Welcome!! I would like to preface this post by referencing highly valuable sources of information on this topic. To name a few: www.transplaining.info and prismaticspeech.com/. This post has been designed to be an introduction to gender-affirming voice in a Q&A format. What is the voice and how does it work? Our vocal instrument is truly remarkable in that it boasts components of wind, string, and percussion instruments all in one. Our voice starts as a breath, our wind. Our diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle that sits beneath our rib cage, contracts. It pushes down to allow for our lungs to expand, encouraging and accommodating air as it enters our bodies. When we exhale that air, muscles in our upper airway contract to form specific airway shapes that determine how quickly the air moves through, where air lingers, and where and how air escapes. Sound is achieved by a combination of 2-3 of the following mechanisms: 1) by the vibration and degree of tension vs. laxness, and the amount of stretching/thinning vs. compression/thickening of our instrument's strings (the vocal folds in the throat, housed in our voice box behind our Adam's Apple), 2) by the turbulence of air moving through narrow passages (like between your upper teeth and lower lip for an /f/ sound, or between the tongue tip and the palate for an /s/ sound). Or sequences of stoppages & explosions of air, our instrument's percussion, created by closures like the lips together for /b/, or the tongue tip to the palate for /d/, and 3) by the shape and degree of muscle tension in the roomy spaces of our throats, mouths, and noses that allow for certain tones to be enhanced and others to be suppressed (resonator of a wind instrument). It is the sequence of these movements and configurations, shaping that air as it moves out of our bodies, that creates the beautiful concert of sound that is our voice! Are there differences in the vocal instruments of people assigned male at birth and people assigned female at birth? Prior to puberty, no. The source of differences occurs at puberty; and the determining factor is the form of hormonal puberty one undergoes, not one's sex assigned at birth. The larynx of someone undergoing male puberty lowers, lengthening the vocal tract. The vocal folds themselves also become longer and bulkier. Someone undergoing female puberty does not experience the same degree of larynx lowering, and has shorter vocal folds. If you think of handbells, the larger handbells produce a deeper, dark tone, and the smaller handbells produce a higher pitch, tinkling, bright tone. The general anatomic differences in our vocal instruments predispose us to differences in sound, but this is a very binary construct, and anatomical variations are not all explained by sex assigned at birth. We can have different sized mouths, differently shaped palates, and more, and this is not related to sex. Moreover, anatomy is not nearly the whole picture! Now you have me intrigued. How is that not the whole picture? When one thinks of the "gendered" nature of our voices, we often think of pitch (though there are features of our voices that may influence a listener's perception of gender MORE than pitch...). Fundamental frequency (f0), or a voice's average pitch, is expressed as a range in studies comparing cis men and cis women. While using the cisgender binary framework to analyze voice is certainly problematic, interestingly these studies have shown that cis voices do not fit into gender binary boxes: cis female and cis male pitch trends not only vary substantially across languages, but also within languages across countries, time, and ethnicity. An individual who speaks multiple languages can have different average pitches for each language! To further boggle your mind on this last point, the average pitches of a multilingual cis person do not necessarily match the average pitches of cis people of the same gender who speak only one of those languages (monolinguals). Wait...what?? In other words, I speak Italian and American English. But the fact that I speak two languages means that I may have a different average pitch when speaking Italian vs. English, and that my average pitches may not match those of cis women who speak only Italian or only English!!! For more information, see the fascinating section titled "The Effects of Physiology and Culture on Cisgender Pitch" in the reference listed below. Bottom Line? Average fundamental frequency or pitch data analyzed in a cisgender binary framework vary as a function of sociocultural factors. There are instances of cis female F0 in one language (American English, for example) overlapping considerably with cis male F0 in another language (Urdu, for example); our vocal instruments are capable of a range of pitches, and this isn't dictated by the gender binary construct or sex assigned at birth. Even an individual can boast multiple average speaking pitches based on the languages they speak! Our culture and socialization mold our pitch, transcending any anatomical or biochemical "predispositions". And this is just pitch! Our voices are products of both nature and nurture. While we can't be completely free of neither our anatomy and biochemistry (ex. hormones, etc.) nor our history of socialization and cultural immersion, we aren't confined by them either: we can learn to shape our voices to approach and even achieve a desired sound with targeted techniques and conditioning. Adler, R.K, Hirsch, S., Pickering, J. (2018) Voice and Communication Therapy for the Transgender/Gender Diverse Client (3rd ed). San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing, pp 142-145. What does gender affirming voice & communication guided exploration involve? I have chosen the label "guided exploration" as opposed to "therapy" to suggest a partnership, a collaboration. "Therapy" suggests rehabilitation after an injury, or fixing. A goal of aligning one's voice with one's gender identity typically occurs in the context of a healthy vocal mechanism. In that case, our work is NOT fixing the vocal instrument; rather, it may involve exploring different ways to sound/play the instrument. You will meet your vocal instrument, gain confidence in molding it, sounding it. We will navigate how to vary the shape and coordinate the different parts of your instrument, by manipulating muscles of the mouth, palate, throat, voice box, abdomen & chest, to achieve desired sounds in a way that meets your needs (what I call the 4 pillars: doability, sustainability, usefulness, & safety (which can have many meanings)). I don't know what it means to be YOU; if you wish, you can show me what that means for your voice. What we target is determined by you, your instrument, and your voice goals. There are certain vocal and speech parameters that are associated with a listener's perception of masculinity or femininity, BUT the nature and direction of our explorations and practice DO NOT NEED to be in pursuit of stereotypical gender binary qualities....unless that is YOUR goal, of course. You may incorporate features that mirror aspects of your identity that aren't gender-linked or give you the flexibility to have different "voices" in different situations. We will likely dedicate some attention to: pitch (the height or depth of your tone), resonance (shaping of your instrument to enhance certain sounds or sound qualities), intonation (the overall melody of connected speech) and possibly loudness, language, & articulation. Non-verbal communication explorations can also be targeted if you want.
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AuthorThese are my SLP-related musings. I will come up with topics that I think are interesting, but will be relying on you to make suggestions! Sometimes when you have gained more knowledge or "answers" on a topic you forget what the good "questions" are!!!! Archives
July 2021
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