depend on our verbal skills to get our points across instead of going around glowering (because people find that somewhat off-putting, which defeats the whole purpose of communicating) and beating people up.

My initial impression is this isn't quite how the average woman sounds. The voices were ultra feminine and didn't sound authentic. However, I wouldn't necessarily think, I'm hearing a "disguised" male voice, but I would visualize a tall, thin middle aged woman. One who's educated and trained herself to sound a bit like Jackie O - that breathless whisper.

Its a bit like a male exaggerating feminine moves (or a female, a male's). Female to male seem to move more naturally masculine, while male to female, over feminized. They slow their movements down too much and they become more exaggerated in the process. Again the way you might see an actress playing someone from the uppercrust, cultured (at least the way they are portrayed in old movies), but not the way the average woman moves.

I can see how this would take years and maybe covertly watching everyday women move about? Watch what we do with our hands? How we walk and sit?

Many years ago, a married woman confided in me that her husband was “a good father but a bad husband”—her exact words, which she stated with the depressing confidence of a monotone. Intonation follows the content of your speech.

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