I finally started voice training again this morning and holy crap I do not like putting effort in because it reminds me of how far I am from sounding remotely feminine... I might have cried a lil lol

I really need some one-on-one time with someone who can teach me and give me pointers for exercises. I can read 10,000 articles, blog posts, forum comments, and the like, but 1 hour with someone interactive who can literally see/feel my throat as I speak would be waaaaaaaay more beneficial.

I went thrifting yesterday and the other people ended up getting busy so it was just my partner and I, and I let them do all the speaking. The one or two times I did say anything it was just a small squeak of "thanks" and "sorry" and a couple "mhmm"s.

I'm hoping I can power through the emotions...

Reading other people's experiences is definitely a good thing for me, so thank you so much for sharing! I'm hoping I can have the same positive attitude soon

Here is one advice: Singing!

Maybe it does not help with the conscious effort of voice change, that uses a different brain region, but it helps you train making noises at louder levels, holding pitches, etc. It trains the same muscles you later use for speaking and in my case it also boosted my confidence quite a bit. I did it alongside my own training regime and it made things a lot easier!

Also I used an app called Voice Tools to monitor how I was speaking. Got it from the Play Store, is relly fun to use alongside.

i’m really happy that you enjoy voice training. it’s hard and discouraging for a lot of people. if you like it, you’ll actually train and you’ll end up with a voice you love before you know it.

i was also lucky to take to it so positively. what worked for me was a few months of practice where i’d train for 15-45 minutes everyday but use my old voice otherwise. then i switched 100%. literally 100% fem, no exceptions. it was pretty rough at first and i was pretty self conscious about it but very quickly it became second nature. i imagine it’s similar in some sense to learning a language by immersion.

definitely save some recordings of yourself as you progress. it’s really cool to hear how your voice changes throughout your training. keep recording after you “graduate” too. my voice is still changing and refining and i haven’t done any formal training in a year or so. so long as you can hear yourself and pay attention you’ll never find yourself backsliding.

I haven't started training yet but i do get a lot of voice dysphoria. I think i would learn better with a teacher and your teacher sounds lovely! I appreciate you talking about the good parts because it is scary and hearing you talk about it maybe takes some of that fear away.