Transgenderism is a broad term that encompasses all people whose gender at birth does not match their gender identity. One such group are transgender women who have been assigned a male gender at birth but identify themselves as women. They aim to match their voice and speech to their perceived gender identity during their transition process. The voice is affected by the anatomical structures of the larynx, which differ between men and women. Differences are also recognized in fundamental frequency, resonance, voice quality, vocal range, intonation, sound pressure level, speech rate, vowel elongation, articulation, pauses, word choice, laughter, and cough. The desired voice can be achieved through hormone therapy, phonosurgery, the avoidance of harmful factors, and speech therapy. Speech language pathologists play a key role, as they help the transgender population to verbally and non-verbally communicate in accordance with their perceived gender identity, and thus facilitate and successfully complete the transition process. The aim of the study was primarily to examine the relationship between the measured acoustic characteristics of voice and self-ratings of transgender women, men, and women, and, with the perceptual ratings given to them, compare the values of acoustic measurements of voice between groups, as well as to determine on which characteristics the listeners base their perception of the recorded voice or speech as being male or female.
In the empirical part of the master's thesis, we included four transgender women, four men and four women aged 25 to 50, who first completed a questionnaire about self-perception of voice. We then recorded samples of their voices for acoustic analysis and speech patterns in various speech and non-speech tasks (picture description, reading, coughing, laughing, and spontaneous speech). The listeners (five master’s students of speech and language pathology and five laypeople) gave a general perceptual rating of the femininity or masculinity of the voices by using a five-point scale. The students additionally rated the femininity or masculinity of the voices according to individual characteristics from the recordings of picture descriptions, reading, and spontaneous speech.
The results indicate that a higher value of the mean fundamental frequency in a sentence was correlated with a more feminine self-rating and a perceptual rating in describing the picture. Higher values of formants meant a more feminine perceptual rating. In transgender women, a complete positive correlation was found between the second formant of /i/ and the perceptual ratings of laughter, and between the fifth formant of /o/ and the perceptual ratings of spontaneous speech. In men and women, the correlations between the second formant of the same vowel and the other five formants with self-ratings and with perceptual ratings were negative. We found that the pitch, intonation and vocal timbre contributed to the perception of femininity or masculinity. In the case of picture descriptions, the elongation of vowels and the word choice of transgender women were perceived as gender-neutral. The values of acoustic measurements of voice in transgender women did not significantly differ from the values of the female group, nor was there a statistically significant difference between the perceptual ratings given by laypeople and those by students.
The study examined the acoustic and perceptual characteristics of voice and speech not only in transgender women but also in the male and female groups. The obtained results represent a starting point for further research, contribute to a better understanding of the needs of transgender people in relation to voice, and can be used in speech therapy to understand how a transgender woman can achieve feminization of voice and speech.
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