Do You Like the Sound of Your Voice?

Growing up, one of the biggest insecurities I had was…

My voice. I hated it. I didn’t come out until I was 19, and I did everything I could think of to conceal the fact that I was gay, but I always felt like my voice was a dead giveaway (especially before puberty). In an effort to hide who I really was, I could dress a certain way, I could play more sports in school, I could reserve listening to my Britney Spears CD in the privacy and safety of my bedroom, but I could not change the sound of my voice.

I always felt like my voice was too feminine sounding, a little too high when all of my classmate’s voices were much lower. Why did I have to sound so differently than everyone else? Why was I the only person going through this kind of self-loathing (or so I thought at the time)? I obviously now know that, despite what society tells us, the sound of someone’s voice does not dictate whether that person is gay or straight. It took me a long time to accept this part about myself, but when you’re young and you’re trying to be someone you’re not, insecurities can run wild, making it seem impossible to overcome the traits you don’t like about yourself. As I grew up, I realized the things I didn’t like about myself were because society told me they were wrong, unnatural, and different. Once I understood that, it made saying “screw you” to societal norms a lot easier, and I began to see the things that made me different as just small pieces of myself that I couldn’t change and now, wouldn’t change even if I could.

But what is it about gay men and sometimes not liking the sound of our voices? What does “sounding gay” actually sound like? Is it a made up stereotype society has placed on us? Or do we really talk with a “gay lisp”, lower our trap and dress vowels, and over-enunciate our words? Is all of this a myth and we talk the way we do because it’s just how we talk? Do we change the way we talk when we come out as a way to “fit in” more with other gay men? Or, similarly, have we changed our voices our whole lives as a way to “fit in” with straight people?

Hating a part of yourself because you perceive it as being “too gay”, by either society’s standards or your own, is a form of internalized homophobia, something many gay people (in the closet or not) struggle with extensively.

Says Whit Easton M.A., “Internalized homophobia is what happens when we take the biases, prejudices, and hatred towards gay folks reinforced by society (aka societal homophobia) and turn these biases inward back on ourselves.” It can take the form of many different feelings, like shame, depression, anxiety, fear, and self-hatred.

Easton goes on to say, “As I've grown to understand it, these are two sides of the same coin. Societal messages about gayness being different, somehow "wrong," or even "bad," impact all of us, whether or not we acknowledge it. I think of internalized homophobia as misdirected anger at ourselves as somehow defective and ‘not enough.’”

As I have gotten older and become more comfortable and secure with myself as a gay man, I have come to accept my voice for what it is: a part of me that sounds how it sounds, something I can’t change and something I no longer want to. It took a long time for me to be okay with it, but I am finally at a place where I could care less about how my voice sounds. It’s a freeing feeling to accept yourself for who you are, regardless of what society or anyone else thinks. It’s funny, when I was younger I used to hate watching myself on camera and would cringe when I heard myself talk in videos, and now, with Instagram and YouTube, I make videos and hear myself talk for a living. I have a voice that I can use for good now. We all do. Funny how life works out that way, isn’t it?

What about you? Do you/did you hate the sound of your voice? Or have you never really given much thought to it? Does everyone, gay or straight, kind of hate their voice at some point in their lives?

PS: Do I Sound Gay? is a documentary where David Thorpe “explores the existence and accuracy of stereotypes about the speech patterns of gay men, and the ways in which one's degree of conformity to the stereotype can contribute to internalized homophobia.” -The Hollywood Reporter. Doesn’t that sound so interesting?