Mike

It's a yellow bittern! They are very creechur.

yeah that looks normal… yeah these are all— um. hold on. hang on.

So, if any trans men are being told about this, it’s not true!! Smoking will not change your voice, at least not until you’re about forty years down the line and you’ve already irreparably destroyed your lungs and throat and mouth and pretty much every other organ in your body. When you hear heavy smokers with deeper, scratchier voices it is literally because their vocal cords have been ruined. This is not a passive effect of smoking, it is a very very damaging one!

It’s simply not worth it! There will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Voice training will do a lot more for you than cigarettes will, I promise that the people urging you to start smoking as a voice training method do not have your best interests at heart!

(And you know what, this also goes for not eating due to the idea that starving yourself will decrease your chest size. Like with smoking, there will be no meaningful changes except terrible ones. Your body is worth so much more than that and there will always be healthier alternatives!)

(Btw, afaik smoking only has this effect on estrogen from HRT. Estrogen that AFAB bodies produce naturally is not affected, so smoking is still bad for trans men)

I think also in that conversation, I had a couple people tell me that the book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking is, despite the gimmicky title, genuinely helpful.

If quitting for yourself seems too abstract and it’s hard to care, think about everyone around you. Someone with asthma or migraines will breathe easier if they’re not risking an attack from standing near you.

Lastly, some queer history: a 90’s tobacco marketing campaign that targeted gay men was literally called Project SCUM. That’s what they think of us. Don’t give them your money.