day121 - voice

28 Dec, 2025

"I'm not who I was before
But who am I now? I wanna speak it out loud
What do you do with your voice if you don't like the sound?"

saiorse dream, angel jelly
broad shoulders!! gold star!!

did you ever voice train?

I didn't. I tried for a while but I hated the way it made me feel, like I was doing an impression of a more desirable person. We're all acting that way most of the time if we can help it, anyway. Why should the voice bother me so much? But my voice has always been important to me.

Unlike a lot of trans women, I was excited for my voice to break during puberty. I knew from videos of myself (and from a lot of people's complaints) that my voice was shrill, thin, and loud. Frankly, anything was better than that.

sing

I sang a lot as a kid¹. I loved it. I don't think I was good at it, but I would do it at school routinely during an hour at the end of each week where we could all perform things in front of the class. When I went to high school I intended to sign up for lessons— finally formalise things, but I was too anxious. The thought of being told "You don't have what it takes" overrode any of my desire to try.

My great grandfather was an opera singer. Not by trade, I think he was actually an architect, but his passion was for music. He died before I was born, but my grandfather spoke of him with such reverence that I always hoped my singing was enough to make him proud, or that I had inherited my talent from him.

I still sing. Entirely untrained but self-taught in posture, breath, and the like. I have a good ear for pitch and can maintain it well. I can find and perform harmonies intuitively. I still think my voice lacks something essential, some quality that will forever relegate me to backup vocals. Not lead material. Maybe I mimic too much, trying to impersonate vocalists in the songs I attempt— and maybe that means I never developed a voice of my own.

On Christmas night I sang Fiona Apple to/and with a beautiful girl in her parents kitchen. I remember how confident and charming I tried to act. She liked it, I think, but the whole time I was terrified that I was just embarrassing myself. I've sang to/and with a lot of beautiful girls ² and I think I've mostly learned to hide the fact that it's when I feel most vulnerable. All it would take is a sour look and I would crumble. Even a silent reaction would prompt me to ask "Was that anything?", with barely concealed insecurity.

talk

The voice and personality I developed to match during puberty was dry and sarcastic, lacking tonal variation. It was sharp and sometimes snarky. I didn't have looks, so I convinced myself I needed to double down on intelligence, or at least the appearance of it.

when I started performing standup, I noticed myself sanding all the edges off my voice. it would have been such a layup to be the low-energy, sharp-witted comic. I don't know why I didn't lean into it. a theatre reviewer once wrote of me "[she] has a voice like honeyed mead". it was hard to explain to my friends why that comment unsettled me.

people tell me a lot that I intimidate them initially when we first meet. I think it's my voice. I think my voice and the way I talk makes people perceive me as less of a woman. When I go to public toilets with cis friends, I refuse to speak, even if they're making conversation, out of the fear that someone will accuse me of not belonging there.

sometimes when I say sincere things, people joke about how it sounds sarcastic. I've tried softening myself about a hundred different ways, but I can't escape my alleged butch-ness. I wonder if my most recent love notices my bodysnatcher-esque theft of some of her vocal affectations. funny how most of the women that call you "transition goals" are, themselves that same thing for you. Will we forever covet what the other has?

write

this blog has been my most sustained writing effort, and having cause to go back and read old entries, I viscerally feel the distance between who I was and who I am. I think I write more interestingly now, I'm more playful: probably a side effect of no longer forcing myself to say something every single night. in so many of those early entries, I sound so fragile. so childlike. now i have a lot more to feel good about, more experience, more people who impress me that I wish to impress in return.

and still when people tell me they like how I write, I really don't see the magic. I'll just keep trying until I feel it.

"I guess I'm still tryna figure that out."

saiorse dream, angel jelly
broad shoulders!! gold star!!

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#dear-luci