Yap Sesh S2 E10: Unpacking the Binary (aka Big Vulnerable Lore Drop)

If you're listening from the American south/southeast, we hope you and your communities are safe and warm in the winter storm!

In preparation for our upcoming course on gender affirming voice basics, Maurice and Anna go deep on what brought them to gender affirming voice work and ways that we can think about voices that transcend gender. Sign up for Unpacking the Binary and join us on Monday, February 9 at 8pm EST (or catch the replay through March 31, 2026)!

Sources Mentioned:

• Vocal Congruence Project
• Trans Voice Initiative

Resources & Links
Explore VoiceProEd: www.voiceproed.com
Check out our available courses: www.voiceproed.com/courses
Theme music by haspockets983: https://www.pond5.com/artist/haspockets983

Join the Sesh!
Subscribe for future episodes, and let us know what topics you want to hear next! Connect with us at @voiceproed on Instagram and Facebook or email us at info@voiceproed.com.

Transcript

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Anna: Welcome to Yap Sesh. We're your hosts. I'm Anna Diemer.

Maurice: My name is Maurice Goodwin.

Anna: And if you are listening to this on Sunday, on the day that it releases, and you are somewhere in the southern, southeastern United States, I hope that you are safe and staying warm and still have power. That has been on my mind for the past week getting ready for the ice storm that is about to happen, but we are squeezing in this podcast recording. If you are not in the South, you can listen to this; if you are in the South, I hope that you have what you need to make it through. I hope you are doing okay.

Maurice: I'm expecting you to use the last of your phone battery power to listen to Yap Sesh on Sunday afternoon.

Anna: Yeah, if you're listening to this and you're not in the South, please send us good vibes for power staying on, people staying warm.

Maurice: Yes, that would be nice. The whole eastern half of the US seems like it's going to be a little chillier and with some snow. So I'm interested to see how this plays out.

Anna: Yeah, I know. It's wild that this is something affecting both of us and we live half a country away from each other.

Maurice: Right. And still uniquely at times very unprepared for weather events.

Anna: So very true. Well, we still have stuff from hurricane season, so we're all set.

Maurice: We're doing that covering-the-outdoor-plants thing. For us in southern, southeastern Texas, the concern is that it's going to rain and then get very cold. Because it doesn't snow here and it probably won't snow, but it will get precarious to travel in.

Anna: Yeah. And all of the poor plants that never freeze.

Maurice: I know.

Anna: At least we have winter. This is not so out of the ordinary here — it's snowed several times this season — but having an ice storm again is what's going to make it precarious here as well.

Maurice: We'll check back in with you.

Anna: Yeah, everybody stay safe. We'll post on Instagram when we have cell phone battery.

Maurice: Yes, and service.

Anna: We are also getting ready for our first course of the season, which is coming up on February 9th. That is a Monday evening, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, or 5 p.m. if you are on the West Coast. And our course, back by popular demand, is Unpacking the Binary: Gender-Affirming Voice Basics. This is our first course of 2025 that we put on the day after the inauguration.

Maurice: Yeah.

Anna: To talk about trans stuff. And we're bringing it back. People ask me all the time, “Hey, do y’all have gender-affirming voice stuff?” And yes — now is the time. If that was you asking me that question, this is our course for that.

Maurice: The answer is now.

Anna: The answer is now.

Maurice: Yeah, I'm excited about it. It was one of probably two courses that gathered the most humans and interest. And it’s a great way to kick off 2025. I've gotten to see you deliver this a couple times now, and I think it is a fantastic introduction course. I would argue that it goes past introduction, just because of the content and your experience level. So if you're interested in learning the work from someone who does the work and knows what they're talking about, come to Unpacking the Binary. It's going to be great.

Anna: You flatter me. Thank you so much. But I think this is the issue with all VoiceProEd courses — we veer into the next level up because we are nerds and we can't help ourselves.

Maurice: Yeah. I think what I like about this course is that it's not simply information. It's also tools and strategies and approaches. Because if I can Google it, sometimes I don't necessarily want to pay to hear someone talk about that. The way you deliver it helps me understand how it's applied, which is the clinician part. It's not just understanding pitch or timbre or resonance or tone or breathiness or darkness or lightness — it's how we apply those principles within this work. What cues we can use, how you consider these variables when you're working with clients. That is what someone who comes to this course would leave with: clinician insight and application.

Anna: So if you're looking for insight and application, come to our course — one hour jam-packed with info. I do talk quickly because I think the first time I gave this course I had 90 minutes, so I had to trim it down. As per usual, buckle up. 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday, February 9th. Sign up on our website at VoiceProEd.com/courses. If you can't make it on the 9th, you can watch the course on replay and earn your ASHA CEUs all the way through March 31st, 2026. And if you missed it in the last one, we are ending all of our asynchronous course offerings that same day. So if you've got a course from VoiceProEd, make sure you finish that up before March 31st. Don't worry, we're not going anywhere — we will still be bringing you live courses plus the replay throughout this year.

Maurice: I had mentioned that this course specifically is a result of your own experience as a clinician. You're able to speak to the information we learn by reading and going to other courses, but also you do this regularly and have put a lot of your clinician energy toward it. How did all of this get started for you?

Anna: Yeah, so—

Maurice: Specifically gender-affirming voice work. I know — we could talk about 90 topics.

Anna: I know. What would we even pick, right? We've done our villain origin stories. A big motivation for me to do this work, having taught singing for seven-plus years before, was coming out as non-binary myself. At first it was like, “Oh, I'm going to be an ally to this community.” That’s a typical trans pipeline — “Wow, my TikTok has so many beautiful trans people. I'm such an ally.” As a fellow queer person, I loved them so much. I loved watching T-videos and hearing people’s voices change. And then it was like, okay, I’m actually a member of this community. That's part of how I found out — getting to hear all the wonderful stories people shared, even though not everyone’s experience is wonderful. Coming out and transitioning can be hard. But hearing their experiences helped me reflect on my own life and how I wanted to present myself.

That started in spring of 2021. People always ask, “What was coming out as trans like?” And honestly, it was a lot of journaling. Watching TikToks, journaling, doing tarot readings. And as that journey started, I realized: I can do this in my work. I can help other members of my community.

The first training I did was with The Voice Lab in Chicago — a big weekend Zoom training. I think it was actually my birthday weekend. So it was like: happy birthday to me, I'm trans, and I'm learning gender-affirming voice work. It was a wonderful start — learning more about my community, my own voice, and how I relate to it, and also learning the nuts and bolts of how we do this work and how it relates to the singing work I was already doing.

Maurice: What do you think were some of the important or exciting parts of that early training or early clinician experience? Were there things that felt like, “Oh wow — this adds so much to who I am as a teacher,” or “I didn’t know I was already doing some of this”?

Anna: I think the biggest shift wasn't clinical — it was human and business related. I had my first trans student around that time. Another student or two came out later, but this was someone who was non-binary whose mom found me and said, “I think it will be good for my child to have an adult in their life who has this life experience.” They were just doing singing work — no speaking voice yet. This was right before I started doing speaking voice.

But having that feedback from the parent was mind-blowing. There are narratives along the way saying you can't be openly queer at work because it’s “unprofessional.” So the fact that someone wanted me because I was queer was mind-expanding.

That kicked me into wanting people to go to my website and think: “This person is very gay and I would like them to help me with my voice.” Not everything is about personal brand, of course — that’s the business side — but the personal validation was huge. It reminded me why this work matters: helping people be more themselves and being a queer elder in that space.

The voice teaching parts are the nerdy parts — “do this with your mouth,” “make sounds,” “experiment.” That’s fun, but that moment set me on my current path. You do some gender-affirming voice work as well.

Maurice: I do, yeah. My introduction was much more clinical and medical. I was seeing folks at the voice center or people reaching out after a procedure. There was a significant change at the level of the larynx. So I was looking through a medical lens — reviewing medical history and making sense of what we were doing with the voice.

I don’t know that I explicitly do as much of that now. These days I mostly have singers who happen to be trans, so we’re not working toward gender-affirming voice goals — we’re just like, “You’re a trans tenor, let’s work on tenor things.”

Anna: But that is still affirming, especially if being a tenor is new. Your client gets to learn how to use their new tenor voice. That’s so cool.

Maurice: Yeah. I also like the work. Like you said — it’s like being a queer Sherpa. Walking alongside someone, sometimes holding their bags, creating space for someone to be human. Because we've either walked that path or have considered how our own lives and voices fit into the world. So we get to create those spaces in our studios and practices.

So maybe I can ask you this question: how has doing gender-affirming voice work been good for all of your clients?

Anna: That is a good question.

Maurice: Because I know it has been.

Anna: Right — you’ve seen it the whole time. I’m going to turn this question back on you, though: what is the most challenging part of doing gender-affirming voice work? Because my answer to that is part of this.

I was most challenged by working with folks who didn’t have musical experience, didn’t know how to match pitch, or were far less aware of their voices than the singers I was used to working with. I used to work with a lot of highly motivated young singers — performing arts high school students, people who have sung in choirs their whole lives, people who go to choir three times a week. So the musical framework was always there.

In speaking voice work, that wasn’t there most of the time. Sometimes folks also liked to sing — and I love when that happens. I think going to a singing teacher is a great choice if you also sing, because you can work through that framework.

But for me, helping people with proprioception, with pitch matching, with experimenting, required me to be so much more creative. Not “problem solving” in the negative sense, but in the sense of:

We want this goal — how do we get from point A to point B with the brain and voice that this person has?

That helped all my work because it expanded my toolkit. It required me to be more resourceful and more connected with the client:

How does your brain work? What strategies will resonate with you?

That increased my ability and confidence across the board.

Maurice: Nice. As you were talking about how this work has influenced your practice, I also thought about the most challenging part of this work for me, and how working within that challenge has positively impacted the rest of my practice.

As a speech pathologist, at least when I was in grad school, gender-affirming voice training was very binary. “This is what a man sounds like; this is what a woman sounds like.” These are the frequencies, this is the quality that achieves XYZ perception.

I'm the perfect young millennial where I’ve always kind of been on the internet. And part of that was thinking: “I don’t think this is real.” Then as you get older you're like: “Whoa, this is definitely not real.”

From Tumblr era to now TikTok, seeing the many lives and many voices of trans people across the gender spectrum — breaking the binary was helpful for my clinical practice for all clients.

The challenge still exists for me sometimes when I’m working with clients who very much want the binary. Because I'm like: “Yo, you're a dude regardless of the frequency of your voice. You're a dude. Welcome to dudedom.”

It’s interesting — that challenge also taught me that it's not about me. Someone's voice goals are not what I believe they should be. So again — the challenge that resulted from freedom leads to more freedom.

I believe I'm a freer clinician and a freer human because of this work.

Anna: Deep breath — I'm about to say something big and vulnerable. That helps not only me as a clinician and my work, but also my understanding of my own voice. I'm sure you've had plenty of clinical work that helped you understand your own voice better.

Maurice: Yeah, for sure.

Anna: And like you just said, maybe I understand my voice better from a mechanical perspective, but also understanding my voice as:

This is a masculine voice because I am a masculine person — and that is okay.

Understanding and internalizing that about myself has been a long journey, especially doing this work and working with such a range of clients with diverse goals.

I didn’t know my goal was radical acceptance, but I think we’ve arrived there. I'm really grateful to the folks I've worked with, and to the community of other trans clinicians, for helping me get there with myself and my own voice. It’s a big part of this work.

Maurice: This is my favorite Yap Sesh episode to date. You can quote me on that. This will actually be the title: Maurice’s Favorite Yap.

Anna: Big vulnerable lore drops.

Maurice: Title of the episode: Big Vulnerable Lore Drops.

Anna: I feel like we have to make it something about gender-affirming voice so people will listen. But I feel like any trans person who listens is going to see a gender-affirming voice title and be like, “Oh, this is going to be deep.”

Maurice: Got it.

Anna: They’re going to know.

Maurice: Tuned in. We’ve got to think about the SEO. The fun never ends.

Anna: This is my brand.

Maurice: I appreciate it. I think, reflecting on my own experience learning this work, I have learned more from queer folks and specifically trans folks who have pioneered shifts in how we think. Anything good I do clinically doesn’t come from my lived experience alone, and it doesn’t come solely from my work with clients. It comes from hearing the experiences of other trans clinicians and learning from them.

Like you said — what they've discovered with their trans clients is going to be different than what I may discover. It’s birthed from those collective moments. That’s why Unpacking the Binary is such a helpful course — it’s rooted in clinical information, but also in personal and community expertise.

Anna: Yeah. A big goal of mine with this talk is not to use gendered language at all, if possible — which is always fun. Voices are voices. Clients have diverse goals, and we're here to help them achieve them however we can, with the tools we have. If you want to come marinate in that philosophy, come to our course. It won’t be as squishy and vulnerable as this — I’m like, “Here are the facts, let’s go” — but that foundation absolutely drives the material.

Maurice: And for all the cis folks out there — especially in education spaces. I recently shared that I'm taking on an adjunct position at the University of Houston teaching the graduate voice disorders course. If any students are listening, you'll notice that I teach voice in a very non-gendered way.

It is absolutely possible to teach people how to be strong voice clinicians without gendering everything. It frees them to actually consider what’s happening at the level of the larynx rather than leaping to: “Oh, it’s breathy — that’s because she has a posterior glottal gap.”

We need to think: What is the larynx doing? What are these rules? There is so much we can consider when we aren't trapped by gender. If you’re educating or mentoring clinicians, consider how to de-center gender when teaching voice.

Anna: I want to take your course. Professor Goodwin — that’s fantastic.

Maurice: Yeah, right? Professor Goodwin. What are some things you think folks should know before they come to this course or before they start this work?

Anna: Ooh, that’s good. Something we don’t cover in this course because it's only an hour is some of the cultural… what’s the word? Sensitivity? No…

Maurice: I would say cultural humility.

Anna: Cultural humility — yes.

Maurice: Yeah.

Anna: We try to avoid gendered terminology and I use the most widely accepted terminology at the time, but we’re not teaching about the trans experience itself. If you don’t know anything about trans experiences, we aren't teaching you that. You can come learn about voices, but if you want to work with trans people, you need to learn about trans people.

Do you have suggestions?

Maurice: Yeah, there are creators online people can find on YouTube or TikTok to spark some questions.

If you haven't thought about this work before, it might help to sit with a journal and write five to seven things you're curious about or questions you have. Come to the course with those questions. If they aren’t fully answered, continue learning with the resources we share.

We are a resource — not the beginning and end. A good way to engage is to come with curiosities.

Anna: I love the journaling idea. There are also websites with prompts like: “If you’ve never thought about your own gender before, here are journal prompts.” I’ll try to link one in the show notes. Thinking about your own voice in relation to your gender — what you like and don’t like — helps create a framework for how you’ll relate to clients.

Maurice: For sure. There are two organizations we want to point out: the Vocal Congruence Project and the Trans Voice Initiative. These are two separate groups (with some overlap) of trans clinicians putting together resources for both clinicians and clients looking for this work.

Anna: If you are looking for a voice professional, the Vocal Congruence Project has a map. I’m on the map — you can find me there. And if you provide this work, you can sign up to be listed so people can find you.

And the Trans Voice Initiative is a collective of voice clinicians who are—

Maurice: Did I say “institute”?

Anna: Trans Voice Initiative. What did I say? Did we both say “institute”?

Maurice: Institute.

Anna: It’s Trans Voice Initiative.

Maurice: Yeah.

Anna: Oh my God.

Maurice: I was like, are they an institute now?

Anna: No — Trans Voice Initiative.

Maurice: I like Institute.

Anna: We’re fancy now. We're an institute.

Maurice: Can I enroll?

Anna: But it’s all trans voice clinicians. So if you are trans and new to this work, join TVI. They haven't had events in a while, but they’ve had trainings and social Zoom events to meet other clinicians. That is important — especially in private practice. We need colleagues.

Mash brains together with people doing the same work as you — that was a very eloquent way of saying that.

Maurice: Yes. Yes. Are you ready?

Anna: Are you ready? Is it time?

Maurice: Is it time for tool time?

Anna: It gets weirder every time we say it.

Maurice: Gets weirder. It gets weirder. It gets queerer.

Anna: It gets queerer for sure. I can yap first.

Maurice: Sure.

Anna: I had a wonderful new client this week who found me from ASHA — so cool. Working with speech pathologists is one of my favorite types of ideal clients.

Something I like to do with a singer who is not a beginner — someone with more experience (this person has over 10 years of study) — is ask: “How do you warm up, and is it serving you?”

They’re a soprano and usually do lip trills and runs to get to their top range. I said, “Great — what if we open that up to a vowel?”

So we did a nine-note scale — first on a lip trill, then without breathing, immediately opening to a vowel. We’ve talked about scaffolding a lot: SOVT → vowel → text. But if you're working with higher-level folks, you can jump right in:

Use what they already do as the base, then expand it toward coordination that reflects actual singing.

So my tool is: use their existing scaffolding, then build off it in the trajectory they already have.

Maurice: I'm going to piggyback on that. If you follow me on social media, you’ll likely see a rant video soon. We are slightly over-relying on SOVTs that encourage increased airflow — especially straw and straw-in-water.

Singing is different from an SOVT posture. We’re sometimes training students — especially for high or heavy singing — on straw work, and then when they remove the straw, what they're left with is nice glottic closure plus way too much subglottic pressure.

We have trained the lungs to push. Great for SOVTs with back pressure, not great for singing.

So recently I used far less airflow — using a tiny coffee-stirrer straw — and it helped us realize we were over-blowing that part of the voice.

SOVTs are helpful in rehab or training certain postures, but these are not performance postures. We have to help people make that distinction.

Is it risky for the teacher seat to remove guardrails and introduce more pressure? Sure.

Welcome to teaching voice. Take the risk.

Anna: Oh, I love a coffee stirrer.

Maurice: It's so hard — not for my voice.

Anna: That’s my ideal strong configuration.

Maurice: Yes.

Anna: We also have very different bodies and voices.

Maurice: We were working on “Let It Go,” trying to get ease in that first chorus. We don't want it super breathy; we want closure, but we don't need all the pressure we’d train in a big water SOVT. These are different postures with different purposes.

Anna: Let it go, let it go—

Maurice: Apropos for this weekend. “The snow glows white on the mountain tonight.”

Anna: It’s me. It's literally me.

That’s a great place to wrap up — bringing it full circle. What a beautiful synchronicity. Thank you for that, Maurice.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this and you're somewhere cold, I hope you are safe and warm. Let us know in the comments, on socials, send us emails. If this resonated with you, we hope to see you in our Zoom room on February 9th — Monday evening, 8 p.m. Eastern / 5 p.m. Pacific — for Unpacking the Binary: Gender-Affirming Voice Basics.

If you are a student, a member of the trans or gender-nonconforming community, or experiencing financial hardship but want to attend, use the code EUPHORIA for 50% off. We do that for all our courses to help make them accessible.

Maurice: This is where we announce that we’re actually sponsored by HBO — Euphoria Season 3 coming out.

Anna: Which I keep getting ads for when I watch Heated Rivalry. Oh no — did we talk about Heated Rivalry? We have to stop. We can't talk about Heated Rivalry on this podcast.

Maurice: As always. Can we fit that in?

Anna: Yes. Speaking of cold and snow and getting iced—

Maurice: But also friction.

Anna: In the way your vocal folds are— oh no. Tune in next episode where we talk about how teaching voice is related to Heated Rivalry.

Sign up for our course at VoiceProEd.com/courses.

Maurice: Accent work. I'm so sorry.

Anna: Russian diction 101. We have to stop. I'm trying to wrap this up, okay? As always, we love you all. Thanks for listening. We'll see you in the next one. Bye.