I get the attention of people using the sound of my key chain then I point at what I want, rarely do I talk because my voice is too quiet to be heard

Yes. I have noticed if I’m not visible my voice annoys people into blanking anything i say. Then i chose to not speak and get “oh Gorb whats wrong why are you so quiet?”. Perpetual never ending goading that I am at all times incorrect in my behaviour makes me want to do things…

I learned a long time ago that it’s not any particular thing I’m doing wrong its just NT’s finding justifications for having some weird innate hatred for me and will point out whatever it was specifically at that point in time but there is never a correct behaviour other than not being autistic

i either speak too loudly or too quietly. i overenunciate everything, and have a vaguely General American accent when i speak English, so if i’m too loud then people conflate me with an amerikkkan tourist and sometimes get violent with me (i’m not a turtle ilander). neurotypicals from the southern and midwest US accuse me of ‘pretending i’m better than’ them; native speakers of other languages i speak similarly get defensive because i usually adopt a ‘standard’ ‘prestige’ dialect. bonus: i’m femme-passing, so being loud irritates cismen.

on top of it all, people tell me i’m pretentious because i use bIg wOrD and speak directly without any of the timewasting niceties and pleasantries of ‘normal’ speech, and — being a language nerd — i am very selective with my word choice, i use very narrow definitions of words (i hated the concept of ‘synonyms’ in school), and i like to use obscure/archaic terms where i think they fill an unfulfilled niche in my vocabulary… i sometimes sound like a tortured poet. i have trouble understanding spoken language, i lose my words a lot, and i get into stuttering fits. people (read: bullies) consider these great opportunities to mock the ‘snobby’ way that i speak. if i get started on a topic, i find it hard to notice when to shut the fuck up.

when i’m upset, my voice betrays my emotions. if i’m trying to deëscalate a situation or engage in nonviolent communication then i get accused of being manipulative.

all of this compounds to frustrate people’s worldviews, since they find it hard to believe i didn’t have a formal education and grew up in poverty, or that i struggle with mental health and neurological issues. so i also get accused of being a liar. and a manipulator. a lot.

these days i force almost everyone i talk to to only ever speak to me via IM or email (hOw maNipuLaTivE and DEMANDING), and i just avoid associating with neurotypicals as much as i can. no, it doesn’t make social functioning easier, but i don’t think it can be any easier.

*shruggie*

Imo it’s not your voice. It’s not even “tone” in the musical sense of the term.

Tone is used by allistics to refer to the sum total of shit like pitch and prosody and inflection and facial expression and body language and connotation and implication and nonlexicals; it’s the sum total of everything outside of the words themselves and then they run it through the allistic heuristic to determine the “vibe” of your communication and then respond to that.

It’s basically a big overinterpretation and then they take offense at how they feel about you and blame you for their feelings and make demands that you adapt.

Not all allistic people and not all the time but I am/at least was higher masking and a big language nerd and even then it was a goddamned coin flip as to whether someone would get upset with me because they made themselves feel sad at their choice of interpretation of my words and then they’d demand satisfaction from me because of all this.

These are the people who tell autistic people “you can’t demand that the whole world changes just to suit your needs” btw

my entire life, everyone has been telling me that I sound like an asshole, no matter how much kindness and care I try to add to the things that I’m saying

“You think you’re better than us” (I super don’t)

“You think you know everything” (absolutely do not)

genuinely have never understood how this tone has been added to everything I ever say, but this has been a consistent complaint of other people since I was a child, so obviously it’s a thing that I’m putting out but not meaning to

I only ever talk too loudly or too softly. I regularly upset people by talking too quietly, but I can’t really modulate it.

People used to say like I talked like everyone else was stupid

Mainly because I would enunciate (because I wanted to make sure people understood me) and used advanced language (because I read a lot as a kid)

This got me picked on a lot, so I basically studied how to talk “normal” by watching a lot of TV

And now people say I don’t sound like a Puerto Rican so I learned I could never win

I got that autistic monotone robot voice, but like also I’m super sarcastic all the time. It’s like 2 extremes.

I donno if my voice is offensive but my words can be because I’m often blunt as fuck.

people have told me I sound like christian slater lol

People who live lives that require clever uses and interpretations of language get stuck on my shit a lot. I’m rarely trying to be clever, I favor being as literal and straightforward as i can, but I like using words in weird ways and subconsciously i construct puns and wordplay without thinking too hard when i’m relaxed. So misinterpretation is normal. That’s fine, I’m not good at all that. Clarifying usually helps. Most people aren’t looking to grudgefuck you over word choice. I feel like that’s a more autistic reaction though. I guess some allistic types but neurotyps more generally just glaze over if i talk about anything i give a shit about. Oh you managed to ask about something I really love, time to absolutely not give a shit while I spew out reams of words you were never going to engage with. Kind of like the brain turns off and they assert whatever conversational autopiloting is going on in their heads. Tiresome, expected, same shit different day.

lately it’s like, oh yeah I can now see how the words i chose can be read that way, but at this point intent matters right, like i’m trying to say what i’m trying to say, and I have to be really, really emotionally compromised to not be trying for love and kindness.

If clarifying doesn’t help i tend to let things die. Like if I love you and care about you maybe I back off and try to re-negotiate, because i despise having bad blood that’s not intended, but if I don’t have a reason to do that, idk most people are ghosts in my life, and I in theirs - it’s easier to mentally write them off and hurry along to the part of my life where I forget they exist.

As for whether my voice is offensive, it can really depend because I know that when I’m aggrieved I paint it with every brush I have. I can make myself insufferable, unpleasant, all of that as easily as I can not do that. I’m sure people hate my voice, and others love it. I dislike the pitch a fair bit but nobody I give a shit about is going to start treating me differently just because i have a T-ravaged voice box.

Yes, but I get the feeling any AFAB person who is loud (aka me) is going to be told their voice is annoying. I imagine Trans women also have this problem.

No but, people on the phone often misgender me as a woman.

Moderately frequently, yes. I just get super confused because I literally have no idea why they’re mad, there’s just like a 5% chance that everyone I talk to will act super offended by what I say and I don’t know why

My voice is great. It’s that I never shut the fuck up.