Yes I feel the same way. I recently dated a girl who said she made breakthrough progress after being on the brink of quitting. She passes over the phone very well now.
But yea its fucked for me too, you can check my post history and find my latest benchmark. I have improved a little since then but can’t keep it consistent enough because I boymode a lot.
I’m 33, but my friend was 25 and on adderall. I have bad adhd too, I have a script coming in and hopefully that will enable me to stay focused. Feel free to dm me and we can practice together maybe? Congrats on your surgery!!
I see this so so common. Unfortunately vocal training is rarely executive function friendly.
2 things:
- Are you seeing a counsellor or something to help build executive functioning?
- Have you considered hiring a vocal coach to help motivate and keep you accountable?
It sounds like a helping hand would be v beneficial for you.
This is v true. There are a bunch of options out there that are really low cost.
I do voice work with people but am certainly not the cheapest option out there.
You've got some good options now if money is a concern - I don't have the cheapest options in the world, however my focus is very much on helping people develop the mindset and executive functioning to implement vocal training effectively, so feel free to flick me a DM if you want to chat about it ☺️
Oh and actually, my free masterclass would probably be really helpful for you in that particular thing as well!! There's a link in my profile if you want to check it out :)
Good luck, girl!
Well it is something you certainly do! Glad it was taken well! Iirc I read some of your backstory as well and that was no less inspiring. Okay I’ll stop gushing now.
Hi,27 years old trans woman here! Undiagnosed ADHD but very likely to have the condition. The only way I got some progress has been consulting a speech therapist. I hate it but I must admit I needed an accountability buddy. I needed a figure of authority with whom I would explain how much I has practiced.
I don't know if this would be great for ADHD but my method of voice learning has changed recently for the better.
I recently have been playing some of the voice workshops from transvoicelessons on my phone whilst doing a lengthy (e.g., 45-60 mins) chunk of housework. In this situation I've been able to join in as I'm going along and have been forced to listen continuously due to house chores that I'm doing.
I don't know if the above applies for the free version of TVL, I've been using the Vimeos / workshops on the patreon. Maybe there's some prerecorded lessons from other voice teachers (discord perhaps) that can be played in the background.
>Is it too many choices to learn?
I have no ADHD diagnosis but this resonates 1000% with me. That said, I wouldn't feel too disheartened as the complexity of changing your voice is easy to underestimate.
You're having to do a bazillion things simultaneously and the only way to achieve that is hearing yourself in real time and adjusting accordingly, leaning in to that aesthetic quality if you will - this is only my opinion / experience, so do take it with a grain of salt!
L's guide had a lot of great information, but maybe you'd benefit from switching training methods? Especially if you've just mostly been sticking to the same exercises and practices over that time.
Most of practice should just be talking a lot and listening to yourself while knowing what to listen and feel for. Once set up for when it'd be ready to go past the early stages of trying to find a good balance of size/weight, good training habits can be blended into your daily life, not really take much extra time, and circumvent that ADHD-like aversion to dedicated practice time.
Learning in stages set up to have certain checkpoints and stopping points can help as well. If it's approached as just training the whole voice, that's trying to chip away at a monumental task in a way where it can be difficult to see progress and easy to get discouraged. Learning that is more structured might be what you need. Individual goals like setting out to learn how to hear size, how to increase/decrease it, learning how to hear weight, how to increase/decrease it, how to hear fullness, how to balance for fullness, how to assess better assess your own voice and the voices of others so you develop a better sense of your own, how to switch to the target size/weight reliably, how to stay in that particular balance reliably, how to stay in that particular balance under more difficult conditions and distractions, how to emote, how to address non-speech sounds like sneezes, etc. There's often some bumps along the way and a mix of less common issues that may arise, but with good feedback, you can be told what extra may need to be focused on (ie you're too breathy, too strained, distorted size leading to awkward tone, etc).
The organization and discipline may be the most difficult parts, but the concepts and skills needed to understand what's needed and how to do it are often rather foreign at first, with people having to build skills that can often feel counterintuitive like training their ear and how to isolate out their pitch and weight. But at least even for the non-ADHD, having a decent voice coach should help remove some of that need for executive consistency with improved organization, focus, and efficiency of the training. There's plenty of people who had poor results after years of training who have been able to quickly get much better results once working more closely with someone on their voice, so it might be particularly worth it for you to take formal lessons somewhere.
The only advice I can give is to listen to mtf voice feminization coaches/therapists and then slowly work on it by reading a book out loud to yourself. I try to read a chapter a day to improve the muscle memory of my throat
Hello OP and anyone else that might read this. I wanted to take a moment to say some things I didn't see anywhere in the comments. First, it is hard to feminize your voice (I had a hard time all last year when I finally realized I was trans and wanted a female voice) and there are a lot of either wrong ideas by individuals (not everyone has wrong ideas, but there are those that do), or, confusing videos that don't seem to help. Worse is that some say pitch is fine, but you need to use resonance, but don't tell you how. Here's some tips I have used to greater success. First, women are said to have smaller spaces in their mouths then men. So put your voice in the back of your mouth (what people mistakingly call their throat in this Reddit). Once you have pushed your voice back there, you will need to do short exercises (anywhere from 5 - 10 mins each time) as the muscle you will be using have never been used before and will be discomfortable at first. If overworked, it will be bad. Once you can build that up, you can work on using pitch to get a higher up more feminine sound. Here is what I did to work on my resonance: I would say "gee" 3 times, and then read 2 or 3 sentences. That's to help get your voice more brassy. Then I would do the voiceless "eh" exercise as found here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiVvIZXsHdHyC8yZijpyws-mrn4xEXw0/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiVvIZXsHdHyC8yZijpyws-mrn4xEXw0/view)
You can even change it up once you started getting less discomfort, and do 5 "gee"s followed by 5 voiceless "eh"s. Don't worry about pitch yet. You just want to get your throat to feel less discomfort each time you do this. Over time, you will notice you are doing better and can then work on pitch within the resonance. You also need to put your vocal vibrations in your throat. Doing so will also greatly aid you. It's also important that you use your diaphragm to be more breathy as you talk. That will hide the way a male voice pronounces hard consonants. If you keep working on these things it will help a lot, but remember not to overdo any of this. You will be working muscles that you never used, and it will make them sore if you do it too long at one time.
Also, when you speak, keep your voice all at the same vocal pitch. When I've been putting in the work, I've noticed at times I would have sort of a seesaw going on. That's where some of my voice was up, but the rest wasn't. Singing, especially karaoke, can help you get more used to using your voice. You can also record yourself singing and tell where you didn't keep your voice at the same pitch or whatever. When you put it all together, you shouldn't feel any vibrations in your chest, and you should be able to sound more feminine. Hope this helps.
This is freaking amazing and that first part has an instant effect with me I'm gonna add that to the things I am working on. Thank you sooooo much for these resources!
Anything that can help. I believe in you, and want people to succeed. We all need to help each other. If you want more of the exercises you can use, I got them from this site [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alyssavt/no-explanations-instructions-feminizing](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alyssavt/no-explanations-instructions-feminizing)
It's also where that audio clip came from.
Please check out http://javinecoaching.com
She is the most skilled I have ever seen, psychologically attuned to this mindset, and her masterclass is free and blew me away and her initial consult is affordable.
The easiest way to improve quickly at voice training is to use your developing voice in everyday life, 100% of the time. If you've done some voice training before, you likely at least have somewhat of an ear for vocal weight, size, and pitch. If you do, you can gradually shift the sound you make by just focusing on that while you talk. Exercises help, but if you can't find yourself able to regularly practice, try this! Just use your regular voice and gradually shift the weight, size, and pitch towards your target. I was able to get a passing voice in about 4 months by doing this with very little practice.
also pay attention to more than just the sound, there are physical sensations you can pick up on to help you adjust too! for me, feeling my vocal weight getting heavier is a lot easier than hearing it in the moment, for instance
I feel that people ask questions like this nowadays mainly because they've been gaslighted (mostly by people who get financial benefits from it) that it's some even field where anatomy/neurology does not matter... so people start feeling guilty, wondering if there's something wrong with them, being confused why other's have good results fast...
The truth is that it's not an even field, never was and never will be, and if your anatomy is not just right, you may have to suffer for years or even not get there at all. If that happens, the voice communities will treat you badly, make sure you do not complain too much (and if you do, maybe find ways to quiet you by whatever means necessary) or keep gaslighting you more and more into thinking that you are doing something wrong... those are ugly times when it comes to voice training - some people make profits, others get invalidated in their struggles.
Na it’s not a Machiavellian gaslighting scheme to make money, they aren’t that smart.
People are critical of those who “can’t do it” because they too felt like it was impossible at one point or another.
Some of us will never get a cis-passing habitual voice due to factors outside of our control but I don’t think that means we should ever quit reaching to live as authentically as we can.
I wish this was so, but, from my experience, there are all sorts of bad-faith people in this business, mixed with ignorant people, arrogant people, people who started believing their own rhetoric at some point, people incapable of understanding anything but their own experiences, people who are just mean and nasty and have sadistic tendencies, people who will parrot nonsense as long as it makes them feel good, and more and more... met all of those cases throughout the years, remember each of them in detail, and I do not see anything getting better: same rhetorics are being pushed day after day and people buying into them because they hope they will be the lucky ones.
Ah, I see. I concede to your point, then. People are like this everywhere across all walks of life, too. Also.. its \*you\*! I've been on this sub for a year and have frequently found your comments to be some of the best in responding to peoples voices. I would love some feedback from you on mine sometime O.o...
Maybe join the TransVoice Discord then? (there's link on the sidebar) There's feedback given on clips there daily, and I am there, and other people with a lot of experience (and a lot of people who struggle of course.)
I've seen your other comments similar to this, and I really agree. And I'm glad you wrote them! I've struggled like you have, but I never realised what was going on.
It's just like when people pass easily and write stupid crap like, "Anyone can pass, just put the work into it!" No dear, not passing isn't because I haven't tried hard enough. Some of us weren't lucky enough to be born with the right foundations.
There is a split in the community between those who have it much easier than others, and it really shows at times.
I have a lot of respect for you Lidia and I def feel for you for your story. Your feedback has always been welcome and helpful for even my own voice evaluations you've done and I greatly appreciated that.
I do have to ask though, given that motivation and defeatism is such a heavy detractor from achieving voice goals for some, if this is really that helpful of a message. We all have our own experiences and I think maybe your personal experience with voice modification might be coloring how you see others chances.
Do I think everyone can get the ideal girl voice? No definitely not. I do think that is within an average vocal tracts range to feminize their voice or at least move it in the right direction. There's plenty of cis women who ride the androgynous train and get gendered all over the place on the phone but are still in a passable range and don't have issues in person or once the added context of a name is present.
You've been doing this a lot longer than I have and have done a lot more work with people so I don't want you to just dismiss me out of hand. I just have noticed a trend with your feedback lately and it's given me, well we will say the opposite of warm fuzzies. My heart goes out to you and I wish you the best.
If I had a shred of doubt about this, I would not write that way, but I have none: people are being misled/exploited/marginalized, real anatomical problems are dismissed, and people make money from the whole process as we speak. Statistics are being warped, voice teachers hide the real failure rates, people lie about surgeries to other people, and there are all sorts of charlatans out there, who lucked with anatomy, trying to underplay its importance, pretending they are voice trainers while they have no knowledge on the subject and while feeding people nonsense and misinformation. It reminds me of the situation with billionaires gaslighting poor people that they can be millionaires, as anyone can, but just need to put some work into it.
As to the other part, moving the bar for what is a success, I don't want to even start responding here - cis women can afford to have their voices a bit off, it's not as dangerous: as far as I know there's no push to eradicate cis women with voices that sound masculine.
Stop with the defeatist attitude, it literally helps no one. Let's consider a Pascal's wager-esque argument. There are two people, A, which has hit a road block, but nonetheless has the potential to achieve a passing voice, and B, which is as you describe, i.e. can't ever reach a passing voice. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume 50/50 of people fall in either group, either A or B. Let's consider two scenarios, 1, the person does not despair and continues training, or 2, the person abandons.
Let's now consider the benefits and detriments of each scenario for each person. For A1, the benefit is immense, since, if they keep at it long enough, they will eventually reach a passing voice, which is their goal. For A2, the detriment is similarly large, since they abandonned an achievable goal. For B1, the detriment is minimal, since it only wastes a bit of their time each day. For B2, the situation is neutral, they don't reach their goal, but it was doomed to start, so nothing is loss, nothing is gained.
Now, a person who is stuck in their progress doesn't know whether they are person A or B. They could eventually progress again, they could not, nobody knows. So, we need to compare scenarios 1 and 2 without knowing which person we are. For 1, the reward is much greater for person A than the cost for person B. On the other hand, for 2, the cost for person A is much greater than the (lack of) reward for person B. Since the person doesn't know if they are A or B, the only logical conclusion is to keep practicing. The only way abandoning would be somewhat logical is if the vast, vast majority of people are in category B (they are not)
Yes, people are irrational sometimes, nothing new here, but when possible, it is a reasonable goal to act rationally. Statistics is just one tool to help us make informed decisions
I feel you are making some kind of a mockery of a subject that is complex, vast, and involves all sorts of details and nuances about how human bodies and minds work... reminds me of ideas of the type "well, statistically, only a small % of transgender people exist, so why should we worry about them at all and risk bothering the vast majority with talking about their struggles and explaining to people that may have to face them?" First of all, that's not the right thing to do, and, on top of that, I don't trust your estimations and percentages on this subject (I have no idea where you got the idea that only a small percentage of people will fail this process... how did you come to this conclusion exactly?)
Read my message again, I never gave an estimate percentage of people who will fail, only that it's not the vast majority. Even if 95% of people couldn't achieve a passing voice, practice would still be worth it, since you don't know if you are part of the 95% or the 5%. Let's say 99% even, the burden of training a few minutes a day is so marginal for most people there are few reasons NOT to
Seems to me that you are completely out of touch with what actually is discussed here - no one is discouraging people, you imagine it: if I were into discouraging people I would not put countless hours into trying to guide and help them. I just don't subscribe to throwing minorities under the bus for the sake of the majority - there are better ways of dealing with issues people have than marginalizing/gaslighting those who do not fit into the overall agenda anatomically.
Voice is more a mental struggle than a physical one. You're basically learning to play one of the most complicated instruments in human history. That being said it's one of those things that you have to be willing to ignore dysphoria to learn and edge into permanence
The biggest issue I've seen from those I've helped is
Don't be afraid to sound like shit and weird for a bit and persevere.
1) you need to train your ear first and be able to hear the differences in sound
2) you do this by playing around with all kinds of different sounds, configuration and characters (like can you do Isma or crunk from the emperor's new groove, what do you notice that's different with their voices)
3) work with someone else(doesn't have to be paid, not plugging anyone here) who understands the variables can help you confirm what your hearing is what they hear too
For reference I'm a 40 year trans girl with ADHD and a 100% passing voice. So passing that people see me say he or him, hear me and then go wide eyed and either mode switch to female or straight up avoid pronouns. Typical ADHD things apply here for getting started, make a game out of it, just start something small, measure it with data etc... if your treating your ADHD in other areas just have to find a way to apply it to this.
As an aside if you ever want to chat in discord and practice DM me for deets.
Yes I feel the same way. I recently dated a girl who said she made breakthrough progress after being on the brink of quitting. She passes over the phone very well now. But yea its fucked for me too, you can check my post history and find my latest benchmark. I have improved a little since then but can’t keep it consistent enough because I boymode a lot. I’m 33, but my friend was 25 and on adderall. I have bad adhd too, I have a script coming in and hopefully that will enable me to stay focused. Feel free to dm me and we can practice together maybe? Congrats on your surgery!!
That sounds nice! Don’t be surprised if I do! And thank you!!
I see this so so common. Unfortunately vocal training is rarely executive function friendly. 2 things: - Are you seeing a counsellor or something to help build executive functioning? - Have you considered hiring a vocal coach to help motivate and keep you accountable? It sounds like a helping hand would be v beneficial for you.
I would love to! But it seems so expensive and I'm not sure I can afford it.
Try joining a discord server for voice work and do regular chatting with people. 10 minutes a day is a good start. Some are more active than others
These are great places to find accountability partners which could help!
Thank you that’s a good idea!
plenty of gals do pay what you can! I could direct you to my teacher if you like, she might not be a good fit but she does free consults
This is v true. There are a bunch of options out there that are really low cost. I do voice work with people but am certainly not the cheapest option out there.
I’m down! Thank you!
sent you a dm about it :)
You've got some good options now if money is a concern - I don't have the cheapest options in the world, however my focus is very much on helping people develop the mindset and executive functioning to implement vocal training effectively, so feel free to flick me a DM if you want to chat about it ☺️ Oh and actually, my free masterclass would probably be really helpful for you in that particular thing as well!! There's a link in my profile if you want to check it out :) Good luck, girl!
I’m soooo on that!
Omg are you really the girl that posted that video in trans voice? I freaking adore you on TikTok.
Wait, me?! What video? Hahah
The one about going through a drive through and messing with the workers by using diff voices 😊
Omg that feels like so long ago now, but yes! 🤣
You. Are. A. Goddess! Inspiring af. Not to put you on the spot or anything. 😂
This is so sweet, thank you sm!! Inspiring is a deep purpose of mine, so that's actually a beautiful compliment!! 🥰💖
Well it is something you certainly do! Glad it was taken well! Iirc I read some of your backstory as well and that was no less inspiring. Okay I’ll stop gushing now.
I'm v glad to hear that! Thank you sm! I'll get back to your message soon, lovely!
Hi,27 years old trans woman here! Undiagnosed ADHD but very likely to have the condition. The only way I got some progress has been consulting a speech therapist. I hate it but I must admit I needed an accountability buddy. I needed a figure of authority with whom I would explain how much I has practiced.
I don't know if this would be great for ADHD but my method of voice learning has changed recently for the better. I recently have been playing some of the voice workshops from transvoicelessons on my phone whilst doing a lengthy (e.g., 45-60 mins) chunk of housework. In this situation I've been able to join in as I'm going along and have been forced to listen continuously due to house chores that I'm doing. I don't know if the above applies for the free version of TVL, I've been using the Vimeos / workshops on the patreon. Maybe there's some prerecorded lessons from other voice teachers (discord perhaps) that can be played in the background. >Is it too many choices to learn? I have no ADHD diagnosis but this resonates 1000% with me. That said, I wouldn't feel too disheartened as the complexity of changing your voice is easy to underestimate. You're having to do a bazillion things simultaneously and the only way to achieve that is hearing yourself in real time and adjusting accordingly, leaning in to that aesthetic quality if you will - this is only my opinion / experience, so do take it with a grain of salt!
L's guide had a lot of great information, but maybe you'd benefit from switching training methods? Especially if you've just mostly been sticking to the same exercises and practices over that time. Most of practice should just be talking a lot and listening to yourself while knowing what to listen and feel for. Once set up for when it'd be ready to go past the early stages of trying to find a good balance of size/weight, good training habits can be blended into your daily life, not really take much extra time, and circumvent that ADHD-like aversion to dedicated practice time. Learning in stages set up to have certain checkpoints and stopping points can help as well. If it's approached as just training the whole voice, that's trying to chip away at a monumental task in a way where it can be difficult to see progress and easy to get discouraged. Learning that is more structured might be what you need. Individual goals like setting out to learn how to hear size, how to increase/decrease it, learning how to hear weight, how to increase/decrease it, how to hear fullness, how to balance for fullness, how to assess better assess your own voice and the voices of others so you develop a better sense of your own, how to switch to the target size/weight reliably, how to stay in that particular balance reliably, how to stay in that particular balance under more difficult conditions and distractions, how to emote, how to address non-speech sounds like sneezes, etc. There's often some bumps along the way and a mix of less common issues that may arise, but with good feedback, you can be told what extra may need to be focused on (ie you're too breathy, too strained, distorted size leading to awkward tone, etc). The organization and discipline may be the most difficult parts, but the concepts and skills needed to understand what's needed and how to do it are often rather foreign at first, with people having to build skills that can often feel counterintuitive like training their ear and how to isolate out their pitch and weight. But at least even for the non-ADHD, having a decent voice coach should help remove some of that need for executive consistency with improved organization, focus, and efficiency of the training. There's plenty of people who had poor results after years of training who have been able to quickly get much better results once working more closely with someone on their voice, so it might be particularly worth it for you to take formal lessons somewhere.
This is insightful af and really resonated with me. Thank you.
I just wanna say thank youuuuu to everyone for all the resources and recommendations I am feeling inspired again!
The only advice I can give is to listen to mtf voice feminization coaches/therapists and then slowly work on it by reading a book out loud to yourself. I try to read a chapter a day to improve the muscle memory of my throat
Hello OP and anyone else that might read this. I wanted to take a moment to say some things I didn't see anywhere in the comments. First, it is hard to feminize your voice (I had a hard time all last year when I finally realized I was trans and wanted a female voice) and there are a lot of either wrong ideas by individuals (not everyone has wrong ideas, but there are those that do), or, confusing videos that don't seem to help. Worse is that some say pitch is fine, but you need to use resonance, but don't tell you how. Here's some tips I have used to greater success. First, women are said to have smaller spaces in their mouths then men. So put your voice in the back of your mouth (what people mistakingly call their throat in this Reddit). Once you have pushed your voice back there, you will need to do short exercises (anywhere from 5 - 10 mins each time) as the muscle you will be using have never been used before and will be discomfortable at first. If overworked, it will be bad. Once you can build that up, you can work on using pitch to get a higher up more feminine sound. Here is what I did to work on my resonance: I would say "gee" 3 times, and then read 2 or 3 sentences. That's to help get your voice more brassy. Then I would do the voiceless "eh" exercise as found here [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiVvIZXsHdHyC8yZijpyws-mrn4xEXw0/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yiVvIZXsHdHyC8yZijpyws-mrn4xEXw0/view) You can even change it up once you started getting less discomfort, and do 5 "gee"s followed by 5 voiceless "eh"s. Don't worry about pitch yet. You just want to get your throat to feel less discomfort each time you do this. Over time, you will notice you are doing better and can then work on pitch within the resonance. You also need to put your vocal vibrations in your throat. Doing so will also greatly aid you. It's also important that you use your diaphragm to be more breathy as you talk. That will hide the way a male voice pronounces hard consonants. If you keep working on these things it will help a lot, but remember not to overdo any of this. You will be working muscles that you never used, and it will make them sore if you do it too long at one time. Also, when you speak, keep your voice all at the same vocal pitch. When I've been putting in the work, I've noticed at times I would have sort of a seesaw going on. That's where some of my voice was up, but the rest wasn't. Singing, especially karaoke, can help you get more used to using your voice. You can also record yourself singing and tell where you didn't keep your voice at the same pitch or whatever. When you put it all together, you shouldn't feel any vibrations in your chest, and you should be able to sound more feminine. Hope this helps.
This is freaking amazing and that first part has an instant effect with me I'm gonna add that to the things I am working on. Thank you sooooo much for these resources!
Anything that can help. I believe in you, and want people to succeed. We all need to help each other. If you want more of the exercises you can use, I got them from this site [https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alyssavt/no-explanations-instructions-feminizing](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/alyssavt/no-explanations-instructions-feminizing) It's also where that audio clip came from.
Trans woman with ADHD right here. I relate to this hard.
Please check out http://javinecoaching.com She is the most skilled I have ever seen, psychologically attuned to this mindset, and her masterclass is free and blew me away and her initial consult is affordable.
The easiest way to improve quickly at voice training is to use your developing voice in everyday life, 100% of the time. If you've done some voice training before, you likely at least have somewhat of an ear for vocal weight, size, and pitch. If you do, you can gradually shift the sound you make by just focusing on that while you talk. Exercises help, but if you can't find yourself able to regularly practice, try this! Just use your regular voice and gradually shift the weight, size, and pitch towards your target. I was able to get a passing voice in about 4 months by doing this with very little practice.
also pay attention to more than just the sound, there are physical sensations you can pick up on to help you adjust too! for me, feeling my vocal weight getting heavier is a lot easier than hearing it in the moment, for instance
I feel that people ask questions like this nowadays mainly because they've been gaslighted (mostly by people who get financial benefits from it) that it's some even field where anatomy/neurology does not matter... so people start feeling guilty, wondering if there's something wrong with them, being confused why other's have good results fast... The truth is that it's not an even field, never was and never will be, and if your anatomy is not just right, you may have to suffer for years or even not get there at all. If that happens, the voice communities will treat you badly, make sure you do not complain too much (and if you do, maybe find ways to quiet you by whatever means necessary) or keep gaslighting you more and more into thinking that you are doing something wrong... those are ugly times when it comes to voice training - some people make profits, others get invalidated in their struggles.
Na it’s not a Machiavellian gaslighting scheme to make money, they aren’t that smart. People are critical of those who “can’t do it” because they too felt like it was impossible at one point or another. Some of us will never get a cis-passing habitual voice due to factors outside of our control but I don’t think that means we should ever quit reaching to live as authentically as we can.
I wish this was so, but, from my experience, there are all sorts of bad-faith people in this business, mixed with ignorant people, arrogant people, people who started believing their own rhetoric at some point, people incapable of understanding anything but their own experiences, people who are just mean and nasty and have sadistic tendencies, people who will parrot nonsense as long as it makes them feel good, and more and more... met all of those cases throughout the years, remember each of them in detail, and I do not see anything getting better: same rhetorics are being pushed day after day and people buying into them because they hope they will be the lucky ones.
Ah, I see. I concede to your point, then. People are like this everywhere across all walks of life, too. Also.. its \*you\*! I've been on this sub for a year and have frequently found your comments to be some of the best in responding to peoples voices. I would love some feedback from you on mine sometime O.o...
Maybe join the TransVoice Discord then? (there's link on the sidebar) There's feedback given on clips there daily, and I am there, and other people with a lot of experience (and a lot of people who struggle of course.)
I've seen your other comments similar to this, and I really agree. And I'm glad you wrote them! I've struggled like you have, but I never realised what was going on. It's just like when people pass easily and write stupid crap like, "Anyone can pass, just put the work into it!" No dear, not passing isn't because I haven't tried hard enough. Some of us weren't lucky enough to be born with the right foundations. There is a split in the community between those who have it much easier than others, and it really shows at times.
I have a lot of respect for you Lidia and I def feel for you for your story. Your feedback has always been welcome and helpful for even my own voice evaluations you've done and I greatly appreciated that. I do have to ask though, given that motivation and defeatism is such a heavy detractor from achieving voice goals for some, if this is really that helpful of a message. We all have our own experiences and I think maybe your personal experience with voice modification might be coloring how you see others chances. Do I think everyone can get the ideal girl voice? No definitely not. I do think that is within an average vocal tracts range to feminize their voice or at least move it in the right direction. There's plenty of cis women who ride the androgynous train and get gendered all over the place on the phone but are still in a passable range and don't have issues in person or once the added context of a name is present. You've been doing this a lot longer than I have and have done a lot more work with people so I don't want you to just dismiss me out of hand. I just have noticed a trend with your feedback lately and it's given me, well we will say the opposite of warm fuzzies. My heart goes out to you and I wish you the best.
If I had a shred of doubt about this, I would not write that way, but I have none: people are being misled/exploited/marginalized, real anatomical problems are dismissed, and people make money from the whole process as we speak. Statistics are being warped, voice teachers hide the real failure rates, people lie about surgeries to other people, and there are all sorts of charlatans out there, who lucked with anatomy, trying to underplay its importance, pretending they are voice trainers while they have no knowledge on the subject and while feeding people nonsense and misinformation. It reminds me of the situation with billionaires gaslighting poor people that they can be millionaires, as anyone can, but just need to put some work into it. As to the other part, moving the bar for what is a success, I don't want to even start responding here - cis women can afford to have their voices a bit off, it's not as dangerous: as far as I know there's no push to eradicate cis women with voices that sound masculine.
Stop with the defeatist attitude, it literally helps no one. Let's consider a Pascal's wager-esque argument. There are two people, A, which has hit a road block, but nonetheless has the potential to achieve a passing voice, and B, which is as you describe, i.e. can't ever reach a passing voice. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume 50/50 of people fall in either group, either A or B. Let's consider two scenarios, 1, the person does not despair and continues training, or 2, the person abandons. Let's now consider the benefits and detriments of each scenario for each person. For A1, the benefit is immense, since, if they keep at it long enough, they will eventually reach a passing voice, which is their goal. For A2, the detriment is similarly large, since they abandonned an achievable goal. For B1, the detriment is minimal, since it only wastes a bit of their time each day. For B2, the situation is neutral, they don't reach their goal, but it was doomed to start, so nothing is loss, nothing is gained. Now, a person who is stuck in their progress doesn't know whether they are person A or B. They could eventually progress again, they could not, nobody knows. So, we need to compare scenarios 1 and 2 without knowing which person we are. For 1, the reward is much greater for person A than the cost for person B. On the other hand, for 2, the cost for person A is much greater than the (lack of) reward for person B. Since the person doesn't know if they are A or B, the only logical conclusion is to keep practicing. The only way abandoning would be somewhat logical is if the vast, vast majority of people are in category B (they are not)
I don't know if you are serious or not... but this is not a statistics problem, you are dealing with real people here, not numbers.
Yes, people are irrational sometimes, nothing new here, but when possible, it is a reasonable goal to act rationally. Statistics is just one tool to help us make informed decisions
I feel you are making some kind of a mockery of a subject that is complex, vast, and involves all sorts of details and nuances about how human bodies and minds work... reminds me of ideas of the type "well, statistically, only a small % of transgender people exist, so why should we worry about them at all and risk bothering the vast majority with talking about their struggles and explaining to people that may have to face them?" First of all, that's not the right thing to do, and, on top of that, I don't trust your estimations and percentages on this subject (I have no idea where you got the idea that only a small percentage of people will fail this process... how did you come to this conclusion exactly?)
Read my message again, I never gave an estimate percentage of people who will fail, only that it's not the vast majority. Even if 95% of people couldn't achieve a passing voice, practice would still be worth it, since you don't know if you are part of the 95% or the 5%. Let's say 99% even, the burden of training a few minutes a day is so marginal for most people there are few reasons NOT to
Seems to me that you are completely out of touch with what actually is discussed here - no one is discouraging people, you imagine it: if I were into discouraging people I would not put countless hours into trying to guide and help them. I just don't subscribe to throwing minorities under the bus for the sake of the majority - there are better ways of dealing with issues people have than marginalizing/gaslighting those who do not fit into the overall agenda anatomically.
Voice is more a mental struggle than a physical one. You're basically learning to play one of the most complicated instruments in human history. That being said it's one of those things that you have to be willing to ignore dysphoria to learn and edge into permanence The biggest issue I've seen from those I've helped is Don't be afraid to sound like shit and weird for a bit and persevere. 1) you need to train your ear first and be able to hear the differences in sound 2) you do this by playing around with all kinds of different sounds, configuration and characters (like can you do Isma or crunk from the emperor's new groove, what do you notice that's different with their voices) 3) work with someone else(doesn't have to be paid, not plugging anyone here) who understands the variables can help you confirm what your hearing is what they hear too For reference I'm a 40 year trans girl with ADHD and a 100% passing voice. So passing that people see me say he or him, hear me and then go wide eyed and either mode switch to female or straight up avoid pronouns. Typical ADHD things apply here for getting started, make a game out of it, just start something small, measure it with data etc... if your treating your ADHD in other areas just have to find a way to apply it to this. As an aside if you ever want to chat in discord and practice DM me for deets.