There's several cases where a woman has to disguise herself as a man for some reason. However, a feminine high-pitched voice would easily blow her cover. For this reason, the woman has to change her voice to not raise suspicions. She can either naturally lower her voice or use a device to make her voice sound masculine.
Likewise, a man who is Disguised in Drag or just crossdressing for fun won't be convincing with a low voice and he would need to use a higher pitch. May be all the more convincing if the man is voiced by a woman to begin with.
This may also apply to characters who aren't crossdressing, but are hidden in some way that only allows others to hear their voice and it's distorted to make them sound like the opposite gender.
Compare and contrast Tomboyish Voice, where masculine women have a low voice, and Effeminate Voice, where feminine men use a high-pitched voice. The difference is this trope doesn't require the woman to be naturally tomboyish and the man to be naturally effeminate if they're only crossdressing for a disguise.
Subtrope of Secret Identity Vocal Shift. Related to Larynx Dissonance which also revolves around the concept of imitating the voice of the opposite sex, but doesn't need to be done specifically for disguise and the voice is meant to be so unconvincing that it's goofy and a dead giveaway.
Not to be confused with Cross-Dressing Voices, which is when a character's Voice Actor is of the opposite gender.
May overlap with Cast as a Mask if a different actor is used to portray the disguised voice.
Since this is used a lot for Samus Is a Girl reveals, beware of spoilers in the examples.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Women Disguised as Men with Deep Voices
Anime
- Akito from Fruits Basket is a woman, but has to pose as a man because her emotionally abusive mother convinced Akito's father that a woman can't be head of the Sohma clan. The 2019 anime has Akito be voiced by a woman doing a low voice in an attempt to hide her gender.
- Kyuubei from Gintama was born a woman, but was Raised as the Opposite Gender due to being the only successor of the Yagyuu family. During Kyuubei's introduction, no one except Otae knows about Kyuubei's gender since the latter's androgynous appearance and low voice make everyone else think Kyuubei is a young man.
- In the second arc of I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss, the female protagonist Aileen disguises herself as a male student to do a secret investigation at an academy. Besides cutting her hair, she speaks with a lower voice than usual to made her disguise more convincing.
- Mayo Chiki! is about a girl named Subaru who disguises herself as a butler and speaks in a low voice as part of the facade.
- Seishirou Tsugumi from Nisekoi wears man's clothing due to being trained as a hitman from childhood. When introduced, everyone except Chitoge thinks Tsugumi is a guy because of the way she dresses and her very low voice. After she's revealed to be a girl, her voice sounds higher.
- In Ouran High School Host Club, Haruhi is a girl who must work as a host to pay off a debt. Thanks to her androgynous looks and low voice, most characters can't realize she's a girl right away.
- Tweeny Witches: Arusu speaks with a more gravelly voice than usual when the Magical Girl Squad disguises themselves as young warlocks to infiltrate Wizard Kingdom.
Fan Works
- The Rigel Black Chronicles: Harriet starts practising a deeper octave when she first boards the Hogwarts Express. It helps that she's only eleven, so boys' and girls' voices are both high-pitched, but she's laying the groundwork for years to come.
Films — Animation
- Batman: Mask of the Phantasm: At first, the Phantasm seems to be Carl Beaumont (they have the same voice actor), but the Phantasm is eventually revealed to be Carl's daughter, Andrea, using a voice changer embedded in the mask.
- Mulan: The titular character is a woman who enlists in the army under the disguise of a man. Mulan makes her voice lower and more gravelly when speaking to the other soldiers to keep them from realizing her true gender.
- Puss in Boots (2011): Kitty Softpaws is introduced as an unspeaking masked thief and later revealed as female when unmasked. At one point before the reveal, she clears her throat to get Puss' attention, which is delivered in a much deeper voice than her regular speaking voice.
Films — Live-Action
- Monty Python's Life of Brian: According to Brian and his mother, under Jewish law, women are forbidden to attend stonings. So the crowd at the stoning is therefore full of women wearing fake beards and faking deep voices.
- In the Scream series, Ghostface uses a voice changer with a masculine voice (voiced by Roger L. Jackson), even when it's a woman under the costume.
- In Sky High (2005), the villain, Royal Pain, wears a helmet with a voice changer that makes her voice sound masculine, to the point that even her longtime nemesis, The Commander, thought she was a man until she willingly revealed her identity.
Literature
- The Witches: To find out the address of the Grand High Witch, the grandmother tells her grandson that she telephoned the chief of police in Bournemouth, claiming to be the chief of police for the whole of Norway, adding that she is very good at imitating a man's voice, so of course he believed who she said she was.
Live-Action TV
- Blackadder: In "Amy and Amiability" from the third series, the feared highwayman "The Shadow" is in fact Amy in disguise, who was earlier shown to be a total drip. The Shadow speaks in a very male voice when first seen, until she removes her disguise.
- CSI: NY: A voice-distorting device is found at the second crime scene in "Vigilante", clueing the detectives into the fact that the caller who reported both crimes is most likely not who he appears to be. When they reverse engineer the voice on the 911 tapes, they discover it was a woman who'd been calling all along.
- In Little Britain, the unconvincing transvestite Emily Howard usually speaks in a high voice, but soon after pretending to be disgusted about meeting another transvestite, she calls "Just out of interest, who does your dresses?" in a male voice.
- The Nanny: "Stock Tip" sees Fran trying to infiltrate Maxwell's gentlemen's club to keep him from making a bad investment. Upon being told that women aren't allowed entry, she disguises herself in a suit, beard, and glasses, then pitches her voice downward to pass herself off as "Mr. Ed" (first name Wilbur).
- Power Rangers RPM: Genius ranger mentor Dr. K appears in the beginning of the series as a disembodied, deep voice behind a screen. This makes it all the more surprising when Dr. K reveals herself as a teenage girl using a vocal distorter.
- The Canadian series Young Blades features Jacqueline Roget, the lone female Musketeer who passes herself off as a man named Jacques Lepont by tying her hair back, speaking in a lower register, and generally acting unpleasant. The incredibly pathetic disguise, including the voice, was lampshaded in an episode featuring a male shapeshifter called the Chameleon; D'Artagnan sees through his Jacqueline act because he acts like an actual man, not a woman pretending to be one.
- In an episode of Zoey 101, the girls have Lola disguise herself as a boy to prove to the boys that they can act the same with girls around. Lola makes her voice deeper when she's "Steve" and funnily enough, Nicole thinks Lola's guy voice sounds hot.
Video Games
- Fire Emblem: Awakening: It's revealed early in the game that "Marth", the mysterious Falchion-wielding man who has been showing up at convenient times the Shepherds are doing something important, is actually a woman in disguise. Interestingly enough, her disguised voice is deeper than her normal voice, but not by much. As she (Lucina) later explains to the party, it was because she didn't want to be a Butterfly of Doom if the Shepherds discovered her identity, potentially altering time in a way that led to a bad future like the one she came from, and thus she reasoned pretending to be someone from the past was less likely to cause trouble than someone from the future.
- Shiva Transbaal from Galaxy Angel is the sole surviving heir to the throne to the Transbaal Empire and is later revealed to be a girl posing as a boy, having short hair and a low voice to hide her gender.
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: The Cyborg Ninja speaks with a distortion filter that pitches their voice to be much deeper to hide their true identity as the female soldier Olga Gurlukovich.
- The Thief from Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando wears an armored jumpsuit, cloak and mask. The Thief is voiced by a man, but out of disguise, she's revealed to be a female lombax voiced by a woman.
Visual Novels
- Bat from Villainous Nights is initially The Voice and later, shows up wearing a full body armor and full-face helmet. She's actually a woman, but uses a voice modulator to make herself sound like a guy.
Web Animation
- Tex from Red vs. Blue wears a full body armor and full-face helmet. Because of her voice filter, she's mistaken for a guy.
Web Original
- Nostalgia Critic: In the review for The Monster Squad, Tamera attempts to get into the boys-only club by dressing as a cowboy, complete with fake mustache. She uses a deeper voice and southern drawl to try an mask her identity, which ends up working too well.
Western Animation
- Done in the Clone High episode "A Shot in the D'Arc" when Joan of Arc poses as a boy in order to play on the basketball team. Her disguise consists of a backwards baseball cap and a fake mustache, and she lowers her voice several octaves (though she still sounds like a woman trying to sound like a man). Somehow, everyone else is fooled by her disguise.
- Futurama: In "War is the H Word," Leela disguises herself as a male soldier to protect Fry and Bender while they're enlisted in Zapp Brannigan's troop. In addition to a fake beard and the name "Lee Lemon" ("Leela Man"), she speaks in a guttural voice to hide her identity. Everyone is fooled, although Zapp finds himself oddly attracted to "Lee" and sighs with relief upon finding out the truth.
- Infinity Train: Throughout the first season of the series, the viewer is shown snippets of encounters with a mysterious malicious robotic entity known as "The Conductor", with a deep, warbling, commanding voice. When the main character of season 1, Tulip, finds a memory cassette of one of the previous passengers, named Amelia Hughes, she makes a startling discovery; Amelia built the voice modulator for the Conductor's voice, revealing that she is actually the Conductor itself. Tulip then makes her way to the engine to find a way off the titular train. In an ensuing fight in the finale, one of her attacks cracks open the exterior shell of the robot, revealing Amelia controlling the robot inside, where she commandeered the functions of the train to try to create a Lotus-Eater Machine world where her too-soon-deceased husband still existed. Later, two members of the Apex (a gang worshipping the Conductor), Simon and Grace, encounter them in trying to return to their home base. When the duo describe who they worship, Amelia completes the description and takes out the voice modulator, shattering Grace's worldview about who the Conductor really was.
- Ninjago: In Season 9, the character Heavy Metal, who is Iron Baron's right-hand man, is revealed to be a woman named Faith using a disguise and voice changer to look and sound like a man. The trope is invoked by Iron Baron due to him recognizing her skill as a hunter, yet did not want to land into trouble with his fellow Dragon Hunters for putting a woman into such a high position.
- Lord Dominator from Wander over Yonder has a deep and masculine voice (provided by Fred Tatasciore) when wearing her armor and skull-like helmet. When she takes off both, she's revealed to have a feminine figure and her voice changes too (her natural voice is provided by Noël Wells).
Men Disguised as Women with High Voices
Anime
- Hideri Kanzaki from Blend-S is an aspiring idol who starts working as a waitress. The other employees initially think Hideri is a Bokukko girl, but it's soon revealed he's a crossdressing boy with a very high-pitched voice done by a woman.
- The vampire Hatsuka Suzushiro from Call of the Night wears dresses and is voiced by a woman in the anime. The protagonist Ko Yamori only finds out Hatsuka is a guy when he sees him naked.
- Astolfo of Fate/Apocrypha is a Wholesome Crossdresser with not just girly clothes but also voice, courtesy of Rumi Ōkubo (Faye Mata gives him a similarly feminine voice in the dub).
- In MM!, Tatsukichi Hayama is already voiced by a woman, but his voice turns even higher and more feminine-sounding when he crossdresses, along with acting like a completely different person.
- In Naruto, Haku is an androgynous teenage boy voiced by a woman doing a feminine voice. When Naruto sees him dressed as a civilian in a woman's kimono, he thinks that Haku is a girl and is shocked when Haku tells him he's a guy.
- Persona 4: The Animation has Yu crossdressing during a school pageant, and getting into character very easily. The Japanese version just has Daisuke Namikawa using feminine speech patterns and a slightly softer voice, but the English dub has Johnny Yong Bosch pull off a rather convincing feminine voice.
Comic Books
- Asterix: In "Asterix and Son", a male legionary disguises himself as a female babysitter, and thus speaks in a falsetto voice, occasionally slipping up.
Films — Live-Action
- Mrs. Doubtfire: Daniel Hillard softens his voice and uses a British accent to disguise himself as elderly Mrs. Doubtfire. Justified since Daniel is a professional voice actor and elderly women tend to have lower registers in general.
- Some Like It Hot: In order to escape the mobsters after them as part of an all-girls jazz band, Joe and Jerry pitch their voices up while in disguise as Josephine and Daphne.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: In Growing Pains, Adrian takes a telephone call from the hospital for his mother; and on the spur of the moment, pretends to be his mother by speaking in a falsetto voice, as the caller addresses him as "Mrs. Mole" before he has had a chance to speak.
- Ascendance of a Bookworm: Justus, a Master of Disguise who sometimes uses Disguised in Drag, can change his voice to make the latter more realistic.
Live-Action TV
- Hilariously played with in the episode "The Archbishop" from the first series of Blackadder. When two knights intending to kill the Archbishop appear, Edmund, Baldrick and Percy escape down a secret passage to a nunnery, and disguise themselves as nuns; and the knights pursuing them do the same. Both sides then face each other, and speak in high voices; and then simultaneously blow their cover when they speak in normal voices.
Knight: (in high voice) Why don't you try that way?Percy: (turning away, normal voice) Thank you very much.Knight: (turning away, normal voice) You're welcome.(Realisation dawns; then they turn back and fight.)
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine: In "Cinco de Mayo", Terry uses a vocal distorter to sound like a woman in order to sell a banner to Jake without him knowing who it was, as part of his Zany Scheme to win the annual Heist.
Video Games
- Tsukasa Okino from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim is voiced by a voice actress in both English and Japanese. His high-pitched voice allows him to pass as a woman by the name of Kiriko Douji.
- BlazBlue: Amane Nishiki is a Wholesome Crossdresser (and implied to be Camp Gay) who speaks in a gentle, high-pitched voice. He can, however, occasionally speak in a rougher tone, particularly when he's being hammy (it helps that he has a dance troupe).
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc has Chihiro Fujisaki, who's a Wholesome Crossdresser with a cute effeminate voice to fit. He's convincing enough for no one to realize his real gender until they find him in the male restroom after his death.
Western Animation
- Guy Hamdon from SheZow speaks with a high pitched voice when he's SheZow.
Mixed Examples
Live-Action TV
- Most Rupauls Drag Race contestants maintain the same cadence in and out of drag, but a few queens do put in the effort to disguise their voices:
- Season 6's BenDeLaCreme has a low, gravelly voice with a decent amount of vocal fry out of drag, but she kicks it up about two octaves while in drag.
- Season 9's Jaymes Mansfield's natural speaking voice is about the standard pitch for a man, but in drag she speaks with such a cartoonishly high-pitched and nasal voice it sounds like she's just inhaled helium.
