So changing your "gender" is fine, but changing your accent is *weird*...

[Taupeness]

If you want a laugh amongst the stress of getting ready for Christmas, then can I point you to this thread on trans Reddit which asks the question:

so im british and have had a british accent my whole life, but it has been causing me a lot of dysphoria recently. im amab and non binary and i want to have a male-sounding voice but for it to be softer and have a more feminine tone (i cant really explain it that well), and i can only really do that voice well while using an american accent. so is it okay to change my accent and if so would other people who already know me be weirded out by it?

The answers are comedy gold. Because changing your "gender(s)" is cool, obvs, but changing your accent is weird 😆

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1psn646/is_it_okay_to_change_my_accent/

That thread is hilarious.

So many of the answers are so close to getting it...

They live in a world were a dude suddenly using a lady voice wouldnt cause anyone to double take, but someone changing accent would.

It begs the question as to whether actors who are bidialectal are guilty of cultural appropriation ?

Gillian Anderson and Millie Brown spring to mind. Or for some spice, John Barrowman.

Don’t expect reason or logic from a group of people who believe a person can change sex.

''Radio 4 is overwhelmed with Scottish and American accents, you might have to listen attentively to find an English one.''

''overwhelmed'' so much for inclusivity. 😅
There's a profitable YouTube channel in this for someone. I demand a 10% cut for giving you the idea.

That’s hilarious 🤣🤣🤣. They are nothing if not consistently inconsistent.

How weird is it that there is potentially a market segment for this? 🤷‍♀️

There are quite a few dialect coaches on YouTube but I can't vouch for their quality. For example, the ones I've seen who claim to be able to teach viewers how to use an Irish accent are usually clueless as to what actual Irish accents sound like and they end up giving comedy Oirish examples to their viewers 🙄

English people often have strange ideas of what Irish accents sound like. I've had waiters in London ask me if I'm American. Cheeky bastards.

Snap! I was asked by an English person once if was American which I found mind-boggling at the time. The Scots and the Welsh I've spoken too have always placed my accent correctly.

I have had one English woman (in a business I was ringing) hang up on me after declaring loudly, "Sorry, I can't understand you, ring back tomorrow!". Again, mind-boggling - it's not like I'm from Cullybackey or deepest darkest Kerry 😂😬

Hmm, I find strong Dublin accents much harder to understand than Kerry ones!

It was quite a shock to my friends when we first went to the US that Americans thought we were Australian. Which seemed to become more common the further south and west we went.

Mostly infuriated by the "Radio 4 is overwhelmed by Scottish accents" comment, though that poster also said they only listen to Radio 4 "when they can bear to". I'm picturing someone wailing dramatically as they flail onto a couch after too much of the shipping forecast...

When I lived in France I used to be asked if my accent was Alsatian - from Alsace, not the breed of dog😄

When I lived in Germany people asked me if I was Swiss. Which kind of makes sense to me...

Then again, anytime I meet Poles they always assume I'm Russian, and I have no idea where that comes from.

I've been asked several times - when speaking languages other than English - whether I'm Dutch. Which is probably not complimentary to my French/Bulgarian/German accents, but perhaps better than being obviously English?

Before hearing me speak, assumptions have included Russian, Dutch (again) and Irish. I am none of these.

Edit: can I report these people for misnationalitying me?

When I speak French in France people often ask if I am from Corsica.

Although maybe that was just my pronunciation of 'l'ecosse'.

Edit: or my habitual mangling of syntax

East. 😁

I don’t know you and I’m weirded out!!!

I will always defend Norn Iron as the most expressive form of English.

RP: My husband hates cheese.

NI: See me? See my man? See cheese? He hates it.

I've been asked several times - when speaking languages other than English - whether I'm Dutch.

Well, English is on the same branch. A few times watching Dutch films, some words leap out at me as being pronounced in perfect "English".

I shared a house with a (Cat'lic) guy from Norn'Iron for a year at Uni. He was adamant you could tell Protestant and Catholics apart purely by accent. Whether that's a thing or not, I've never really divined.

the Idea that speaking in an American accent is going to be what outs chappie as non binary. I sort of thought the whole point of being non binary was to make a song and dance about it, no?

If you have a good ear, you can tell quite precisely where someone is from. To me, a Randalstown accent is very different from a Tobermore accent, and Ballymena is wile different again, though the triangle they make on a map is not big.

Town or village doesn't exactly tell you religion, but oftentimes it allows you a good guess.

😍

The polite Norn Iron version of describing his attitude to cheese 😉

“'America is tied to maga and trump'
England is tied to colonialism, imperialism, coups, genocide, and above all TERFs to me. I would be more embarrassed sounding English than anything.”

Are TERFs worse than colonialism? 😂
These people are mad.