In middle school, when my voice started changing, one of my classmates gave me a hard time about it. He told me, “Don’t use that voice, use the other voice.”
This upset me. Firstly because I had no effective control over which voice I used. But secondly, and more deeply, because the voice he prefered, the deeper “masculine” one, wasn’t the one I wanted.
This is one of my earliest dysphoric memories and I’d nearly forgotten about it until it all came flooding back the other day. I still don’t like my voice and am finding voice training to be one of the most difficult aspects of my transition. Nevertheless, I’ve made some progress and at this point (if I focus on it, which is hard in real social interactions) I now do have control over which voice I employ.
