When the Voice Breaks

Why I’m Telling This Story

I’ve written hundreds of songs. Released albums. Built businesses. Survived things I never imagined I’d have to survive.

But this piece isn’t just about what I’ve made. It’s about what I lost, and what I found again, piece by piece, through music, technology, and an unrelenting drive to be heard.

If you’ve ever felt like a part of you went missing after a major life change, this is for you. If you’ve ever wondered how someone rebuilds from silence, or how technology can be a partner in that healing, this is for you. And if you’re trying to understand what it means to create, resist, and live as a trans person in a time like this, this is for you, too.

This is not a product story. Not a brand story. It’s personal. It’s political. It’s mine. And it’s a call to recognize the human-centered potential of our evolving technological landscape.

A Note on Technology and Transformation

My journey of personal restoration through AI speaks to a larger truth about the new wave of creative technologies emerging, and it has opened my eyes to the profound, positive impacts artificial intelligence is already having on people’s lives. It’s also a testament to why we need to stop gatekeeping this technology. So much of the public discourse is dominated by fear or dismissive critiques of its more superficial or less thoughtful applications. But what I discovered was not a threat, but a partner in creation, a tool that could help dismantle old barriers and open new pathways.

My experience is a potent reminder that we urgently need to shift our collective focus. Instead of dwelling on fear or complaining about less thoughtful uses, we can explore how AI can amplify human potential, foster creativity, and become an accessible new norm for positive change. The sooner we do this, the sooner we can truly begin to harness its power. When we move beyond cynicism, we can start using these tools to make a real, tangible difference in people's lives, to give voice to the previously unheard, and to reshape our world in meaningful and equitable ways.

When the Voice Breaks

The Lost Harmony

I was a music major. That statement feels like a lifetime ago, a snapshot of a different self. My entire world, every breath and heartbeat, once revolved around the intricate dance of singing. Life was measured not in days or years, but in the rustle of well-worn choral scores, the nervous energy before solo recitals under stark stage lights, the complex intellectual puzzles of music theory classes, and the familiar, often imperfect, echo of countless rehearsal rooms. Some of those rooms, with their notoriously awful acoustics, paradoxically became sacred spaces, where vulnerability and ambition intertwined. For years, I meticulously trained my voice, dedicating myself to scales, exercises, and the pursuit of a perfect note. It wasn’t just an instrument; it was the most constant, reliable part of me, the very core of my identity, the primary language through which I understood and expressed myself to the world. Until I transitioned.

And then, the sound of it, my own voice, became unbearable. This wasn't a simple dislike; it was a profound, visceral rejection.

There was no single, dramatic moment of unraveling, no cinematic scene where everything shattered at once. Instead, it was a slow, insidious, deepening ache that settled in my chest, a knot of discomfort that tightened whenever I heard myself speak, let alone dared to sing. The resonance, the timbre, the pitch, all of it felt alien. It was as though my voice, this once integral part of me, now belonged to a stranger, an unwelcome guest in my own body. It became an auditory echo of someone I no longer was, and in the quiet, honest moments, someone I realized with a painful clarity I had never truly been. The dissonance was a constant, low hum of wrongness.

So, I stopped singing. Completely. The decision was less a choice and more a surrender to an undeniable internal reality. I haven’t willingly, joyfully sung a single note in years. The silence that followed was vast and echoing.

The Weight of Silence

That silence, initially a refuge from the discomfort, gradually grew into its own distinct and pervasive form of grief. It wasn’t a loud, wailing sorrow that demanded attention, but a persistent, quiet hum beneath the surface of everything, a constant reminder of a profound loss. It was the grief of a limb amputated, a language forgotten.

I tried to bury it, to smother this quiet anguish under layers of relentless professional success and demanding leadership roles. I poured myself into the drive of startups and the logic of systems. I painstakingly, almost obsessively, rebuilt my life in entirely different keys, striving for new harmonies, new definitions of self. I constructed a new edifice of identity, brick by brick, achievement by achievement. Yet, despite these efforts, a fundamental part of me remained muted, silenced, a hollow chamber where music used to reside.

A Spark in the Dark: Electric Suffragette

Then, Electric Suffragette was born—an unexpected conception, a spark in the long darkness. It began as just a name, whispered to myself at first, then asserted with more confidence. A fiercely defiant name, one that crackled with an energy I hadn't felt in what seemed like an eternity. "Electric" signified the spark, the technology, the modern form of this reawakening. "Suffragette" carried the weight of historical struggle, of fighting for a voice, for the right to be heard and counted. It felt sharp, intensely political, undeniably true to my core.

I never imagined that this name, this concept, would blossom into such a surge of creative energy. Words I had carried for years—some for as long as two decades, many more written just in the last year—finally culminated in hundreds of songs and dozens of albums.

But something profound and transformative shifted when I started experimenting, tentatively at first, then with growing excitement, with Suno AI. Those stored-up words, ideas I thought might never find their melody, finally had a place to land, a sonic landscape to inhabit.

My voice, though undeniably altered, shaped by technology, was still, in its essence, fundamentally mine. It could live again, reborn and reimagined through machines that offered no judgment, no misgendering, only the pure, unadulterated possibility of creation.

Suno AI, therefore, doesn’t replace me; it doesn't usurp my artistry. Instead, it meticulously, almost tenderly, restores something precious, something vital, that I believed was irrevocably lost, shattered beyond repair. It provides a bridge back to a part of myself I thought was gone forever, allowing a new form of vocal expression that aligns with who I am now.

Art as Survival, Art as Resistance

This journey, this reclamation with AI as an ally, isn’t about indulging in wistful nostalgia for a past that can never be fully recovered, nor is it about chasing the fleeting thrill of technological novelty. It is about raw, undiluted survival, and more than that, about the defiant act of thriving. Because lately, perhaps more than ever, every single day feels like a battle, a constant navigation of a world that often feels hostile. There's the state I fled, a place that became synonymous with fear, seeking refuge only to find new, insidious struggles. There are the fundamental human rights, things that should be inviolable, that continue to erode with alarming speed, chipped away by prejudice and political maneuvering.

The crushing, relentless daily weight of watching your very humanity, your right to exist, be debated, dissected, and dismissed on national news platforms.

In legislative chambers and in public discourse, this becomes a burden too heavy to carry alone.

I don’t write these songs merely to feel seen, though the validation of being witnessed is undeniably a part of it. I write them, more urgently, to scream, to howl, to roar when the world expects us, demands us, to remain silent, to be palatable, to be invisible. I write them to feel, deeply and intensely, to allow the full spectrum of human emotion to course through me when society pressures us, particularly those on the margins, to numb ourselves, to disconnect, just to survive the onslaught.

Some of these songs are undeniably angry, fueled by a righteous, incandescent fire born of injustice; they are anthems of fury. As a necessary release from all that pressure, some are gloriously, unapologetically untamed, embracing the chaos and the absurdity of a world that often makes no sense. And some are so raw, so intensely vulnerable, that each note feels like a shard of exposed nerve. But every single one of them, regardless of its emotional tenor, is brutally, unflinchingly honest. Every single one of them feels utterly, existentially necessary, for my sanity, for my spirit, for my fight.

For me, and I know for many trans people, for many marginalized individuals, this isn’t simply art as a form of casual expression, a hobby, or a pastime. This is art as an act of profound resistance. It is a way to reclaim narratives, to challenge power structures, to affirm existence in a world that often seeks to deny it. Resistance against erasure, resistance against despair, resistance against the crushing weight of a world that wasn't built for us but in which we demand to live fully.

The Echo Returns

I once wrote, in a song called "Mirror’s Truth," these lines that captured the heart of that painful disconnect:

"For years I lived in borrowed skin, A painted grin I tucked within. The frame was wrong, the gaze askew, A face I wore, but never knew."

For so many years, that was my unvarnished, agonizing truth. The reflection was alien, the voice a betrayal. But now, through the fierce, unapologetic energy of Electric Suffragette and the innovative, empowering partnership with AI, that echo, long silent, is beginning, tentatively, hopefully, to return. It’s a new echo, different, but mine.

And the songs themselves, the very nature of my creative output, have transformed, too, mirroring this internal shift. They carry a different weight, a sharper edge.

I also wrote, in a track titled "Burn the Script," a declaration of this newfound defiance:

"Burn the script, let the ashes fall, I won’t play your part at all. Tear the pages, light the flame, From the cinders, I’ll rise unchained."

This was the turning point, the moment grief began to transmute into rage, and then into action. Because silence, I learned, offers no genuine safety, no true protection. And mere survival, the act of simply enduring, is never, ever enough. We are here to live, not just to exist.

And finally, I penned these words, a culmination of this journey, in the song "Metamorphosis":

"Metamorphosis — I unfold, From fear to fierce, from shy to bold. Out of the hush, into the light, I rise, I burn, I claim this flight."

This is more than a lyric; it's a manifesto. It’s a testament to resilience, to the enduring power of the human spirit to find light even in the deepest darkness. That, in its essence, is what Electric Suffragette means to me. May it also offer a spark of recognition or hope for anyone navigating their own path of loss and reclamation. Perhaps it will even prompt you to consider your own voice, the silences you've known, and the ways you too can resist and shine.

A voice, powerfully, miraculously returned. A fight, fiercely, righteously rekindled. A light, still defiantly, brilliantly burning, illuminating the path forward.

What might it look like for you to reclaim your own?