Guineapigged wrote:
I'm female but pre-puberty I was regularly mistaken for a boy. This was partly because I wore boys clothes, partly because my name can apply to either gender, partly because I had a short haircut, and partly because of my monotonous voice. It wasn't just kids teasing me; grown-ups outright asked me, "are you a boy or a girl?"
After puberty, growing my hair, and learning to choose more "gender appropriate" clothing I never get mistaken for male anymore - except when I'm on the phone. One thing that has stayed the same is my voice. Even my relatives can't tell me apart from my brothers, and strangers think I'm my parents' son. When that happens I don't even bother to pull them up on it because I imagine they would be more embarrassed than me.
No, I've never been mistaken for the opposite sex. What I can say is that smoking, excessive use of alcohol, and allergies can all make a female's voice deeper than what it would otherwise be. There is also the matter of inflections, which is something I had to learn. Feminine voice inflections do differ from male inflections.