Renée's Blog

What if the story of trans existence stretched back not decades, not centuries, but millennia? That's the territory Sophie Edwards explores in her YouTube series We Have Always Existed, and it was the starting point for one of my favourite Speaking Freely conversations yet. Sophi...

Whether you want to shrink your Adam's apple, grow it, or just finally understand what it actually is, this is the guide for you. As a gender-affirming voice teacher, I find the Adam's apple comes up a lot. It's visible, it's culturally loaded, and for many trans and nonbinary pe...

As you may know, I'm usually here talking about gender-affirming voice work. But today I'm putting on a different shirt entirely (or taking one off??). Today, I'm talking about my own gender-affirming care: my top surgery. Three years ago, I had a bilateral mastectomy. Two years ...

You've been working on your voice. You can hit it when you're focused. But the moment you're ordering coffee, answering a question mid-thought, or telling a story to a friend, it's gone. If that sounds familiar, you're not doing anything wrong. Real life is full of distractions, ...

What happens when you start testosterone, expecting your voice to drop, and it mostly doesn't? That's just one of the threads in this rich, wide-ranging conversation with Rey Katz, a transmasculine nonbinary writer, advocate, and voice training student who has been part of this co...

You record yourself during voice practice. You hit stop, hit play, and immediately want to throw your phone into the sun. Sound familiar? If hearing your own recorded voice makes you want to disappear—especially when you're actively working on changing it—you're not alone, and y...

What a way to mark International Transgender Day of Visibility. This past week, I had the honour of sitting down with Sean Henry on CBC Montreal's Daybreak to talk about gender-affirming voice work, the trans community, and what it means to help people find voices that feel like h...

You've been putting in the work. Your masculine voice is coming along, and it feels more natural, more like you. Then you walk into a store or pick up the phone to make a reservation, and, out of nowhere, your voice does something completely different. Higher. Tighter. Nothing lik...

This isn't my typical trans voice training post, and I want to be upfront about that from the start. Today I'm here to talk about someone who has been quietly behind the scenes of this channel for years: my editor, collaborator, and dear friend, Tea. Tea is a trans woman who is f...

If you've ever taken the New York City subway, ridden the AirTrain at Newark Liberty, or commuted between Philadelphia and South Jersey on PATCO, you've heard Bernie Wagenblast's voice—likely multiple times a day, without ever knowing her name. Bernie is a voice actor, journalist...