Voice Dysphoria: The Piece of Gender-Affirming Care That Parents of LGBTQ Teens Often Overlook

Welcome to More Human, More Kind. I'm Heather Hester. Today's conversation is about something we don't talk about nearly enough, and yet it touches identity, safety, confidence, and belonging in one of the most intimate ways possible: our voice. For many trans and gender-diverse people, voice dysphoria can be one of the most painful and overlooked parts of their experience. And for parents and caregivers, it's often something we simply don't know to ask about. My guest today is Nicole Gress, a licensed speech-language pathologist, trans voice expert, and founder of Undead Voice, the leading voice transition training company serving trans and gender-diverse individuals around the world. Nicole has helped over 100,000 people across 20 countries align their voice with their identity through an approach that moves beyond outdated medical models and centers agency, accessibility, and community. In this conversation, we talk about why traditional voice therapy often misses the mark, how gender is actually perceived in the voice, what voice dysphoria can look like in youth, why early access to affirming voice training matters, and what parents can say if they notice their child becoming quieter or withdrawing. This episode is educational, yes, but it is also deeply human. It's about expression, autonomy, confidence, on reclaiming something that many of us have been told in big and small ways to shrink. I am so grateful to share this conversation with you. Let's begin. Welcome to More Human, More Kind, the podcast for parents of LGBTQ+ kids and anyone trying to stay human in a world that keeps hardening. I'm Heather Hester, and here Here we talk about fear, belonging, boundaries, courage, love, and what it means to protect what matters without losing yourself in the process. Your child doesn't just need a parent who's informed, they need a parent who is grounded and strong. Let's take a breath and let's begin.

Nicole, thank you so much for being here today. Really excited to have you on the show and to have this conversation about something that just doesn't get talked about enough. So I am wondering if we could just start, start really zoomed out on who you are, what you do, and how you got into this specifically.

Okay, um, well, my name is Nicole Gress. I use she and they pronouns, and I'm the founder of Undead Voice. I'm also a speech-language pathologist, and I'm going all the way back. I grew up in the Midwest, moved out to San Francisco for grad school about 12 years ago now, and my specialty actually was not in trans voice at that time. I specialized in traumatic brain injury and stroke recovery. And so after graduate school, I started working in medical settings. I worked at a private practice and a hospital here in the Bay Area. And over time, not a lot of time, my caseload just became inundated with trans voice patients because there's a great, warm, welcoming, affirming trans community here in the Bay Area. I worked with adults, specialized in working with adults, and the places I worked took insurance. So, um, over time had more and more people who were coming to us for trans voice work and there was nobody really specializing in it at the hospital that I worked at. And so I took on that mantle and worked in trans voice in the traditional healthcare settings for about 6 years before ultimately deciding to leave those settings and start my own company 6 years ago. So that is where Undead Voice was born.

What made you do that? What was your why for doing that?

The best part of my day every day now is seeing that like visceral moment when someone finally discovers a sound that they love. You can like see it happen in their body. So the eyes kind of clear, their shoulders drop, and they move from feeling avoidant of using their voice or uncomfortable talking to anybody in their life to this like confidence and, um, kind of unleashing of who they are. There's this awareness that kind of lands that they don't have to hide themselves anymore. Um, trans people spend their entire lives being told societally how they should be and how they should sound, and our voices are shaped from such a very young age that being able to have the experience of voice transition as an adult is such a reclaiming of that agency and an exploration of who you are and how you want to present to the world. And when you find a sound that really affirms your identity and like feels like yours that you've created and you've had power over, it's like everything kind of resets. It's, you know, it, it, we think of it as voice, but it's really more of a fulfillment of self. Like everything else from having an affirming voice, that confidence just flows into the rest of your life. And quite frankly, in medical settings, I rarely, if ever, saw that moment happen with a patient. Even using all of the best practice tools that my field offered, too many people were struggling to actually reach those real-life moments of reading to their kid without cringing at the sound of their voice, speaking up in a meeting at work without fear, being able to raise their hand at school and share their thoughts and ideas without fear that their peers or their educators were judging them. And those moments just weren't happening through the methods that I was taught as a speech pathologist because those methods weren't actually created to shift how a voice is gendered or the gender is perceived in a voice. The support that we are given is more around how to rectify an injury to the voice or help somebody who's a singer learn how to use their voice better. They weren't specifically, those techniques weren't specifically created to actually shift the gender perception of a voice. And beyond that, the setting, the traditional medical setting of like a, you know, the needs of our community goes way beyond that traditional like weekly 30-minute technique lesson under those horrible fluorescent lights that everybody hates, followed by more often than not, like practicing alone in your car or like quietly in your bedroom so nobody can hear you struggle. So leaving that medical setting allowed me to do two things. One, create a curriculum that actually was grounded in how gender is perceived in the voice. So like what you can actually do to change the sound of the voice so that those people who you're speaking to and yourself can hear, um, hear a shift in how you're sounding. Uh, and then the second part was to really just redesign the system end to end from how we train, how people access care, how to make it inclusive, and then most importantly, centering community. So the main reason why people struggle to transition their voice beyond being able to find the right techniques or exercises, it's because they don't have anyone else with lived experience of also going through that journey that they're able to lean on for support. And so keeping community at the center of all of our resources and our programming now has been the biggest driver of the people who we serve, our members' success and their voice. Yeah, long answer to that, Mercedes.

No, that's okay. That's fascinating. So many, so many questions coming off of that.

Yeah, please.

Can you give an example of what you've created and how that is different from what you would typically find in a medical setting?

Yeah. So when you ask that question, I, I have two categories, right? It's the actual delivery, like what is the method, what is the experience of transitioning the voice and how is that different than traditional healthcare approaches? And then the actual curriculum, like what is, what is the difference in what they're being taught? So I'll do both if that's— Yes, please. Yes.

Because I'm curious about both. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So one of the biggest difference from just the delivery model is accessibility. So Undead Voice is completely virtual, meaning we can work with anybody of any age, of any point in their transition. They don't have to get a diagnosis, a doctor referral. They don't have to be close to a center of care or to a provider that's specialized in the work. Over half of trans people in our country live in the rural South, and there just aren't resources even in a lot of the large cities. And finding them whenever you're 5 hours away from your large city— and, um, that's not even to go into the average 2-year waitlist to find a provider that is skilled in this area, if you ever do. Um, and then the 3 years it takes to transition your voice through those settings. It's just a really inaccessible model. So moving the care online allowed us to meet people immediately where they were at and also make sure that they could start today if they wanted. And so creating the platform allowed— I mean, we've served over 100,000 people in 20 countries. There's 4,000 people on the platform every day working together on their voice. And a lot of them have never met another trans person in real life. Some of them live in countries where it's punishable by death to be trans. And having access to resources in those areas is just not, it just doesn't happen in traditional healthcare approaches. So virtual was really important, not to mention the accessibility for those who have some neurodiversity because being able to control your sensory environment is really important.

Yeah.

So being in a space that you're comfortable, being able to control, you know, when and how you practice and how you engage. Is really important for our community because one of the biggest roadblocks to transitioning your voice is dysphoria around your voice. And if you're not feeling comfortable, if you're speaking and finding a lot of emotional and psychological roadblocks kind of being thrown up because the sound of your voice is triggering to you, being able to really literally hit pause and come back whenever that's passed or when you feel a little more supported is really important. Now, actually, technique-wise, the traditional voice training uses what we call an imitation approach. So you have a one-on-one coach, that person shows you a new technique, often they're demonstrating it in their own voice, and then they're asking you to copy that sound back to them. Doing that is a traditional way of teaching by demonstrating and having somebody, you know, do the exercise back so they can get feedback. But unfortunately, uh, whenever you imitate somebody else's voice, you're not just imitating their sound, you're also taking on the environmental and cultural influences that created their voice. So you're not just, uh, imitating their sounds, you're stepping into their vocal identity. And when you do that, it erodes your own. And so you're unable to keep the things that make you unique present in your voice. And so instead we take what we call a physical only approach. And so we're the only organization that does this, the only curriculum that does this. We teach people to physically shape and manipulate the instrument only. We are not having them imitate us ever. We're teaching them to master their vocal instrument and then they can choose how their voice presents. And we do that through 5 pillars of voice. So there's 5 areas that we focus on teaching people to physically control their voice. And so that's kind of the second differentiator, is that curriculum that is specifically made for trans people to change their voices. We call it the Five Pillars of Voice. And creating that methodology gives people full agency over their sound. It trains weight, tilt, resonance, pitch, and dynamics. And so that curriculum is purpose-built and by and for trans people. And creates actual lifelong control over the voice across every real-life setting and emotional state that somebody can experience.

Oh, fascinating. Oh my gosh, that is so cool. How did you figure this out?

It's a really good question. Um, so yeah, I mean, I knew that what I was being taught and thus teaching wasn't working because not a single person patient is what, you know, we referred to them as in a more medical setting, was leaving loving the sound of their voice. And so that was just the biggest red flag of we might not have the techniques, but what we are doing is teaching people in this setting that we've taught you everything we know, and if it's not working, that's not really our fault. It should be working for you. And so people leave disappointed and, and not feeling, you know, feeling as though they have failed when in reality it was an institutional failure that we didn't have techniques and we knew it. I mean, we knew It's obvious as, you know, somebody who's passionate about this work. I mean, you can be as well-meaning and as strong of an ally or an advocate and as skilled as possible, but if you just don't have techniques that were actually created for their purpose, it's just never going to happen. So the first step was really taking a step back. So I quit both of my medical jobs and spent about 6 months diving as deep as I could into every voice, singing, acting pedagogy that I could. I'm not naturally a singer, but I found myself taking voice lessons from a Scottish woman off the northern coast of Scotland virtually. I mean, I took every voice pedagogy that I could find and improv classes and Alexander Technique breathing things and just to, to have a strong knowledge base to pull from. And then from there, I, I started looking into, you know, there isn't— there wasn't at the time a lot of research that was published around specifically how society codes gender in the voice, meaning when you hear somebody talk, what's happening for you psychologically that you are categorizing it unconsciously as having any sort of perception of gender. And, you know, that there isn't a lot of published research, but thankfully at the time I was reached out to by a trans woman who was a PhD candidate at Stanford who was doing research into this exact area because she had her own experience of going to a speech pathologist, doing all the techniques that were taught, and it not being successful despite her having 100% effort and energy and dedication. And so she actually took this on as her research area of focus. And that, to this day, unpublished research was the main driver of how I was shaping the knowledge I was gaining into an actual curriculum. So once I landed with these 5 pillars of voice and an idea of what that curriculum could be, I, I recruited 100 trans and gender diverse people to put through a beta version of my program over the course of a year. And we met every week and had conversations about what was working, what wasn't. And at the end of that year, it was refined enough that I launched Undead Voice Lab, which is our signature program.

Oh, wow. I mean, that is really, really spectacular. So something that came up with a little bit ago, but I'm just curious. Sure. So as one transitions, their voice naturally, like through the transition process shifts, how does your program work with that shifting? Or I guess maybe the better way to ask this question is when would be the best time for a person to come to you?

That's a really good question. It depends on the age. So if somebody— let's start older and then move younger because it's a little bit more clear that way. If somebody has completed natal or adolescent puberty, there actually is very little change to the voice from hormones. So if somebody has, has finished natal or adolescent puberty, the size and shape of the structures that are responsible for creating the sound of the voice are pretty much set. And when, if they take estrogen, there's no change at all to the voice. If they take, and so all of their voice transition has to happen through voice training in that way. Uh, and then if they take testosterone, it does shift the voice, but all it does is change the pitch of the voice. And that is just 20% of how the voice presents. So a lot of times people will, um, take testosterone later in life or past maybe the age of 18, 19 when puberty is, the voice is pretty set. And they do notice a change in their voice over time, but it, it can become what is community-wise referred to as a T voice, which means it's a little buzzier. It can sound, sound a little less natural or like a little, um, pressured. And that's because only one of the five pillars have shifted. So people who take testosterone, it'll darken, or sorry, it will lower their pitch, but it doesn't change the other four areas. And so there can, there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the voice. Um, and then for people who take estrogen, like I mentioned, in adulthood, the— it doesn't change the voice at all because the, the mechanism that's most responsible for changing the gender perception of the voice is something called resonance. And resonance is controlled by how large or small the vocal tract is, the tube through which you speak. And that structure is made of cartilage, and cartilage is not impacted at all after the age of puberty. So once it grows to a certain size, it is that size. And there's— there's nothing that estrogen can do on its own to reverse the size of that structure. Instead, we can teach people to reshape using the muscles of the voice the size of that tube so they can make it smaller and more narrow. Or if they want to— if they want to darken or deepen their voice, they can make that tube longer and more wide. Would you like me to show you that? That. It's usually—

yes, that would be awesome.

Easier to understand.

Yes, that would be so cool.

So resonance is the most impactful part of voice transition. It is the number one way that society codes gender in the voice. And so whenever you create sound, if you put your hand on your throat and just say 'e,' 'e,' can you feel that vibration? Okay, so that's the source of the sound, 'e,' and that's happening right in your voice box, the level of your vocal folds. They vibrate and they make sound. Now, as that vibration and that sound move up and out of your vocal tract, it is impacted or shaped by the size of the tube. And so if I wanna make my voice darker, I'm gonna make that tube longer and wider. For example, e.

So here I've made the tube longer. I've changed nothing else about my voice. I'm speaking in the exact same pitch, everything else that I was before. I've just made it longer. Now I'm going to make it wider. E Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Again, same pitch I was speaking in. All I've done is make the tube wider. Now I'm going to go the other direction, so I'm going to make it shorter.

E Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Again, everything else is the same. I've just made it shorter. And now we're going to go more narrow. E Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Absolutely. That's extraordinary. Oh my goodness.

Thank you. And that's only one of 5 pillars. So you have so much control over your voice by doing voice training that isn't possible through, um, the hormones or surgery.

Right.

So that's adulthood. Now, if we think into adolescent puberty, a, a lot of that shift I mentioned that is, is permanent change into adulthood can be paused or even influenced. Right? So if somebody starts taking puberty blockers at a younger age, they're not going to have that change in their voice. That's not going to start shifting in one direction or the other. And then at any point, if they introduce HRT or hormone replacement therapy towards, um, hormones that better support whatever their gender identity is, it's going to actually shape their voice to naturally, uh, without effort, be able to create a sound that's more aligned with their identity. And so as you can this is one of those areas, voice, that is often overlooked whenever parents have conversations with their gender-affirming care providers for their youth. It's not something that, um, is usually part of the conversation. Typically it's, you know, more about physical presentation or secondary sex characteristics. Voice isn't something that's typically brought up immediately or even thought to be brought up. There's a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding around it, and We do two different types of work outside of our voice training. We do parent and caregiver allyship education, and then we do provider education. And this is one of the main points that we talk about. It's like the voice changes are often irreversible without a lot of voice training, um, in adulthood. And so voice is absolutely something to take into account whenever you're thinking of a care plan for trans youth. Especially, I mean, not to kind of go on and on about this, but this is your— these are the humans that I would imagine are listening to this. So the most important thing I like to say about voice training, it's so non-invasive. It's literally, it's the same as like singing lessons, right? And, and that you don't have to have a medical diagnosis. It doesn't matter if you're on blockers or, um, on HRT, none of that matters. You don't have to have, um, a conversation with a doctor. You can literally just you know, allow access to voice training and somebody can get so much relief over the dysphoria that comes up in the teenage years or during puberty from the changes in voice.

Right.

Yeah. I'm going to pause there because I could keep going on that point quite a bit.

You know, actually, I would like for you to, because I think there is a lot of misinformation.

Yeah.

And within that. So I would love to hear what you have to say to kind of keep going.

Yeah, if I were to keep going, it's more around like the psychological impact of voice dysphoria cannot be overstated enough, especially for trans and gender diverse youth. Having, um, for example, one of the first, one of the first clients or people that came into my orbit after I left those medical settings and started creating the curriculum for Undead Voice Lab was a young girl who was 16 years old and lived in New York. Her parents reached out because she— they hadn't physically heard her voice in 2 years. She had been selectively mute for 2 years because as puberty started changing the sound of her voice to be darker and deeper, she decided that, you know, it— well, decided feels like an active decision. The reality was it was so painful for her to hear that change and it to be so misaligned with her identity. That every time she opened her mouth to speak, it caused distress. And so she decided to stop speaking. And at the point we met, she had only spoken out loud to her little sister in the last 2 years and to her therapist. And that is, maybe seems like an extreme example, but the truth is it's really difficult for parents to, you know, delineate whether their kid stops talking to them as much because, you know, it's, they're a teenager.

Right, exactly.

They're just not as interested anymore. Versus, you know, they could be really going through something that's psychologically painful for them and emotionally distraught around the sound of their voice. And, you know, this, this young lady that I'm speaking of specifically, she was just, she was, she moved to text or to writing. And even at school to friends, she lost a lot of friends because she didn't feel comfortable being social anymore. Um, a lot of isolation, uh, you know, a decrease in her academics cuz she wasn't able to engage vocally in the way that she was able to before. And we started working together and in 4 months she was using her voice again full-time in a sound that she loved and was affirming. And she just graduated UCLA. So, oh my gosh. Just giving her access to a resource in a few months completely changed her life. Um, the, you know, a lot of the adults that we work with who are transitioning their, their voices later in life, that is the biggest source of frustration and sadness for them is having to have gone through their childhood and their youth without resources to make them feel confident speaking. And it really is a much different experience to, you know, we start, our voices start being shaped and sounding how they sound from like infancy. And the longer you're speaking a certain way, the more energy and effort it takes to undo those habits. So the earlier somebody can start learning different fun voice exercises to find something that's more affirming for them, the better, because you're kind of combating those years and years and years of, uh, learning or having to unlearn other vocal habits. So the youngest person that we have in our program is 9. The oldest is in their 90s. We've hung out with kids as young as 6 years old because I mean, that sounds really young, but I love that. I went and presented to, um, or did like a workshop with like a, a trans Girl Scout group. It was a bunch of young trans girls that were all Girl Scouts, and we did— obviously we're not sitting down and doing voice drills, we're doing like, if your voice— like, we give them a little drawing of like a little stick figure body, and we're like, okay, so I want you to imagine what your voice would look like. And so You know, one little girl draws like blue hair and a nose ring, and the other ones do like combat boots and like a, a dress and whatever. But just being able to talk a little bit more about like everybody's voice is different and you really get to choose how you sound. Mm-hmm. Because we think about voices being something that doesn't start to change until puberty. And that's true. The physical voice doesn't start to change until puberty, but there's 3 influences on the voice. I alluded to them earlier. They're physical, environmental, and culture— cultural. And so the environmental and cultural impact on the voice actually starts to as early as 6. So if you look at the research, young children's voices are kind of indiscernible in terms of like how you're gendering them up into the age of 6. And then how we are societally influenced starts to shift voices into two different categories. A good like 4, 6, you know, 8 years before puberty ever impacts the voice. And so a lot of the voice is actually influenced by how you were socialized.

Wow.

Because we emulate people who we identify with.

And I mean, that's, that's so funny because you said this and this is like such a small thing, but one of the things that I remember from being a child was my father always saying to me, you need to pitch your voice down. Your voice is too high. And I—

He had hearing loss. I was like— Yes, he has hearing loss.

It was such like, it's something that totally stuck with me because I always thought, well, what's wrong with my voice, right?

Oh, yeah.

That, and that's so minor. I know, like, I don't think it's a comparison at all, but to your point.

Yeah.

Excuse me, to your point of just like when those, like all of those different factors, how influential we are. Yeah.

And the messages we're told about our voice go beyond just gender perception. I was always told I talk too fast, um, said I'm too loud, and those things stuck with me as well. And yeah, you know, there was probably some truth to the speed. My line was always, I don't talk fast, you listen slow. Like But it was so clever. But full circle, my, you know, the, it, the, when I think of my early childhood and my voice as well, that's what stands out to me. And so it shows like even without gender identity or questioning your gender identity at a young age, there's still the in— like all of our voices are shaped by the messages we're told when we're younger, whether that's you talk too much or you need to make yourself smaller. Or you need to be nicer, or you need to quiet yourself or make yourself shrink a little bit, or like toughen up, get out there, be louder, like be aggressive. All of those things, you know, voice is the primary way in which we express ourselves and who we are. And so all the messages we're told about ourselves are communicated through our sound. And if those don't align with who you are, the beautiful part of voice transition is you don't just get to shift the way you sound in the future, you get to look back and do a retrospective analysis of all the messaging that influenced how you sound now, decide what of that is actually affirming or authentic for you and, and you can move forward with and what you wanna leave behind. So it's this like undressing or this peeling off layers of what is truly you and what did you, um, what did you wrap yourself in in order to feel safe and secure and have acceptance?

I mean, that is fascinating. I am just blown away and I don't know. I think it's one of those things that if you don't need to think about it in this way, you don't really think about it.

Right.

And so I just think this is such a, such important education for people.

I agree. Obviously it's my By passion and work, but even having increased awareness, like the, the most, the easiest thing you can do is be aware of what messages you are sending to youth that you're interacting with or that you're a parent or caregiver of. So we also do like workplace allyship training. So we work with like employers, Fortune 100 companies, 500 companies where we act as a gender-affirming employee benefit, but we also go in and do allyship training to allied colleagues. Because often, you know, we found like people who have transitioned their voice, 65% of them still say that they are not using that affirming voice in the workplace, not because they don't love the sound of their voice, but because having that shift happen around colleagues that aren't really aware of how to best support them and can unmeaningfully or meaningfully at times say some really not nice things to them or ask questions about their voice. They would rather not speak unless they absolutely have to. And the amount of disruption that can cause in the workplace. So one of the things I always say is treat voice like pregnancy. Don't bring it up unless they do. And if they do, congratulate the effort that they're taking, support their practice, and celebrate every win, big or small. That is a different message than I would tell parents or caregivers or allies of trans youth, because often they are not going to bring it up. Heather Hester: So if you start noticing a trans or gender diverse youth in your life that you love being more quiet than usual, you know, it can be helpful to see, are they only being quiet around you? Are they also being quiet around their friends where they typically are not? How about at school? Are they speaking up less? Are there— are you getting reports from their, their educators that they're, you know, not as participatory or their grades shifting and you can't really figure out why? Those are all other signs to look for that there might be a voice component happening here. And, um, come to an allyship training. We'll teach you how to have those conversations about what resources are available.

Absolutely. Well, I wonder if you could even just give one thing that a parent or a caregiver could say if they notice this in their child.

It's so unique to a child. You know, there's so many different children. If you can bring something up directly and they're open to it, or you bring something up and they get really mad and Frustrated with you. Uh, we usually walk through— there's different personas, and it also depends on the age. But if you have a child where it's easy to take a direct approach, I think after having listened to this podcast, because that's who this advice would get out to, just referencing this and not like a direct, hey, I learned about something, you should, you should do this. But I learned about something. I'm curious, are these thoughts or feelings that ever come up for you? Like, how do you Or even sharing your own experience can be really powerful. Like what you just mentioned about whenever you were younger, you know, your dad telling you that you needed to pitch down your voice. Just mentioning that in passing and being like, have we ever, have we ever unknowingly given you some messages about your voice? Or how are you feeling about the way that you sound? Is, is that shifting at all? You can be direct or indirect, and I think there's a lot of different approaches. For different kinds of kids. You know your kid best. Um, the, the resource that I will say is the most impactful— so I mentioned earlier that we have like a full voice training program called Undead Voice Lab. That can be a lot. It can be a lot to kind of jump into. It's a lifetime membership. There's a lot of people on that platform. It requires a certain level of dedication to courses and coaching, and we 2 years ago, knowing kind of what was coming down the pipeline and in terms of, uh, rapidly decreasing or disappearing access to gender-affirming care across our country, took that curriculum and pulled out the most impactful pieces to create a 3-week intro or beginner voice training program called Jump Start, and we offer it completely free. So we ran it 20 times last year and reached 50,000 people. And then this year we're running it 65 times. So it's, it runs throughout the entire year and there's, it's open for all ages. So even being able to enroll your, you know, your loved one in, in that program and not just give them an opportunity to learn some great beginner exercises that is a good proving ground for whether voice training is something you wanna pursue or they wanna pursue more seriously. It also gives them access to community. So there's a lot of other youth in those programs that they get to be, you know, interacting with, not just in the live Zoom classes, but also on the community platform. And so that program is called Jumpstart, and it's open for enrollment rolling throughout the whole year. We're open for enrollment right now for our next one.

Amazing.

And that we have found has been— it's accessible in all 50 states. There's anybody at any stage of their voice transition or their transition experience or any age is able to access that free of cost as well. And it'll be around for at least the next 10 years.

Amazing. That is, I mean, what a gift really, especially right now. What a gift. And I think that is also just no better way to be able to kind of test something out that you might be a little nervous about, or as a parent that you don't really understand how all of this works and you have questions.

Yeah.

What a great way to allow, you know, both to kind of get in there and be like, oh, this is what this is about. Here's like the 101, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we intentionally keep the, the program, um, a safe closed space for just trans and gender identifying individuals. But the, all the sessions are recorded and then posted the next day. Only the facilitator is recorded, not the participants. And so for parents who want to learn more about the experience, they wouldn't register directly for the program. Their child would go through it, but then they would be able to watch the replays or they can always, we have parent and caregiver trainings we do every month. And so in those, we go over all the content that is covered and Also, we are open for like one-on-one consults, which are just free 15-minute chats. So if you're a parent and you have a youth who you might think would benefit from this access to that resource or even our full program, you can just email us at contact@undeadvoice.com and we'll find a time to chat with you. The program itself, we have found, we did have it open at one point, but then the participants felt less comfortable being—

Sure.

Honest and open in the chat when they thought they were kind of being observed. So we've just created a separate resource for parents and then a safe space for youth too.

Brilliant.

I think that's absolutely brilliant. I mean, I am so impressed and I am so delighted to know that there's a resource out there like this.

Well, thank you for doing the work that you're doing and sharing it because that's always the biggest lift. Like we are, small but mighty team, but being able to reach our audience is the main goal of this year, especially youth who live in care ban states because there's often nothing available. And, uh, we not, we not only have the free program, but we've awarded $1.6 million in need-based scholarships. So we have funding available for the full program if that's, you know, part of somebody's gender journey as well. And, um, specifically being able to help those families who are Oftentimes just distraught and without any resources is the, the goal for this investment for us.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh my goodness. And it, and it is such an isolating feeling. Um, and the more you kind of get yourself wrapped up in that, the more isolating it does feel.

Absolutely.

So I am really grateful to know that you are, you are there. Um, and this is something that I can begin sharing with people because how would a difference What a difference. And it's something too, I just wanted to— one other thing that you said that really— actually two things that sparked thoughts for me is addressing something that— both addressing and educating on something that many people take for granted and is such an important part of identity and who we are. As unique humans, right? Everybody is unique in that way. But then I also really just love the encouragement to be curious and to instead of to, you know, kind of say direct things to your child, to your loved one, to your friend, whomever it might be, is to always approach with that curiosity and just like, I wonder, you know, or I saw this and I wonder what you think of it. And I just think that is, it's so much more effective no matter what kind of kid you have or what kind of person. So I just wanted to highlight those two things because, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. If you wanna go even a step further, you can go to our YouTube channel and there's some fun exercises on there. You can learn like a new character voice and demonstrate it for your kid and be like, listen to this thing I can do. I think we have a video on how to do like— there's— so characters are a really great way to start introducing new, uh, like voice techniques without it feeling so triggering of, you know, how you might be presenting. And so we have a whole like cast of characters in our full program that you get to learn, like, uh, like bad dog, good dog, um, kindergarten teacher versus high school teacher. The monster voice is my favorite.

The Monday, Tuesday Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, those are really fun. So just like, you know, depersonalizing it a little bit so you can learn the skill and then recentering it back on your own identity. But some of those would be fun to look through and do with your kids too.

Oh, 1000%. Oh my goodness. Okay. Well, that's getting linked too, because how fun. I mean, I'm gonna go there and play.

So yeah, the free program is, um, the free program is at undeadvoice.com/joinjumpstart. Real easy. And if it's not open for enrollment, the waitlist is up and We don't turn anybody away. So the waitlist sounds like, you know, oh my gosh, you might not get it. But the truth is it's just so that we notify you whenever the next enrollment is open.

Amazing. That is awesome. Well, this will all be linked in the show notes and I will have it in newsletters and on the website. So just, you'll be able to find it. I'm so, so grateful that you had the time to talk today.

Absolutely.

That we were able to have this conversation. Is there anything else that you would like to add before we wrap it up?

Um, I usually— there's like a quote from— I, you know, one of the times I did an interview and they asked, what's a piece of advice you'd give somebody who is starting their voice transition journey or to those supporting them? I already gave you the one for those supporting them, but I think the one to people who are, you know, maybe listening and thinking of their own experience or their own voice journey— one of our members said, you know, your voice journey is, is like your gender journey. Nothing happens overnight. But as you hear your voice change, you can feel your confidence grow and you won't regret the time and energy you put into falling in love with your voice. So just some words of encouragement from people who have been through it, someone who's been through it and really struggled as well.

Right. Absolutely. Well, thank you. I think that is so important and a beautiful way to end. So I really, really appreciate your time and I'm so grateful for all the work that you're doing.

Thank you, Heather Hester. It was great chatting with you.

I hope this conversation expanded something for you the way it did for me. Voice is so much more than sound. It's agency. It's safety. It's identity. It's how we take up space in the world. One of the things I loved most about Nicole's approach is the emphasis on curiosity, not correction. Exploration, not performance. And community, not isolation. If you are a parent or caregiver and you're wondering whether voice might be a part of your child's experience, I encourage you to start gently. Stay curious. Share something you learned. Ask an open-ended question. You don't have to have all the answers. You just have to be willing to listen. Nicole's free 3-week program, Jump Start, is linked in the show notes along with their parent and caregiver resources, YouTube exercises, and information about scholarships. If this conversation resonated with you, please share it. These resources can be life-changing, especially for families who feel alone. And to anyone listening who is navigating your own voice journey, Your voice deserves to feel like home. Nothing happens overnight, but you will not regret the time and energy you put into falling in love with the sound of yourself. Thank you for being here. New episodes of More Human, More Kind drop every Tuesday and Friday. Until next time, see the human and be the change.