I don’t think I’ve written before about my voice therapy work as part of transition, but I hit a milestone this week that I want to talk about, so I need to share some context.
Voice dysphoria was one of the first forms of my dysphoria I could clearly identify, so in July 2022 I started feminizing voice therapy with a speech pathology group in town. After a few months of weekly virtual sessions I started to feel frustrated by how slowly we were covering material, so I ended our sessions. I was also experiencing a big uptick in my migraines at the time, which was strange since summer has historically been my low point for seasonal migraines. After taking a break from my voice work the migraine uptick went away, so I concluded that some strain from my therapy was causing the migraines.
Later in September I received a call from the OHSU voice therapy program about availability for appointments. I had joined their waitlist at the beginning of the summer, so I saw this as an opportunity to change things up and address the strain I was experiencing. I started appointments in person with one of the pathologists there who turned out to be a way better fit for my learning style. We had regular appointments every week for two months with noticeable improvement, and the migraine increase did not return.
I went back to practicing my new voice at all times. After a couple of months my pathologist told me that I was making excellent progress, and that we should start spacing out our appointments so I could work on identifying issues as they came up. This past week I attended our first follow-up, and the main concern that I brought to the appointment was a persistent hoarseness that seemed to get worse over the course of each day.
My pathologist scoped me through my nose down my throat to observe my larynx and vocal folds. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be! Basically you take a nasal spray of numbing Afrin and they slide a thin fiber optic camera up your nose and down around the bend. We did some vocal exercises once the camera was in place to watch the goings-on in my vocal tract on a monitor. My pathologist was able to diagnose the cause of my hoarseness, and I have a few fundamentals I’m returning to practicing as a part of my morning warmups. I’m really glad we took a look because I was worried it might be something worse, like an injury or chronic damage.
So here’s the milestone I mentioned at the beginning. As part of the diagnostic my pathologist asked me to say a few things in my old voice, and... I couldn't. When I tried, it sounded really forced or fake. Since starting voice therapy I had wondered if I would ever get to this point, and I guess I made it some time ago. I wouldn't say I'm happy that I can't do my old voice - I come from a family of mimics, so losing a voice feels like losing a little bit of my ability to express myself. I am pleased though that my current voice has become natural for me. I don’t feel like I’m at a stopping point yet with voice work, but I like where things are heading.
I want to share a story from a book I recently read, Gender Euphoria. It’s a collection of short testimonies by several trans authors about moments of gender euphoria that they have experienced. The editor Laura Kate Dale has a number of essays in the book, but one that stood out to me was “Loving My Deep Voice As Performance Rather Than Default.” Dale writes about how after years of work to develop a feminine voice she would occasionally amuse herself by reaching back into her deep range as a party trick. Some people told Dale that they found it uncomfortable to hear because it didn’t sound like her, and reflecting on this she realized that she felt the same way, that her deepened voice felt more thrust upon her at puberty than reflective of her. Embarrassed, she distanced herself from her deep range for some time, until goofing around with her partner one morning she started developing character voices that used her lower register. Finding a way to access that part of her voice without having to feel like it was reflective of her personality allowed her to be freed from the shame she felt. Dale continues to come up with voices of all sorts in her podcasts and video streams.
Stories like this one inspire me to keep working on my voice. It can be difficult work, often unflattering, tiring, or silly feeling, but I want to find myself where Laura Kate Dale found herself. I want a daily voice that feels comfortable and reflective of me, that’s read properly by others, and that doesn’t prevent me from being the expressive person I am with the entirety of my range.