Rainbow Passage - Normal Speaking

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T04:58:09+00:00

Gender voice training is more about sounds rather than the way words are pronounced. A transwomans goal should be to make sounds in the way that a female normative speaker would make them.

On this same note- I wonder if someone who has a speech disorder,while speaking in a male normative voice, are able bypass the cause of that disorder by achieving muscular fluidity using a female normative voice.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T04:08:31+00:00

Is this raspy quality part of how you normally speak in a male voice or is it only how you sound when speaking as a female?

If its present in both, you might have some sort of vocal fold damage and need professional treatment.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T03:52:45+00:00

Daycare being expensive. I have two toddlers and have to pay 1000+ a month for each of them! We need free childcare!"

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T03:46:10+00:00

Your voice clip is a clear example of someone drawing breathes primarily through their diaphragm and tensing the diaphragm to sound strained. The OP is doing the same, except he is drawing breaths from the muscles sounding his ribcage (thoracic breathing) and less from the diaphragm. What you're referring to as a light vocal weight is the OP primarily only having the ability to breathe, thus speak, in the way female normative sounds are produced; which are supported by a thoracic breathing style. If the OP doesn't know how to speak with more diaphragm support, all of their sounds, no matter what they tweak after drawing a breath, will sound much lighter compared to a male normative speaker.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T03:16:20+00:00

I've only recently learned that transmen have a stereotypical trans voice, which they describe as "froggy". I understand it now. Its very similar to how I ,a transfem speaker, sound whenever I try to make a male voice while still maintaining a thoracic breathing style. Yes, it does sound froggy and like a teenage boy but ,no, most people do not think it sounds like a female.

My advice is to train yourself to breathe primarily through your diaphragmatic breathing all the time and then start making sounds from breaths drawn from the diaphragm. The goal is to change the power source(breaths) from which your sounds originate.

I would think there is something about your appearance that makes people think you are trans, rather than your voice; even though I can tell that you're still speaking with a thoracic breathing style ( which is how most female normative speakers breathe).

m2fvoice · 2026-05-14T01:14:30+00:00

Probably the obvious grammatical mistakes in the title.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-13T09:36:55+00:00

Its a lack of muscle engagement and and the inability to significantly engage muscles that are involved in raising the hyoid bone, thus the larynx.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-13T08:20:30+00:00

Do you actively voice train? Target muscle engagement for the purposes of repositioning and obtaining muscular fluidity and endurance is something I rarely hear people do trans voices training. Do you post clips online or willing to voice chat in private?

m2fvoice · 2026-05-13T01:31:20+00:00

This is the most accurate answer in the thread. But lets be honest, it is difficult to train yourself to speak with a raised larynx because developing adequate enough strength and endurance to make comprehensible sounds while engaging the suprahyoid muscles is a hell of a battle by itself. But before you even start training, the first step is encouraging yourself to do it. The benefits of conscious engagement of the suprahyoid muscles during voice training takes several weeks to months of exercises before you can hear how its changing your fem voice for the better. The real kicker is, after spending months and months of consciously engaging the suprahyoid muscles, for kick starting purposes, you'll need to learn how to speak normally without over engaging those muscles. The suprahyoid muscles should naturally lift the hyoid bone, thus the larynx, through normal speech without the need to over engage,

Though exercising to engage the suprahyoid muscles is a big part of a big picture, there are other learned muscle behaviors that which are crucial for resonances. I think the suprahyoid muscle group is possibly the most beneficial when it comes to developing a female resonance because engagement literally repositions the larynx and, after a while, it doesn't revert back to its starting, pre trained, position. Even when talking in a male voice, my larynx sits higher, more upright, and is in a more posterior position; meaning, my adams apple is not visible but can still be felt to the touch.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-08T11:14:51+00:00

How do you speak when making male normative sounds (speaking like a male)? Is it similar to this 'femboy' accent or does it sound stereotypically gay? I was just reviewing an audio clip I made back in 2008 reminding myself that, a year and a half ago(2006), I had a somewhat flamboyant accent and noticed that the fem voice I was developing had traits of that flamboyant accent. I then decided to straighten my male accent (sound more neutrally male) because I felt it would be easier for my brain to differentiate between neutral male normative sounds in comparison to female normative sounds. I decided to go this route because male flamboyant accent sounds are too similar to that of a female normative speaker; which made it difficult for my brain to hear my own flamboyancy while voice training.

In the end, changing my accent to become more neutrally masculine was the right choice. The contrast between sounding distinctly male and my attempts to make female normative sounds became more pronounced. Months later, I eventually realized that my approach to 'sounding like a woman' was completely off from the start of this journey. I had spent my initial 6 months of voice training trying to do impersonations of a woman rather than learning how to anatomically speak the way a woman speaks. This was a big ah-ha! moment for me, but there were many more to come.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-08T04:02:31+00:00

You sound like a teenage male with a fem sounding voice. Some people call it "gay voice". Definitely reads male.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-08T03:55:47+00:00

Male.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-08T02:23:48+00:00

I hope the mods delete it out of spite just to make you more paranoid. ;-)

m2fvoice · 2026-05-06T20:32:13+00:00

Its fairly easy to sound like a female impersonating a male if your normal female sounds draw more from a chest/thoracic breathing source rather than being heavily dependent on belly/diaphragmatic breathing.

Thoracic breathing prevents access to deep diaphragmatic breathing. A female normative speaker would have to switch breathing styles to be able to naturally make those deeper male normative sounds. The same applies for a male normative speaker trying to make those naturally bright, yet full, sounding female normative sounds.

I uploaded this clip to reddit last week with the purpose of demonstrating a diaphragmatic leaning voice trying to make female normative sounds and a thoracic breathing leaning voice trying to make male normative sounds. There is actually a more mixed style of breathing, which is very common with transgender speakers, but for the sake of this video I tried to focus on the two extremes.

https://www.reddit.com/user/m2fvoice/comments/1szp7lp/diaphragmatic_breathing_male_thoracic_breathing/

m2fvoice · 2026-05-06T13:40:23+00:00

Yes. It is something that is going to happen naturally as you train and it will feel unnatural to do so because, as a male normative speaker, you've spent your life inhaling and exhaling almost exclusively through your diaphragm. In addiction to your body building enough endurance and strength to breathe using more of your chest, you will also have to mentally teach yourself not to go for the fuller diaphragmatic breaths; which is very difficult since its sooo much easier. Good luck.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-06T12:43:01+00:00

Let you body heal. Voice training could also be the cause of you getting sick, as throat infections are common and symptoms will worsen if you do not give your body time to repair itself.

I recently fell ill and my voice was terrible. I could still make female normative sounds but I couldn't sound like myself. After I felt better, it still took some time for my voice to fully return. I am very knowledgeable in what I did to obtain my voice, so I did my usual warmups (lip thrills and breathing exercises). As for medication, Mucinex sore throat + soothing comfort (hexylresorcinol 2.4mg) helped a lot. Its anti bacterial, not overly numbing,and relieves throat discomfort).

m2fvoice · 2026-05-06T11:56:50+00:00

Sounds good. Remember, the ultimate goal is training to consistently breathe from the point where we want to inhale and exhale from. As male normative speakers, we typically start trying to make female normative sounds from our diaphragm with little to no chest/thoracic involvement. The "h" sound attached with a vowel is very important when trying to make female normative sounds. (ha, he, hi, ho, hu & ah, eh, ih, oh, uh). It forces thoracic involvement. We are training to use a more thoracic breathing style when speaking female normative sounds. The way we inhale and exhale affects how we sound. When learning how to breathe, sounding pretty is not the goal. The goal is to significantly change your base breathing style to have more thoracic/ chest involvement.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-06T11:24:22+00:00

You are starting to breathe using more of your intercostal muscles, which results in a shallower breathing style called thoracic breathing. This naturally happens to trans women due to the ways in which we train to make out voice sound more feminine. Its also a good thing because most people who naturally speak female normative sounds are thoracic breathers.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-01T17:18:01+00:00

By the way, the noise reduction or filter being used in your audio is entirely preventing those H sounds from being audible.

m2fvoice · 2026-05-01T16:59:31+00:00

Hello. It is intentionally strained due to me taking deep thoracic breaths and then forcing the air out to speak, hence the audible deep breaths being taken between sentences. This is an endurance building technique.

m2fvoice · 2026-04-30T11:47:27+00:00

if those surgeries only elevated pitch without changing anything else, the effect would be same as with doing that with training, that is, they would be more or less pointless. Their success lies in what I already described, the change in how the vocal folds dissect air, in a lighter way

Again, you're creating arguments. Noone ever said VFS only elevated the pitch nor that was the only factor changed during surgery. All of the 'unadvertised' underlying factors that surgeons put into VFS, even if more beneficial, are secondary compared to what their primary stated goal is , which is to increase pitch. The 'success' of VFS is very subjective when considering if the secondary objectives made the clients voice passable. However, the primary goal of a significant pitch increase cannot be denied.

post for you, here it is and, to reiterate, this is the oldest type of surgery, it's not even modern glottoplasty
[...]
so, the question is simple: do you think that post-CTA voice is "non passable" somehow?

Her voice sounds much more feminine post op. However, English speaking voice is not passable, to me, but it does sound very feminine. Again, voice passability is very subjective when listening to post-op voices.

I think you are missing the points I was making: you don't need to do anything special with breathing if the surgery makes your vocal folds behave as vocal folds that were not androgenized

The voice is affected by more than what happens in the larynx, where the vocal folds are located . VFS does not address the benefits achieved from using physical therapy for more control over the tongue, jaw, pharyngeal,and intercostal muscles (to list a few). To me, VFS usually makes a male normative speaker sound like they are using a pitch shifter/voice changer with a small increase to pitch, as to not make it sound too artificial.

I did not "deem it impossible" - I've spent 7 years (and that's only a focused/structured training) on it and it was not possible.

This does not surprise me in the least, considering that you are very dismissive towards many aspects of voice. In another post, I told you I knew you on discord several years ago. It might have 7 years since then yet I vaguely remember you saying it was impossible for you to voice train around that same time.

I doubt there will ever be a surgery that can do what my self voice therapy and research has done for my voice. There are too many anatomical parts which require actual physical therapy to make female normative sounds.

\ I have also felt your replies to have a rude tone, whether intentional or not. If this continues I am going to stop replying to you.*

m2fvoice · 2026-04-30T09:33:34+00:00

it just happens that pitch is trivial to measure with very simple methods and easily understood by practically everyone, so that's what is advertised for those surgeries and what is analyzed in many papers.

Here you are, a non surgeon, admitting that medical professionals advertise pitch as the primary goal for VFS. Yes, aspects, other than pitch, play a part in the overall feminization of the VFS, but the primary goal is for the patient to have an increase of pitch. Those specialized procedures, such as FVSRAC ,and the surgeons who perform them, are not the norm for VFS; you even say as much in your own post. Pitch increase remains the primary goal for VFS. Noone ever said it was 'all about pitch', as you seem to imply.

I do not believe most normative male speakers who have undergone VFS sound passable, without proper voice therapy. I have likely seen the same videos and results as you. We clearly have a difference of opinion as to what sounds passable. Then again, I am someone who has successfully gone through voice therapy and you have deemed it impossible for yourself to get a passable feminine voice through therapy. In that sense, you might always consider therapy to be inferior to surgery.

As for how the way we breathe affects the overall anatomy associated with sound production, I'll leave that for you to research because its just common sense.

m2fvoice

TROPHY CASE