I've got a scorching hot take for my readers today!

If, like me, you regularly wade in the waters of online trans discourse, then you are probably very familiar with this concept: you don't need to transition to be trans.

I have long been a firm believer in this! You can just know you're not the gender you were assigned at birth and not have a desire to take hormones or have surgery or change your name or pronouns. And you're still just as trans as someone who has decided to medically and socially transition. This is maybe a controversial take in some circles, but here, it's just facts.

Now on to the piping hot take: I also believe you don't need to be trans to transition.

First of all, what even is transitioning? To me, it's exploring ways of expressing yourself through the performance of gender. That can encompass clothing, hair, makeup, forms of address (names, nicknames, pronouns, honorifics), voice training, hormones, surgery, and more.

For some people, the path towards their ultimate gendered form is first to decide they are trans and then transition, but that is by no means the only path. Many people experiment with modes of gender expression as a means of deciding whether or not they are trans.

For myself, I experimented with changing my pronoun use in anonymous online spaces as a way of seeing how comfortable I was with that change before making my preferred pronouns publicly known. However, it wasn't until years later that I identified as transgender.

I wanted to write about this because I receive a lot of comments on my social media asking me if it's okay to take my trans voice courses if a person isn't trans. Of course, the answer is YES! There are many reasons, even beyond gender expression, to work to gain deeper control and understanding of your voice.

You might want to be able to pursue voice acting, be able to read in a more animated way to your children, be a more engaging dungeon master, or simply want more breadth and depth of emotional expression in your voice. You might be cisgender and feel your voice doesn't align with your preferred gender expression. You might live somewhere where it's not safe to diverge from gender norms and need to maintain your voice.

So if you're not cisgender or questioning and are worried that you may not be welcome in the spaces I've created, I hope this post assuaged those fears! Take a look at the courses I have to offer and dive in!