#pre t trans guy singing with a girl sounding voice

[cepheusgalaxy]

I loooove to sing so now Kaiki is a singer too

[skadream]

happy ummm 8th month on t? (9th if i were actually on t continuously but i ran out for a month that one time) i used to do monthly t updates on tiktok but i dont rlly feel like doing that rn so i'll yap about it here (its actually wild how little stuff i have about my transition on my tumblr generally speaking? as if this isnt the website that transed my gender in the first place)

it really is hard to notice such gradual changes from month to month, especially if its just me lookin at myself, compared to seeing a doctor in person which, i am getting rx'd T thru telehealth currently as my nearest planned parenthood or even a neighboring one does not actually do gender affirming care which is. insane and whack. esp when i do live in a pretty populated county maybe second or third to nyc and albany area. and i have to call in to a pp THREE HOURS BY TRANSIT from me. but like, its been working for now ok!

mentally and emotionally ive been very up and down overall but i think thats largely due to my medication changes rather than hormones. ALTHOUGH. when i ran out for a month in november and my period came back... dude it was so horrible like genuinely the worst period of my life. its one of those things where i didnt realize just how dysphoric something could make me feel until i had a taste of being able to alleviate said dysphoria. so mentally speaking testosterone is probably pulling the mental train even more than the wellbutrin lol. and im trying not to account too much for circumstance/environment cuz like OBVIOUSLY if things were going smoothly for me there a lot of my emotional issues would be at least somewhat relieved, but im working with what i got.

physically, since starting t in july i have lost weight. at first i was very scared it was my medication, and i think a part of it was at least a little, like two of my meds can cause some weight loss, but i am no longer losing weight in a concerning way but just yknow the regular amount of daily fluctuation. so i do think a lot of my weight loss was due to hormones just shifting around my fat and all that, or something idk lol. everyones so diff with hormones, i know some trans guys gain weight on t and not necessarily from muscle training, i know girls on e who have lost weight without any changes to diet or exercise, it really depends so as always, this is just my experience etc etc

i do have more facial hair but its still quite patchy, i think i might start filling in my stache tho. with my shitty goatee, its not my fav so i shave it off when im not just sitting inside all day, but also idk it makes my chin feel less. round. or smth. i do always think of my one friend telling me ill look like the lead singer of a nü metal band and honestly maybe i should start giving that energy more anyway! embrace goatee lifestyle!

oh yeah my voice dropped in like the first two months and has gotten deeper since, and on timtom i talked a lot about wanting to maintain the vocal range i had pre-t? i dont think thats fully possible like i think the highest notes i used to reach are just inaccessible to me, but i think if i did some like vocal singing warmups i can get back up to reach those higher notes. in retrospect the way ive sung my whole life has actually prob been destructive on my voice, partly from lack of proper training and partly intentionally trying to sound deeper and more gravelly, but now that i can access deeper sounds more naturally i really do wanna work on singing in a better way where i can reach some of those notes.

overall yea im liking whats happening so far, i do wish it was happening faster but i understand that some people dont get the progress ive gotten for like, YEARS, and new progressions will be happening to me for years after today. if you think about "real" puberty, it is a gradual shift its not like you suddenly grow a chest as soon as you Bleed or whatever its different for literally every person and since im the only one in my family that i know of who has done this, im kind of a guinea pig. but like im okay with that! anyway yeah really recommrnd testosterone if u want it i like it :)

[endcant]

Hey, I hope ur well. I just found ur page searching about transitioning as a trans guy and singing, and I'm just curious to know if u still sing? And how it's going? I know of trans guys who can sing arguably better after T like noahfinnce and cavetown, but I'm just worried about it that's all. I haven't even started T yet cos I'm from the UK and our waiting lists are very long lol

hey there! i still sing, yeah. i have been taking a really low dose so really my range has honestly only drifted down like 5 or so semitones. i was a music major and ive sung with a lot of guys, trans and cis, and so i have a lot of thoughts on this topic. so i'm going to rant:

the biggest struggle ive noticed is a constant lack of familiarity with how each note feels in my voice day-to-day, since my voice is still actively changing. my solutions to this is are 1.) mostly singing accompanied (i play guitar, uke, and piano) so that i have a pitch reference, and 2.) recording all of my practicing

recording my practicing was something i was required to do in audiation classes in music school, but i only really did the bare minimum for my assignments because singing what was in my head was easier back when my range had been stable for years. practicing with recordings is more important than ever now because my voice is much more sensitive to strain than it used to be before i was on T. that means that if i sing the same thing over and over just to hear myself sing it, my voice will get tired and stop working VERY quickly. now when i practice, i record a run, and listen back a few times while making notes on my music sheet of what i need to fix before recording again. i also tend to avoid practicing at full volume if i have to practice the rhythm of a passage or something like that. sometimes i just speak a passage to get rhythm or pronunciation. anything to avoid singing too much or too hard while still singing enough to practice effectively. ALSO, my tongue and throat haven't been able to relax easily lately, so my warm-up is very different than it used to be to try to address that. my voice is still in the beginning part of changing, though, so what i've got going on is only part of the picture.

for a bit more of what's down the road, i have a lot of friends who are on T, a lot of whom ask me to assess their voice range (i was a music major and i guess they assume im the one to ask). the #1 thing ive noticed is that trans guys whose voice ranges drop significantly tend to get hung up on the fact that they can't sing the high notes they used to be able to sing, while ignoring the fact that they have access to an expanded lower register. i have some friends who have a lovely, rich baritone range, but they are really shy about singing that low because it's unfamiliar, and then they crack their voices struggling to sing notes that wouldve fallen within their former soprano range. ultimately, trans guys with their voice settled into a new range are just as capable of learning to utilize that range as anybody else, and the main block there is mental. a lot of us are just used to singing differently because we've been in a different range most of our lives, and the instinct is just to avoid singing to avoid sounding dumb, rather than practice and re-learn. also i think a lot of my transmasc friends (esp ex-sopranos) were way too pessimistic about how far their voice was capable of dropping, so they don't know what to do with themselves now that their voice change has exceeded their own expectations.

one thing that i think is important to remember is that cis guys have experienced a lot of the same struggles that transmascs on T have with their voices. i was a music major and we had some singing requirements for all music majors, even non-vocal majors, and it really seemed like the cis guys initially struggled a lot more with the basics of singing than the cis girls (and pre-T me) in the class. here are a few things that i gleaned from being in those classes and watching those guys learn to sing:

the biggest thing to consider, especially if you are a soprano before T, is that sopranos have a lot of notes in their range that resonate in their head. the difference between having a "proper head voice" and a falsetto high range is whether or not you're able to comfortably sing high notes that resonate in your sinuses most strongly. why is this a major consideration? when your voice drops and your most comfortable notes suddenly tend to resonate more in your throat and chest, that is WAY harder to hear than those high notes that buzz directly in your skull, especially in the details. going out of key is way more likely when you can barely hear what note you're singing compared to literally hearing your voice vibrating in your head while singing. my professors used to tell guys who struggled with staying on pitch to practice singing either with their hand in front of their face to direct the sound back to one of their ears, or with a piece of paper in front of their face. you could even practice singing to a bathroom wall or something like that. this has already become useful advice for me, since i can't hear the difference between my new lowest notes unless i'm either recording them or hearing the sound reflected off a surface.

another thing that my vocal instructor used to go on about a lot is that shoulder tension has a large effect on your chest voice. if, after your voice drops, you're keeping your shoulders tensed, you might not be able to sing all of the lower notes that your body is capable of producing. my vocal instructor used to tell some of the guys to literally practice singing while lying down??? i don't know if that solution actually helped with the shoulder tension, but the shoulder tension seemed like a real issue that was partially physical and partially psychological. ultimately, decent relaxed posture is something that is always important for singing no matter what your range is.

one more thing is that cis guys had their voices break and drop, too. whenever i or one of my transmasc-on-T friends struggles with singing, i point out that every cis guy who sings has had to deal with this too. it just happened while they were younger and every other guy around them was dealing with the same thing too. and, for them, it could've taken like 5-10 years. a lot of trans guys crank up the T as high as possible for as fast of a voice change as they can manage, and then they have a hard time adjusting to a voice change that only took 6 months or a year or even a couple years. it's gonna be hard to mentally adjust to a voice change when it happens so fast (relatively speaking), and when you're much more alone in dealing with it. all this is to say... yes, it takes a lot of effort to sound decent while singing during a voice change, and it is going to take a lot of effort to get used to that change once it's basically over, but it is something that is possible, since so many people sing despite having a changing voice. even cis women have their voices change over time.

to wrap this big long rant up, there is a lot of very speculative writing about the effects of T on the voice and the best way to retain vocal talent through the effects of T. some will say to avoid singing until your voice is done cooking, some will say that you should sing constantly to avoid losing range. my personal advice from where i'm at right now is that you should practice very gently, but sing as much as you need to to sound decent. having your voice slowly change on T is sort of like if you know how to play flute and every now and then someone replaces your flute with a very slightly larger and lower-toned flute. you don't even notice the change most days, but it makes you sound much shittier at flute if you don't practice before you perform, especially when compared to people who have had the same regular-sized flute for like 20 years.

whenever you get on T, just trust that it'll be fine, as long as you expect and accept that your voice is changing. sing if you want to sing, stop singing if it hurts, try to adjust your technique to minimize pain, and know that you'll be adjusting a lot more than you used to for awhile. it'll feel alien for a long time, but remember that one day your voice will settle into a range once again, and you'll be able to really get to know that new voice. and remember that most of singing well is just maintaining a good ear for pitch (something you can do by practicing any instrument btw), keeping healthy posture, and practicing enough to know what you sound like these days before you perform.

i'm sure everybody whos had T-induced voice changes will have their own opinions about this though, so don't take my word as gospel

[expolikestoart]

Fam-ILY au headcanons post!

listen I love them a lot and I want to talk about them even if no one else really cares

Character Designs

Sleepover/Movie Night for the boys

The Picani Family

the Picanis have a day once every week where they all watch a few episodes of Avatar together. tis law.

Emile is genderfluid!! So sometimes they're Patton and Dee's dad, sometimes they're thier mom, sometimes they're their ren. Patton and Dee tend to just call them their dad though, just cause it's easier to explain to the other kids. And it doesn't cause Emile any issues so they don't mind. They were a pronoun braclet a lot. (tbh they're really just happy their kids sees them as a role model.) (He/Him, She/Her, They/Them, depends on the day)

Patton likes to play with his stuffed animals a lot!

his favorite blanket is his weighted blanket

Dee is HoH so the entiree family knows ASL and he wears hearing aids.

Dee's very passionate about octonauts and his favorite episode was the coral reef snake one. (his favorite character is tweak)

Patton and Dee are bio siblings but they're both adopted by Emile. Emile had a partner during the adoption but they broke up a few years later and he(the partner) never offically had any custody.

at the start of the storyline (maybe writing a fic) they just moved and Emile and him broke up.

Emile keeps pictures of them in his wallet and Will talk about them whenever someone asks.

Emile is a children's therapist in this AU, and specifically works with kids who deal with learning disabilities.

The Kingsley Family

When Remy was like. 17 he got in a relationship with this one girl and they did the do. When the twins were born, she left. He hasn't heard from her since.

His family wasn't that supportive except his Great Aunt Becca who's a wonderful woman. She lived with her partner for years until she died a year or two before Remy moved in.

So they all live with her now.

Roman likes to sew little costumes for his stuffed animals. Remy helps.

Roman begged Remy to let him join dance classes. Remy doesn't currently have the money to take so he's saving up to let him.

Remus is in that weird kid phase? You know the one where they're weirdly obsessed with like. Death and witches and shit? He's in that phase.

He also makes "potions" and shit outta stuff in the kitchen. 50% of them are probably poisonous. Remy lets him drink absolutely none of them.

Remy's Bi and proud. He hasn't really dated anyone since he was 17 but. He's open to dating again. But only if his boys like them.

Remy works at a few different places. He's the manager at a coffee shop when the boys are at school and at night when they sleep he works at a gas station. Neither has great pay but he's doing his best.

Roman and Remus have very active imaginations. It has led to them waking up Remy or Becca due to monsters in the closet more than they like.

Disney! And! Pixar! Movie! Nights!

Remy and Aunt Becca have most definitely made scrapbooks of the boys together. (even though Remy might deny it to keep up his tough guy image)

The Cogsworth Family

Brian showed the boys some of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Logan fell in love with the show immediately. Virgil doesn't like it as much but he likes to see Logan excited so he watches it too.

Virgil freaking Loves Gravity Falls though. He likes to try and find monsters in the apartment complex and nearby park. He swears he heard a hide behind once. (Brian played the sound effect on his phone and placed a speaker in a tree to make him happy)

Logan only likes certain textures with clothes so Brian makes sure that when they go clothes shopping Logan feels them first.

Logan has a prosthetic foot (it doesn't show in the family portrait because his socks and shoes cover it up) ((he also has a barbie doll because her leg was a prosthetic))

Virgil likes to draw a lot, especially monsters and stuff that he sees on tv. It's really cute looking half of the time but sometimes it kinda worries Brian.

Brian is Trans! And Aro/Ace. The kids are his. He had them pre-transition. His family wasn't supportive of him transitioning so he doesn't really talk to them. Has been on T for 5 years. (He/Him)

Brian's a bit of a space nerd so he likes to watch documentaries on them and the kids will often curl up on him and watch too.

Brian's compiter has a metric fuckton of baby photos of the boys!

They go to the park because he tries to keep them as healthy as possible and hopefully his kids will make friends. Both are painfully shy.

He's a security guard/Janitor for Walmart's l a t e shifts.

The Sanders Family

Thomas isn't adopted y e t but god is Anton working on the paper work for that because bitch that's their son now and they love him.

Thomas still is the goofy guy we know, happy, enjoys Disney, likes to sing and stuff.

Since Thomas is old enough to join the school choir he did and he loves it.

Anton and Thomas met the others because Emile was Thomas's therapist and once Anton asked Emile the best thing he could do for their kid and Emile commented on how that they knew it was scary, cause they had the same thoughts when they adopted their kids.

Emile is no longer Thomas's therapist due to him no longer being impartial since that's his kids friend and that's kinda iffy so now their friend is.

Anton is nb and pan-romantic ace. (He/Him, They/Them)

Both of them are kinda chaotic at times and sometimes you can find the two of them trying desperately to bake but there's batter on the ceiling and flour in Anton's hair. (they can't bake but anton can cook so it's okay)

When Thomas gets adopted all the others will be invited to see the signing.

Thomas didn't get to watch most Disney movies while in Foster care so Anton is showing him everything.

He also didn't get to see the Barbie movies so guess what else he's watching because Anton insists.

Anton still has an appreciation for fine arts and has a painting hanging up in his Living room framed and right next to it in just as fancy a frame is a drawing Thomas made. (it's a family portrait that Thomas made with stick figures. When he gave it to Anton, Anton c r i e d.)

Thomas has two friends from before he writes to, Joan and Tayln. He writes them letters every few days. They write back and everytime he gets one he's like!!!!!

Anton's the most well off of anyone in the squad so he tends to give gifts to the others when they find something.

All of them

The Parent Group are all very supportive of their kids interests, and also have meetups while the boys have playdates where the drink they're preferred hot drink (Emile likes Tea, Remy and Anton like Coffee, and Brian likes Apple Cider) and bitch about the shitty PTA moms and work (not emile though he loves his job and has patient confidentiality so... no)

Roman and Logan both love Percy Jackson but in different ways. Logan read all the books. Roman read the comic book adaptions and listened to the Lightning Thief Musical.

Virgil and Patton like to hunt for monsters together in the apartment complex and park but everytime it happens they both get a little scared and run if something actually looks spooky.

When all the kids became friends they had Patton teach them ASL secretly for a couple of months to surprise Dee. They showed Dee and he c r i e d. Happy tears of course but he was so surprised that all of them learned that for him.

Virgil, Dee, Remus, and Roman all have the same Recess break on the little kids playground so they play pretend together a lot. Usually it's Roman and Virgil vs Remus and Dee, but sometimes they switch it up.

Patton, Thomas, and Logan are the Big Kids, but also are kinda the weird kids too so they don't have much friends outside of the group. But it's okay, because they got each other and they like to hang out.

Patton has punched some kids cause they made fun of either his friends or Dee or maybe his Dad. He will throw hands. Logan might hold him back. Thomas will hold him back but only after a punch or two.

Remy once joked about having one brain cell in front of the kids and all the kids who weren't his got very alarmed and started to make him realize he was smart but Roman and Remus went: yeah you do. He's never been so heavily burned before or since.

Roman and Remus don't do the weird twins finishing each other's sentences thing but Logan and Virgil do.

Patton still makes puns but not good ones because kid's humor is nonsensical so half of the time he'll go up to Logan and Thomas and try them on them and every time they're both like "???? what did you just say????????"

They will all go and do fashion shows where Roman and Remus will take the others and drape them in sheets and cutains and blankets and have everyone walk the fake runway while someone sits out and judges.

Remus, Dee, and Virgil try to do magic together. It doesn't always go well but they try.

Roman, Patton, and Logan will try to play demigod but Patton has no clue what he's doing.

Roman and Remus showed Thomas some Disney sing alongs he could play on his tablet. Anton thinks their son has a lovely singing voice but also. they doesn't like hearing him sing at 6 am when they're barely awake. Can someone hold a grudge against a kindergartner? Ask Anton.

[polymorphic-queerptid]

Im your run-of-the-mill trans guy.

I get dysphoria about my chest, sometimes when my fiance and i have sex, when i feel i look too feminine, sound to feminine, or notice other feminine aspects of my body, or even mannerisms i think are feminine.

I hate being misgendered or percieved as feminine, even if its not in a misgendering way. Because i do not want to be seen as a girl in anyway at all.

What makes me different is i want just top surgery and maybe a partial hysto.

Aside from getting my name legally changed (and maybe my gender marker if it ever becomes legal in my birth state), thats all i want medically. Thats it.

No bottom surgery, because im fine with having a vagina. Its what im comfortable with and what i prefer. If i can get rid of periods through a hysto that doesnt require me to take estrogen, that would be even better.

And yep, not even testosterone. This is where some people might not get it. "How could you not want T? Why wouldnt you want to pass better through the changes it brings. Yeah, theres some downsides, but the pros outweigh the cons!" Not for me. For me, what i see as cons heavily outweigh what i see as pros.

Sure, i want a deeper voice, more masculine feature, maybe facial hair some point down the road. What i dont want is a deep voice i end up hating, possibly not being able to sing, gaining weight, thinning hair, possibly getting worse eyesight than i already have, more body hair that i definitely dont need, severe acne, among other things, but most unappealingly to me, clitoral growth.

I can always train my voice to be deeper, i could work out to get a more masculine shaped body, and if i end up wanting facial hair that bad, theres hair growth products for that.

Ive been told by other trans guys that i wasnt actually trans bc i dont want to go on T and they saw that as me not wanting to transition.

If i took T, i would hate my body more then than i do now pre everything.

Not every trans guy wants to transition the same.

Not every trans guy wants to look super masculine or manly.

Not every trans guy wants to pass as cis, or be stealth.

Not every trans guy is unhappy with his birth genitalia, or wants a penis.

Dont put a stamp on whats required for transition. Thats not up to you. Its up to each individual.

Not every trans guy wants top surgery, or bottom surgery, or hormones, or whathaveyou. Im not even just talking about the trans guys that cant, i mean the ones that dont want to either.

Theyre still trans men.

Im still a trans man too.

[trans-guy-positive-blog]

could i get some positivity?? i saw my singing teacher today and she told me not to sing one of my favorite musical songs bc it’s out of my key and asked if it was a guy song. when i said yeah she said “girls can’t typically sing guy songs” and im not out to her but it hurt a lot bc i hc the character as trans and it comforts me to sing it and i was already made fun of for my religion today and i have a holiday in five days and today was a really bad day

If you think you can sing it, do it. One of my very best auditions was with a song where most of the notes were out of my range becaus it was a guys song (i was pre t) and i had t1i work at it but I did it and it went super well. My choir instructor told me not to sing it. You know your voice and ability the best, you should make the right choice for you. But either way im sure you sound amazing -Emmett

[trans-ireland]

So I'm a trans boy i think and I worry about loosing that girl power, that strong independent girl bond thing and feminist attatude, this probably sounds ridiculous I know. I'm also worried about loosing that sensual, sexual aesthetic that some girls can have that I feel guys just can't. How do I deal with loosing this? Am I just being ridiculous? Does this mean I'm not a trans boy?

long story short : absolutely not.

short story long : when i was coming out and starting to transition i worried about some stuff i would lose. i really love music, and i love musicals, and a lot of my favourite songs from musicals are sung by women - a lot of the roles I really admired and would have dreamed of playing were women’s roles. it upset me, deeply. i let myself be upset by it and i let myself be sad about it.

then i went ahead and transitioned and adapted. i love the voice testosterone has given me, it’s far more “me” than the one I had pre-T. I can sing more, new things, that resonate more with me. i’ve started to care about male characters in musicals more and admiring their roles instead.

it’s okay to worry about losing things when we transition, because inevitably we will be sacrificing something. music wasn’t the only thing - i left girl guides, an organisation that had a huge influence on me. you need to remember that you’re able to adapt and grow and change. at your core, your personality will remain the same, and you will find a way of expressing your confidence, independence, and attitude. if at the moment you find that in your identity as a girl, maybe now you can find it in your trans identity. 

you will be okay. if you’re a boy, you’re a boy, whether you worry about those sacrifices or not. i hope things go well for you ✌️

- jay