Excerpted from The Trans Voice Practice Journal: Explore, Track, and Claim Your Gender-Affirming Voice by Renée Yoxon (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). Reprinted with permission.
If you’re reading this book, then it’s likely that you want to create a speaking voice that brings you comfort, safety, and an innate sense of alignment with your gender. Whether you call the practice gender-affirming voice care, trans voice work, gender voice alignment, vocal congruence, voice training, or something else entirely, your curiosity, your hopefulness, and even your skepticism are welcome here. I know opening this book might feel scary, exciting, or both, but however you’re feeling, it’s normal, and I’ve got you.
Before we go any further, let me tell you that your voice contains more possibilities than you can even imagine today. I know that sounds hokey or woo-woo, but I really believe that, with practice, you will discover things that you didn’t know were possible within your speaking voice, no matter your gender, age, the languages you speak, your neurotype, disabilities, or experience level with the voice.
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This book is about gender-affirming voice work, but it is also about so much more. It’s about giving you the agency to explore and navigate this aspect of transition in a way that is as unique as your experience with gender.
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Just as there are a variety of ways to have a body or to style your hair or wear makeup or put on clothes, there are also many ways to express your gender through your voice. Not only is voice a reflection of your gender expression, but it also reflects where you grew up, who raised you, the languages you speak, what you’ve been through, and what you’ve done to survive. Just as there is no one right way to sound like a woman, man, or anyone between and beyond, there is no one right way to have a voice.
Your voice is also not a static object. It is a living, ever-changing instrument in your body, which is annoying when you want it to just be a certain way already, but also kind of beautiful when you think about it. The vocal practice that you are embarking on with this book is just one stop on the long journey of the life of your voice. Your voice will continue to evolve as you grow, change, and age. The voice you have today is different from the one you had yesterday and will be different from the one you have tomorrow. If one of your fears is that you will never be able to change your voice, you can rest assured that your voice can’t help but change. Change is the only constant in life.
I also want to assure you that anyone of any gender can have any voice. If you are a woman, you already have a woman’s voice. If you are a man, you already have a man’s voice. And if you’re nonbinary, you already have a nonbinary voice. The work you’re embarking on with this book and in your voice practice does not confirm your gender; it is merely another tool in your gender expression toolbox (albeit a unique tool). However, you are fully your gender with or without this practice.
There are many reasons to take on a gender-affirming voice practice, so let’s take a second to unpack them. Maybe you experience gender dysphoria when you hear your own voice. (Gender dysphoria is a feeling of unease, discomfort, or distress related to aspects of your gender.) Maybe you experience misgendering in your day-to-day life because of your voice. (Misgendering is when someone misinterprets your gender by using the wrong name, pronoun, or honorific like sir or ma’am.) Maybe you want to feel more ease as you move through your day, or maybe you want to feel safer. Maybe you want to feel more confident. Maybe you want to use a different voice all the time, or only in certain contexts. Maybe you want to have multiple voices for different situations. The options far exceed the boundaries of binary choice.
PROMPT: What are your motivations for your trans voice practice?
There is no wrong reason to voice train. And your reasons might shift over time. It’s totally normal to start with one motivation and have it change after a few months of practice. Your direction or your goals might change, or you might decide you don’t want to voice train at all!
Remember: this is your journey, no one else’s, and it’s supposed to look different from the journeys of others.
RETURN PROMPT: Mark your calendar for three months from now to come back to the question above and see if your motivation has changed. Be gentle with yourself if it has! Changing gears can be hard, but it’s normal.
You don’t need permission to sound like yourself, not from doctors, not from strangers on the internet, not from other trans people, and not from me. Your voice is not a test you can pass or fail. It’s not a performance that needs a standing ovation. It’s yours.
And if it takes years to find the sound that feels like home, that’s okay. If you change your mind halfway through, that’s okay too. If the voice you’re building today looks nothing like the one you imagined six months ago, or six years ago, you’re not failing; you’re discovering.
So keep going. Keep listening. Keep trying things that scare you a little, or excite you, or make you feel ridiculous until suddenly they don’t. (And if they still feel ridiculous six months from now, that’s fine too because some of the best voice exercises are deeply silly.) Just keep meeting your voice where it is. And every time you speak with intention, with curiosity, with tenderness toward yourself, you’re already claiming your voice.
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Renée Yoxon is a nonbinary voice teacher based in Montreal. They’ve taught voice since 2008, and since 2019 they’ve worked with trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people on their gender-affirming speaking voices. More than 2000 students have learned through their online courses, and they’ve trained over 100 voice teachers and speech-language pathologists. Their first book, The Trans Voice Practice Journal: Explore, Track, and Claim Your Gender-Affirming Voice, comes out with Jessica Kingsley Publishers on November 19. More details here: https://www.reneeyoxon.com/trans-voice-practice-journal
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