He was fascinated by my range

When I think back to the time when I began to seriously consider transitioning, I was driven by “gender dysphoria” rather than “sex dysphoria”. The phrase that summed it up in my mind was, “I want to live in the world as a man,” rather than dissatisfaction with particular parts or physical attributes. But my adult female voice was one of the specific gendered things that had just seemed wrong to me for a long time. Whenever I heard a recording, it was “too high,” although it was not high for a female voice. But I was surprised at how much I liked the sound of my post-transition voice after it had settled down. It didn’t go down much; I’m a lyric (high) tenor. But my voice began to sound “right” to me in a way it hadn’t before.

For about six months, some years ago (but well after transition), I took voice lessons from a teacher who had performed for a decade as a baritone with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. His signature role was the The Dutchman in Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman”. He favored the ‘stentorian” Wagner sound, as he put it. He was fascinated by my range, which went up to around F6 in vocal exercises, though I think Bb4 was the highest I ever attained in an actual song. I’d see phosphenes (those illusory darting silver lights behind the eyelids) from the pressure in my “mask” required to get as high and as loud as he wanted. He was excited about teaching me the tenor part to “William Tell,” which has 9 C5’s (tenor “high C”). He had no clue that I was trans, and I never told him, though I sometimes felt guilty about it.

I didn’t stay with it, because it was expensive, and I didn’t care enough to  put the work in. I’m not much of an opera fan, anyway. I did it to become a better choral singer. But it pleased me that my voice now had a valuable quality, simply because it was relatively rare.

BC

/in response to http://transmanconfessions.tumblr.com/post/94984347934/i-love-hearing-my-voice-now-when-i-speak-and-sing