Creaky voice gender

Abstract

This Voicing is concerned with issues of voice perception, subjectivity and gender construction and explores the possibility of addressing them through the extended voice. It gives an account of the experience of ‘Voice X’, a singer who suffered from dysphoria, tracking the gendering process of their sounding voice through adolescence and its implications with personhood and social inclusion. I argue that the extended voice can problematize the gap between that which we say and what is said by the ‘grain’ of our voice. Focusing on the meaning potential of creak ‐ taken as an example of ‘another voice’ ‐ this practice research piece puts forward the argument that any extra-normal voicing has an implicit drag potential, made explicit each time a body to-be-looked-at and a voice to-be-listened-to do not seem to match. In conclusion, I introduce the idea of ‘minor creak’ as a queer space for vocal exploration.