Overall summary: TESTOSTERONE IS A MUSCLE BUILDING STEROID. VOCAL Cords ARE A MUSCLE. TESTOSTERONE WILL RAPIDLY INCREASE CHORD MASS WHETHER YOU HAVE ROOM IN YOUR VOCAL BOX OR NOT. THIS CAN CREATE VOCAL DYSFUNCTIONS LIKE VOCAL INSTABILITY, INABILITY TO PROJECT THE VOICE, DISCOMFORT, AND A WEIRD SOUNDING VOICE. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOUR DOCTOR ONLY PUTS YOU ON A SMALL DOSE FOR A MONTH TO LET YOUR BODY ADJUST TO IT, BUT THEN RAPIDLY INCREASES YOUR HORMONE DOSAGE TO MAKE YOUR HORMONES REACH CIS MALE LEVELS OR HIGHER (RAPID SUPER-SPEED PUBERTY). Looking back in hindsight, I would’ve preferred to be put on a very small dosage over the span of years (3, 4 or 5 years), so it would better match the speed of a natural puberty and avoid bizzarre situations like this. Not only would the vocal dysfunction likely be less severe, but I would’ve had more time to think about my decisions/transition as it happens slowly and gradually like real cis male puberties. As someone who ultimately realized that transitioning wasn’t right for me at all, I am very annoyed at how fast it all happened and how the end result was nothing like what I was told it would be from my doctors. I was told I’d have a cis male voice and only 4 months into the puberty, my voice turned into this and remained this way for the rest of the 2 year duration of the puberty. And now it’s stuck like this for the eternity. I didn’t foresee this happening.

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Below are both an audio and a transcription (both of which say the SAME exact thing). So if you prefer to read the text instead of listening, then i attached the subtitles.

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Last time I posted my natural/true voice on here, i had someone DM me and say “your voice is so awful that i could only listen one minute in”. Guys, I’m already well aware how my voice sounds. But I have nothing to hide, from anyone. This is my reality and it’s my responsibility to be open and honest about that to spread awareness and take time to SHOW gender-confused girls/women what the reality of having a testosterone-affected voice as an adult woman CAN sound like for them.

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My own pride aside, gender questioning/confused women need to be shown the reality of what can/may happen to them, just like I wish I had been shown.

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End of disclaimer.

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Audio- https://voca.ro/1dhiHpyFGudB

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Text-

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I 100% believe that there should be more awareness about the vocal changes that happen (unique) to biological women that take testosterone. Because biological women that want to go on testosterone, we are just told that our vocal changes are going to be just like a cis male puberty. And that's not true at all. For some of us, it can be similar to that, especially if we took testosterone as a minor, as a teenager, because if you take it prior to being an adult, then it's going to be more like the real thing.

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But I'm mainly talking about people that take it as an adult as their second puberty, and it's not the same. So long story short, a lot of biological women that go on testosterone are put on very high doses of testosterone very abruptly. And what this causes is that it causes the vocal cords to thicken like crazy before the actual vocal tract has time to grow along with it first. In a typical male puberty, the vocal tract is growing along with the vocal cords and that just creates more of a normal sound. But for women that go on this steroid very abruptly, their throat does not have time to grow in size like that. And also, whenever you're an adult, your vocal tract size is basically gonna stay the same. It's not gonna get that much bigger. Just like your bones aren't gonna grow, the vocal tract is not really going to grow either. Or if it does, it will be minimal. So for biological women who go on testosterone as an adult, they're still most likely going to have a very small vocal tract. They're still going to have- basically the vocal tract size of a woman, but they're going to have thick vocal cords.

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That's not normal. At all. And that's not how cis men's voices work. It's not the same at all. And that is what causes the stereotypical trans guy voice. You can hear it in my voice. I have the voice. I literally have the voice. Why do I have the voice? Because I was suddenly put on a crazy amount of testosterone very fast. And you can hear it. Listen to this voice, okay? This is what it sounds like whenever you have thick vocal cords, but a small vocal tract like a woman. This is what it sounds like.

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My vocal chords are thick, more so like a man, but my actual vocal tract is small like a woman. This is why I don't sound like a cis man. This is not how cis men talk, and I don't sound like a woman either. I sound like a weird mix up mashup thing because that's what I am now. It's so misleading to be telling women that if they go on testosterone, their vocal changes are going to be just like cis men. I can't even begin to explain how untrue that is. That is so false and misleading and terrible to tell someone because when I went on testosterone, I thought I was going to sound just like a normal guy. And I don't know, I didn't think I would sound like a weird freak. I'll just summarize it that way. I didn't think I would sound like a freak. I thought I would just sound normal and like a guy, like I wanted to. And I know a lot of people are going to say “But there's vocal training. Trans men can do vocal training and then they can sound like cis men.”

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That's not my point. My point is that biological women are being misled and being told that their changes are going to be just like cis men. And that's not true. It's just frustrating for me because I went on testosterone when I was 18, and that's very young, and a lot of 18 year olds are immature and they don't know a lot of stuff and they look to others for guidance.

And I was looking at the gender studies and all that- the studies about gender transition and what it does. I was looking at that for guidance. I did do research, I did. And all of the quote on quote “research” was just saying that it's just like a cis male puberty. And it's not, clearly. I was on testosterone for two years and now I just sound like a woman who went on testosterone.

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For anyone who doesn't know what resonance is, resonance is just basically the size of your vocal tract and how that makes your voice sound. Depending on how big your vocal tract is, your voice can sound completely different. If you have a big vocal tract, there will be more area for the voice to echo off of. So it'll sound like your voice has more of a large sound to it.

Like, imagine a big giant or like, a big man. It'll sound like that. If your vocal tract is small, there's not going to be a lot of space for the voice to echo off of. So the voice is going to sound a lot more confined, like it's in a small space or a small room, and therefore it's going to sound squeaky. It can sound nasally. It can sound like you're on helium and you're obviously not on helium, it’s just that your vocal tract is small.

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So whenever we think about the stereotypical trans guy voice, that is what it is. And I also want to point out the fact that a lot of us detrans women- from my observation and my personal experience, we experience throat pain as a result from having vocal cords that are too thick for our throat. Not all of us experience this, but it's definitely common enough to be warned about this, because I really would've liked to know that. I do experience vocal soreness in my throat and I can handle it, it’s tolerable, but I don't know when it will go away or if it ever will. And that is very frustrating because I don't know if I would've agreed to this if I knew that that was a possible side effect.

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Long story short, I am just very disappointed in the healthcare system and how they misled me into thinking that I would just have the exact same vocal changes as a cis man. And that's so wrong. A lot of us don't. Like I said, if you go on testosterone as a teenager, you're more likely to avoid these issues that I just talked about. And also just depending on genetics, some people can avoid this a little bit more. But for a lot of us, this is going to be the reality. This is not a cis man puberty, it’s not.

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For cis men, their vocal tracts are MADE to handle their big vocal cords. It's made for that. But for biological women, it's not. And also if you ask an artificial intelligence bot, like the “sage” bot and you ask it- “do trans men's vocal tracts grow to the same size as cis men, when they take testosterone as an adult?” The bot is just going to tell you that the

evidence on that subject is inconclusive and no one is really sure.

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So …no one is sure of anything about anything regarding transitioning. So if your

doctor seems “soOoO” confident that you're gonna experience the same vocal changes as cis men, that's a red flag. If the doctor is that confident, that's a red flag because the science is not even there to back that up. There's no, like, scientific studies on this.

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And also, the proof is right there. The proof is the voices. Have you ever heard trans men's voices? A lot of them sound cartoonish. Like this. A lot of them sound like that. (if they're not actively trying to make their voice sound more manly.)

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For the rest of my life, I'm going to sound like a weird cartoon character forever.

And I feel like if I had known that I would not have went on testosterone, but everywhere I was looking just told me that I'd have a cis male puberty and that I would just sound like a cis man. But clearly that's not true. So that's all I really had to say.

I'm just popping in on here really quickly to add in on something because I realized listening back that I didn't talk much about the throat pain aspect. The throat soreness, for me, it just feels like being sick. Not an extreme sickness, not like strep throat, but just a little bit of a sore throat. I avoid talking in real life anytime that I can because I really hate talking in real life and I avoid it- not only because the actual voice itself and how, ugh, annoying it is, but the soreness aspect. Talking does not feel comfortable. I think for human beings and animals too, making verbal sounds is supposed to feel comfortable 'cause that's what your throat is made for. But for me, talking does not feel comfortable. It doesn't feel natural and it feels like I'm not supposed to be doing it. It's hard to explain because for most people, whenever they talk, they don't feel anything and that's normal. That's good. But for me, talking feels like, it doesn't feel right and it doesn't feel like I'm supposed to be talking. Like I said in the other audio, it would've been fantastic if I would've been warned about that. I think a throat doctor might be able to help and know what kind of like vocal therapies I could do to minimize pain. But it's just very annoying to even have to deal with this at all.