One of the biggest challenges transfolk have in passing is their voice. Often a t-gal will look pretty and passable but then she opens her mouth only to sound like "Lurch" from the Addams Family television show. Fortunately, you can do a lot to improve how feminine your voice sounds.

There is a DVD called Finding Your Female Voice, which was featured in the film "Transamerica." It is produced by a company called Deep Stealth Productions that was founded by Calpernia Addams and Andrea James. The DVD is an outstanding tool for just what the title says - finding your female voice.

In fact, when I took a workshop on voice at the Fantasia Fair conference, the voice instructor kept recommending this DVD. You can get a glimpse of the DVD on YouTube.

Calpernia and Andrea really know and understand how important voice can be. Both were in "Transamerica" and they worked with Felicity Huffman on the script and the main character. The Finding Your Female Voice DVD is seen in the very beginning of the film. Currently, you can see Calpernia and Andrea Monday nights on the Logo channel in Transamerican Love Story -- a groundbreaking competitive dating shows.

Also, take a look at their related site, GenderLife. On their Finding Your Female Voice tutorial page, they provide access to a free utility, called a "Spectrogram", which allows you to visually see the pitch of your voice. Also available on the site are a free PDF workbook and a huge listing of "Recommended Practices for Speech Quality Measurements" that were developed by the big brains at Harvard.

And just for the record... I don't get any compensation for these recommendations. I let people know about these products because I really believe that they are of great value.