Changing your voice: tips to convincingly sound like a girl

Written by Elise Wren

Shaping your silhouette, doing makeup, choosing the right clothes and a flattering wig: those are surely the very first steps any trans woman or cross dresser have to overcome to start trying to pass as a woman in public, but there is one more crucial detail that might be even harder to go trough: changing your voice. If you want to pose as girl in public, you need to change not only the way you look, but also the way you sound, or else, they will spot you as anything other than a cis woman.

Your voice is a really important part of the illusion you might want to create. If you go out, you’ll probably need to talk to other people in some occasions, and if you sound too male, you may attract some unwanted some attention, and it could just ruin your day. On the other hand, if you speak in the right way, you will be passing as an actual girl in no time. With that in mind, i bring you some tips to help you, and if you follow them, you will be soon speaking convincingly like a woman.

1- Drink water

It may sound obvious, but speaking in a voice that is not your own, might be a little difficult. If you do not drink enough water, you can end up drying your throat, and it will start to hurt. So, make sure to carry around a bottle of some fresh cold water with you, and take a sip every now and then while you speak.

2- Pull up your Adam’s apple

The main biological difference that affects the voice between men and woman is located on the throat, and it is called “Adam’s apple”. Its not much more than a protuberance formed by cartilage, but it presses down our larynx and makes our voices sound deeper, as it if it was coming from our chests. 

To overcome that, you might want to pull your Adam’s apple up, bringing up your voice as well. Try swallowing: that movement brings the apple up, and once you do so, you may be able to find it with your fingers. When speaking like that, you can try to make your voice come from your throat instead of your chest, and thus it shall sound more feminine.

3- Tighten your throat

It is not as hard as it sounds. Push the “walls” of your throat together, making as little room for your vocal chords as you can. It will help you to increase a little the pitch of your voice, and its useful because the pitch of female voices is often a bit higher than the pitch from male voices, making it a little bit more distinguishable.

4- Speak softly

Try to speak in a slow-passed way, and also try to smile a bit when doing so, because it will help your voice to go trough your throat in a higher pitch. Doing a “fluctuation” effect also helps, so try to emphasize a few sounds while speaking. Also, practice your vocabulary and sonority by paying attention on real girls speaking and try to mimic their voices and their way to speak.

Doing some sort of “whisper” will help you to identify which muscles you’ll need to use when speaking. Men and women use different parts of their throats to speak, so you must know how to properly use the same one the girls use. Start by whispering and raising the volume, and you shall feel that your voice is coming from a different part of your body  

5- Acting and impersonation

As i said before, you will want to pay close attention on how real woman speak. Try to understand how they move their lips, and speak in a similar way. Also, try to some sort of accent. Focusing on the letters R and S is a good point to start, and you can keep adding as many specific singularities as you feel you need. 

Remember, you are trying to speak as someone else, so you need to know who you are trying to impersonate when speaking. Pick a pattern, and stick to it until you’ve learned how to speak as it any time you want to. 

6- Practice

It all comes with practice. Just find a place you feel comfortable with and train your voice using all these tips. The longer you practice, the easier it will be to sound like a girl, so take your time. If possible, ask someone for feedback, and train with a friend to know if you are convincing enough. You can do it via cellphone call or via discord if you have a microphone.

And that’s it, follow these simple tips and practice for some time, and soon you shall truly sound like the girl you are meant to be!

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