The Voice Book for Trans and Non-Binary People: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Authentic Voice and Communication

by Matthew Mills, Gillie Stoneham

Written by two specialist speech and language therapists, this book explains how voice and communication therapy can help transgender and non-binary people to find their authentic voice. It gives a thorough account of the process, from understanding the vocal mechanism through to assimilating new vocal skills and new vocal identity into everyday situations, and includes exercises to change pitch, resonance and intonation. Each chapter features insider accounts from trans and gender diverse individuals who have explored or are exploring voice and communication related to their gender expression, describing key aspects of their experience of creating and maintaining a voice that feels true to them.

This guide is an essential, comprehensive source for trans and non-binary individuals who are interested in working towards achieving a different, more authentic voice, and will be a valuable resource for speech and language therapists/pathologists, voice coaches and healthcare professionals.

Genres: Queer, Transgender, Nonfiction, LGBT, Gender

226 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 18, 2017

Reviews

[Reader of Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very informative, and I learned a lot about how voices work, and how you can influence your voice and keep it healthy. There were some weird things about it, though. I don't really understand why, while in the book there are about a dozen exercises to help you make the pitch of your voice higher, the only thing that was said about lowering the pitch of your voice is that it's a good idea to keep track of your voice changes while on testosterone, as if that's all there is to it. Surely there are exercises to lower the pitch of your voice, just as there are exercises to get it higher? Not everyone who wants a lower pitch can or wants to take testosterone, after all, and, personally, I've been on testosterone for almost three years and my voice still sounds the same, so it's not a guarantee, either (which is why I bought the book).

Another odd thing is that the exercises to gender-neutralise your voice are always the exact same exercises as the ones to masculinise your voice; they were always paired together, saying that the exercise can be used to both masculinise and gender-neutralise your voice. This seems to make the assumption that in order to make your voice more gender neutral, it needs to be lower? What about people who would like their voice to be higher in order to make it more gender neutral? This seems to play into the idea that many people have that non-binary people are all AFAB, which is, of course, not true at all. There aren't any exercises specifically for gender-neutralising your voice, no matter which direction you want to go in; there isn't much information about making your voice more neutral at all, and they also don't suggest that the exercises to feminise your voice can be used to make your voice more gender neutral. It's very, very strange.

On the plus side, the exercises are explained well, and there are images to illustrate what you should be doing. It also talks about how to move on from the exercises to using your new voice in real life situations, and how to make it your own, as well as talking about the benefits of using group settings to train your voice with other trans people, and singing. Throughout the book, trans and/or non-binary people who have changed their voice with speech therapy offer their experiences, which was also nice.

[Christine Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your body can feel like it's betraying you with Gender Dysphoria. Upset by your appearance? Shut your eyes and avoid mirrors. But an incongruous voice? You hear that night and day. So this book is invaluable. The authors show how speech therapy really can move mountains and produce happy confident speakers, at home in their own skin

[Erin Mcleod · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended for anyone looking for an accessible resource for changing voice as part of gender transitioning.
Written by two speech-language pathologists for a non-clinical audience.

[Quinn Aeryn Huffman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books was kind of helpful, but I still feel like I'm looking for a good overview on how to ungender my t poisoned voice. The writers seemed to assume that non-binary people were exclusively afab people wanting to masculinize their voice without using T.

[Erin Skomra · Rating 5 out of 5]

My voice teacher points out that there are some unique advantages (in terms of voice feminization) to the dialect of British English they speak. That is they may be overlooking some of the softening that speakers from other parts of the English speaking world may need.

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really thorough. Going to need to read at least a second time and keep on my desk to go through the exercises regularly.

[Antonio B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for people who have done no prior voice training. Since I was a month or two into voice training by the time I read this, I didn't find it quite as useful.