- Singer-songwriter Sem Jansen says he was scared he'd lose his singing ability after transitioning.
- While finding his voice again, Jansen decided to be the positive example he never had.
When Dutch singer-songwriter Sem Jansen first seriously considered transitioning his gender, he was scared — not because he wasn't ready to have his body match his gender, but because he was worried he'd never be able to sing well again.
Jansen, 30, has been a musician most of his life. Before he began hormone replacement therapy, Jansen was able to hit very high notes, but starting testosterone meant risking his singing ability and his livelihood.
After five years of debating whether or not to transition, Jansen ultimately decided it was worth it in 2018.
"At the time that I decided to actually go through with the transition, I had already tried everything else in order to become happier in my life," Jansen told Insider. "And I had the voice, but I wasn't happy. And I felt at a certain point that transition was necessary for me to eventually live a happy life. I hoped that it could be with my voice, but I thought I would have a higher chance of living happier, even without my voice, if I were to transition."
Now, Jansen records duets with what he calls his former self — the female singer he says he used to be – because he wants to show other trans musicians that it's possible to transition and still keep their singing voice. He said he wants to be the positive example that he struggled to find when he first started transitioning.
One video of Jansen singing with his pre-transition self went viral on TikTok, racking up nearly 500,000 views.
@semjansen.nl In my new show “who the f*ck is Britt” and my album “Uncle Sem” I’m doing a few duets with the female singer I used to be. It’s so special to have this full circle moment!
♬ I've Done My Thinking - Sem Jansen
Jansen told Insider that when he first started transitioning, he couldn't find any positive medical research about how hormone therapy changes a person's singing voice or many examples of trans singers who had been able to maintain their voices.
"Everything I looked up about it told me that it was gonna be a negative thing and that it was gonna have a negative effect," Jansen said. "I was gonna lose control. I was gonna lose volume in my voice and that kind of stuff."
It was a long road to figure out how to use his new voice, especially as it was changing and deepening over the last four years. But Jansen kept training his voice, and eventually, he was able to hit those high falsetto notes again.
Jansen has been the lead singer and guitarist of folk-rock group Leif de Leeuw Band since 2011 — they've toured throughout Europe, China, and the US. He also just released a solo album called Uncle Sem on Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services — six of the songs on the album feature Jansen singing alongside different stages of his former voice as it transitioned through the years.
Jansen said the music he's making now "is exactly what I wanted to find when I was trying to find stuff about the voice change. So I felt like I could maybe help a lot of other people that were struggling with the same thing."
"And I thought it was also just a beautiful idea to see both things, because it's not that I hate the old me — I'm very thankful that my old me carried me towards this point that I'm at now," he said. "And I'm mainly just happy that I'm happier now."
Jansen said he's received an overwhelming amount of positive support for his decision to celebrate his body's journey through his music. But, Jansen said, "it's not only about gender or a body change, it's just about someone finding out what's good for them and what they need in their life, and everything that comes with that."
He said that what he wants people to take away from his music and his experience is that, above all, this is "a coming-of-age story, like any other."
"So I tried to paint the picture as big as I could so that people could maybe just see that I'm a human just like they are."