Local musician Eli Conley helps trans singers find their voice after going on testosterone

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If you Google “singing on T,” one of the first results you’ll find is a blog post written by Sacramento musician Eli Conley. 

It’s a piece he wrote over a decade ago where he shares his own experience as a transman on testosterone — or “T” for short — and what helped him keep singing as his voice changed.

“It’s still the most visited page on my website because that information is so needed,” he said. 

When Conley first went on T in 2006, there weren’t many resources for transgender singers. All he knew was that he wanted to go on T and keep making music, which was a lifelong dream. 

But other trans people had told him that as their voices deepened, they also experienced cracking voices with a more limited vocal range. Nowadays, Conley says more people begin transitioning with lower doses of testosterone, which can mitigate some of those impacts. But at the time, these stories made him hesitate. 

In the end, he decided it was worth the risk, and that as part of this new journey, he’d figure out how to keep singing. 

That experience helped him develop some techniques that, later, he’d bring to students here in Sacramento and around the country. He’s been teaching singing lessons for years but started offering online sessions specifically about singing on T in 2023. 

CapRadio’s Manola Secaira sat down with Conley to talk about how he got to where he is today and his advice for other trans singers.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Interview Highlights

When did singing become a big part of your life? 

Singing was always a way that I could express myself with my full body. I was one of those kids who was just constantly singing all the time. My parents had to make rules: No singing at the dinner table. No singing during tests at school, teachers would often tell me. So, early on, my family got me into kids’ musical theater and children's choir. 

But I think the moment that I actually realized that music could be a career and a big part of my life was when I went to a summer camp that specifically was focused on singer-songwriters as a teenager. And I was just like, wow, this is actually possible. There are people in the world, not just on the radio, but who I've met in real life who make their living as teachers and musicians.

Fast forward a few years later, and you were contemplating going on T. What did you know about what that would mean for your singing voice? 

I'd say like many things in that era, and still to this day, trans people find things out by talking to other trans people. There really were not any dedicated resources. If I tried to look up stuff online, there was very little about singing on testosterone.

I remember going to a camp specifically for transgender men and transmasculine people in western Massachusetts, probably 2004, 2005. I met a guy there who had transitioned medically and he told me that he couldn't sing anymore. He basically was like, ‘I used to be able to make people cry with my voice and now I can't hardly sing a note.’ And that was really scary to me. 

What was the thing that made you decide to do it anyway, even though it sounds like you had that big fear? 

Eventually I got to a place where I was just like, I need this for my own sense of self, both to feel right in my body and to be seen by the world correctly. And I have the huge privilege of being a white trans man who had access to transition at a time when it wasn't covered by insurance at all. 

I decided to take the risk. I just said, okay, singing is important to me. I'm going to figure out how to keep singing. And I'm really thankful that I did because it was honestly the only reason at that point that I was not 100% sure about starting hormones. 

Courtesy of Eli Conley

So without a bunch of resources, it sounds like you had to figure some of that journey out on your own. What did that look like? 

I had a very high soprano voice and I was trained as a classical singer. Thankfully, all along I'd also been doing my own country and folk music, singing in the lower part of my voice, like where I'm speaking to you now, although it was not this low at the time. A big thing was just using traditional vocal exercises, like scales, throughout as much of my range as what's comfortable on a given day to explore. 

I also tried to have a sense of humor as my voice was making weird, wild, wiggly movements. Sometimes, I sounded like an old person. Sometimes, I sounded like a teenage boy. I really just tried to  … have faith that hopefully this will end, but I'm just going to keep singing as much as I can to stay connected to this instrument of my voice as it's going through this big weird journey. 

Now, you’re teaching students — many who have gone through a very similar journey. What’s something you tell them based on what you learned? 

If they're just starting [to go on T], I just say, okay, let's get a basis of what's your current range, and let's sing some scales, let's do some slides, let's just keep your voice limber.

When somebody is in that chaos stage where everything is cracking and breaking, we just sing wherever feels comfortable. And I really encourage people to laugh at themselves because there can be a lot of grief of losing a voice you felt very identified with and suddenly having this voice that feels completely out of your control. I really just try to emphasize for people, this is not permanent. This is just going to be for a few months that you're experiencing this and do your best and then we'll get to the other side. 

When your voice has actually dropped significantly, that's when I start working with them on more traditional voice training. Things like making sure you have good breath under your voice, working on regaining some volume, working on regaining some falsetto. But we can't really do that until somebody's voice is in the new place.

Do you feel like the resources available match the need? 

No, there's a huge need. I mean, that's just something that I've known since I was going through this myself, and there continues to be a huge need for more. 

What do you see as the future of this work? 

I'm really excited to get to pass the baton a little bit to a number of new teachers who are taking up that work …  because I love working with people on songwriting coaching. I love working with people on finding what is in their heart and expressing it through song, and that feels like what I'm kind of most excited about as a teacher these days.

But I'm never going to not work with trans singers who are transitioning because that's just a deep piece of my work in this world, I feel.

What would you tell your younger self, knowing everything you know now? 

I'd say it's gonna be weird and wacky and wild and buckle up for the ride. But once you get to the other side of the voice change, things are gonna be a lot easier in terms of your day-to-day movement in the world. And going through the tricky cracking part is totally worth it to get to a space where you feel better in your body, you feel better moving through the world and you still absolutely get to sing.