Androgynous Voices

Learn more about finding androgynous voices, this page is designed with nonbinary people in mind, the topics discussed should be relevant to anyone who is interested in "voice neutralisation".


What is androgyny in voice?

Generally when people think of androgyny they think of things that would be hard to classify as either masculine or feminine, and this ambiguity is what most people take to mean as androgynous.

For this reason maybe the most important questions to ask ourselves are -
How do we percieve androgyny?

and

What do we want for our own voice?

How do people hear voices?

Unfortunately due to the highly gendered nature of many societies, when most people hear a voice their tendency is to sort the voice into a box. Man or Woman. Boy or Girl. Typically this sorting is done on autopilot, without conscious thought - because of this a ton of factors can tend to get involved.

Beyond just gender, listeners tend to infer a lot of things about the speaker - not always correctly of course. This can include how relaxed a speaker sounds, their age, where they are from location or their accent, or even their education and socioeconomic background.


How can I find androgyny in my own voice?

In searching for androgynous voices its relevant to note that typically we can find them through selectively applying features identified more broadly in voice masculinization or feminization. Any voice is made up of the combination between the acoustic signatures we are producing through behaviour i.e. vocal weight, resonance and pitch as well as the stylistic elements we choose to employ.


Androgynous Archetypes
Listed below are some potential "archetypes" of what may constitute androgyny to certain listeners, however, its important to note that voices aren't entirely static so these archetypes are by default oversimplifications.


  • Masculine leaning acoustic signatures with feminine stylistic features

  • Feminine leaning acoustic signatures with masculine stylistic features

  • Lots of variation, moving between masculine and feminine vocal qualities frequently

  • "true neutral" a mix of masculine and feminine stylistic features and pitch, vocal weight and resonance in a middling place

  • High resonance, low pitch, low vocal weight or higher vocal weight - stylistic features play large roles in voices like these

  • Higher pitch, low resonance and low vocal weight


There are of course a ton more voice vibes that people may consider androgynous so these are just here to give you some ideas about voices qualities to think about and explore. If you're interested in cultivating an androgynous voice I highly recommended that you start accruing a playlist of voices that you perceive as androgynous, or more generally just of voices that you find appealing. Ultimately people will perceive our voices however they perceive them, for that reason it is most fundamentally important that we find vocal qualities we like and that we feel represent us.




If you're interested in taking voice lessons to explore more androgynous voices, whether you're trans or not, consider taking a look at the book a lesson page.


Here's a playlist of some voices that you may perceive as androgynous, though there are definitely a ton more voices that could be perceived as androgynous.

Are there any voices here that especially appeal to you?


If you come across any voices that you personally perceive as androgynous consider throwing them in the #repository-of-voices channel on the discord and label them as androgynous ^_^ we're always looking for more cool voices.

And of course if you are exploring any androgynous voices feel free to share them in the voice exploration channel for fun, or if you're looking for feedback then sharing them in the critique critique is always a good shout. If you want to join the discord then head on over to the Community page to find out more.



Playlist link:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL054AsyPIr1ZS18DKdw_5r3MhsO1fhgTP


If you do end up looking through the playlist it is encouraged that you listen through the sections and maybe have a go at seeing if you can mimic some of the voices.