Dr Lorrimar told me I should be able to get a reccomendation to a voice therapist, as part of the treatment, just so I can let either my GP or the PCT know does anybody here know of one attached to the NHS in the North West

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It's not what you're born with
It's what you choose to bear
It's not how big your share is
It's how much you can share
It's not the fights you dreamed of
It's those you really fought
It's not what you're given
It's what you do with what you've got

hello becky,
i go to christella antoni at charing cross.her phone number is on the transhealth website.she would probably be able to recommend a speech therapist in your area if you got in touch with her.hope thats of some help.
rachel.

Try not to end up with a NHS speech therapist. They can't really do much to improve your voice to make it more feminine.

Only to help you be more confident and any other problem that you have have from using you female voice (Breathing, too high pitched etc).

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"I'll take all the blame."

Book of 'Being Welsh'; Gwen; Chapter 12; Verse 5.

i know that christella trains other speech therapists in this area and she specialises in trans speech therapy.the royal college of speech and language therapists might be able to give you a name of a therapist also.
rachel.

Hey Becky,

I'm not sure how up to date this information is, but there used to be an NHS Speech Therapist called Carol Woods who was based at the Speech therapy Department of Fairfield Hospital in Bury.

I went to see her for a few sessions back in 2000-2001 and it was very helpful. She has a lot of experience of working with trans people and at one time she did do some group sessions for trans support groups in the North West.

There are a lot of internet resources available to help you with feminising your voice, but it is definately useful to have a few sessions with an experienced speech therapist.

Quick tip - work on the resonance and voice projection rather than pitch cos thats much more important!

Good luck!

ps La glitch is absolutely correct when she says it's all about practice and the voice being a muscle. I had an occasion about two years ago when I found details of an old works related pension account that I had forgotten about. I know from experience about the hassle of having to write to pension companies etc to tell them about transition. And as I only wanted to know the balance on the account and had all the security details, I thought I'd phone them up using my old voice - basically impersonating the old me

However - I couldn't do it! I went on the phone using what I thought was my old voice and the guy at the pension company still called me Miss and Ma'am....and told me I'd need to get my husband to call! Anyway, I waited a couple of days and then phoned back and really had to ham it up to get a believable male voice on the phone!

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Cheeky Cat!