this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Wait, you were looking for voice coaching from someone you thought was a cis woman?
Is that a thing?
Yes? Lol, I'm a little perplexed that you're perplexed by that?
But I guess it's a little niche. And not specifically focused for transition. I'm not surprised at all that she's a musician because my own vocal training was also in the context of music. But I used that training extensively outside of my singing (and still do).
It's funny because my vocal coach used to absolutely harangue me about deepening my voice. But as a female presenting person in the business world (in the 90s), that was necessary for survival. And I was deeply uncomfortable with my feminine sounding voice when I was younger. I've grown to accept it more now, although I still lower and project my voice at work or in other situations where I need to make myself be taken seriously.
That vocal training also allowed me to selectively "turn off" my native Appalachian accent - another thing that gets you nowhere in a lot of professional settings. But I slip back into it when I'm really tired or when I'm talking to my dad lol
Is this where I admit that I forgot that is a thing? :)
Hahaha
I'd like to throw in there that vocal training is a large part of acting training as well. I took classes like this. In fact in one we spent the whole first semester doing a little stretching routine, laying on the floor and then "moaning" or vocalizing for about an hour. (In the follow up class we started working on words, phonetics, and speaking) The whole idea is that much like how we are trained and ingrained with behaviors from society, so too is our voice a history of expectations, trauma, ect. Simply the way we hold tension in our bodies we cut off certain parts from vibrating and this results in different sounds. By vocalizing openly we found our unimpeded resonant frequency so that we could unlearn our lifetime of habits (this also includes social habits that effect how we sound and connect with another-- e.g. not holding your breath in preparation to speak something you are planning to respond when someone else is talking, it opens you up to listen, or tension from being told to sit up straight as a kid) and physical trauma. Only then could we see all the possibilities so we could make choices about how we wanted our voice to be. Everyone sounded different after that class. Sometimes really intense emotions trauma and otherwise would be released as parts of ones body finally let go. I remember just bursting out laughing in the middle one day, and there were several days I cried. It was the most centering class I've ever taken. And after that I liked my voice, I liked feeling it in my body, like a friend giving a vibrating hug
If anyone is further interested theres a fantastic book we read called "The Right to Speak: Working with the Voice" By Patsy Rodenburg that talks in great detail about these ingrained vocal habits
Most Speech Pathologists in my country are cishet women.
To my WA Au friends the Curtin Adult Speech Centre is / was free. I'm sure there are other great places but I haven't looked into it.
I know you got your answer but speech training is also useful for people who do a lot of public speaking. It’s not all about pitch (or resonance), a lot of these lessons could benefit everyone.
Also why my (Canadian) health insurance doesn’t cover any gender affirming care, but it does cover speech therapy.
Remember when chapo trap house Lemmy banned trans people from the instance for being transphobic for not aligning with their narrow view of what it is to be trans?
I do.
I'm not sure whether that was meta commentary on my reply, or a reply to the wrong person, but either way, I'm not sure I understand how it connects to my comment
Hexbear blew itself up for rejecting elements of our own community. I think its worth meditating on the result of expecting others to have the same views as you about living trans.
Let's be nice to each other and be supporting of the experience whether we see cishet woman for voice or choose not to.
We have to fight transphobia ever day. But, please, not against each other.
The original comment seemed more inquisitive and confused than judgemental or expectant. The best way to learn about and appreciate other perspectives is to ask questions, no?
I believe we are all protective of the trans community in our own way. Sometimes overprotective.
Safe travels comrade.
Trust me, I understand your caution. Safe travels!
I think you may have misunderstood my response. I was expressing surprise at the idea of a cishet woman offering trans voice training, because it's not something I've encountered before. There was no gatekeeping involved.
Out of curiosity, is most of your exposure to people doing voice training for trans folks online?
My default assumption would be most providers are cis, but I have approximately zero exposure to online voice resources and my limited exposure to IRL professionals has been entirely cis people. (A quick google does not tell me whether the authors of The Voice Book for Trans and Non-Binary People are cis, which seems to be the "modern" book rec.)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know there are speech pathologists etc out there who do speech work etc, but in the context of "voice training" the first thing I think of is trans voice training.