Congress Paper Abstract

The Ftm Changing Voice

ALEXANDROS N. CONSTANSIS, MUSIC / GENDER STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF READING - UK.

"In a drop of water
The child was searching for his voice".

F. G. Lorca - El NinoMudo (The Dumb Child) - transl. Roy Campbell

Like most of us, I started having clear indications of my Gender Dysphoria since my early childhood. Nevertheless, growing up in the very transgender unfriendly Greek capital during the late sixties and seventies though, made it more than clear to me that silencing the facts of my ’condition’ was the only viable option. So I rarely spoke or otherwise my deep and strangely for that young a child male-like voice and manners would put me right on the spot. However, I seldom managed to avoid being the constant scapegoat and this lasted for all of my years before reaching adulthood. That constant struggle though never turned me against my voice. In fact my singing became my only solace during those very dark days of my life. Where there was enforced silence at school or at home, there was also my entrapped boy’s side singing when alone. In fact my voice used to transform my experiences into stories and fairytales not only releasing me from my wrong-bodied prison but also practically enabling me to have the life I always wanted for myself. That is I believe the reason that when later in life I started feeling more confident, I finally became a professional singer. Amateur or professional though, my voice has always remained for me the way of revealing my true self. Years later in London and only as recently as 2002 I took the decision that I didn’t want to carry on living in fairytales and finally let that boy reach his way to manhood. Yet, I needed my voice with me to my journey. This following paper describes the way that I manage to achieve this, contrary to the usual views about loss of FTM voices in transition.

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