Countertenors occupy an ambivalent position in the cultural politics of voice—audible yet unintelligible, visible yet misrecognized. This article examines how male singers in this vocal register negotiate platformed audibility across algorithmically governed spaces such as TikTok and Instagram. Drawing on qualitative interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, the study foregrounds how voice operates not simply as a medium of expression, but as a contested cultural form shaped through regimes of gendered listening and platform logics of recognition. Participants describe being misheard, disbelieved, or compelled to justify their vocal legitimacy—what this study conceptualizes as auditory disciplining and sonic pre-legitimation. Yet amid these structural pressures, countertenors also craft spaces of affective resonance and situated vocal agency, often outside institutional gatekeeping. By theorizing voice as relational, negotiated, and infrastructurally mediated, the article contributes to broader debates on digital subjectivity, cultural legibility, and the politics of mediated embodiment.
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