What is gender affirming voice therapy?
When someone thinks about changing their voice to sound more masculine or feminine, the first thing that usually comes to mind is raising or lowering their pitch. However, there are many vocal and communication qualities that contribute to the presentation of your voice. Here is a quick review of just a few of these areas:
Pitch: The pitch (aka frequency) of your voice plays a large part in the perceived gender of your voice to listeners. Although pitch changes alone are unlikely to influence perceptions of speaker gender, many studies have been conducted to pinpoint exact pitch ranges for voices perceived as masculine, gender neutral, and feminine to unfamiliar listeners. When altering your pitch in voice therapy, you and your speech therapist work together to find a target speaking fundamental frequency range that feels reflective of your identity without jeopardizing your vocal health.
Resonance: Resonance largely has to do with how you shape the sound of your voice using your lips, tongue, and other structures of your mouth. Generally speaking, cis-males have a “chestier” or darker sound quality, due to anatomically larger laryngeal and oral cavities. By contrast, cis-females have a more “forward-focused” or lighter resonance, as they tend to have laryngeal and oral cavities that are smaller. Despite these differences, any person can manipulate their articulators (which include the tongue and lips) to make the tone of their voice “lighter” or “darker.” During therapy, your speech-language pathologist will teach you strategies that you can utilize to adjust the overall quality of your voice.
Intonation: Stress and intonation patterns generally vary based on the message we are trying to convey. We can stress a word to emphasize meaning, or change intonation to make a statement into a question. Research on this aspect of communication has been shown to also contribute to perceived gender. For example, speakers perceived as feminine have been noted to use more upward intonation patterns. This quality is subtle, and overuse of upward intonation patterns can often have a “valley girl” type of effect. In voice therapy, your speech-language pathologist helps guide you through strategies to practice natural-sounding adjustments to intonation that won’t sound forced or exaggerated.
Pragmatics: Beyond the sound of your voice, gender expression can extend to what you say or how you say it. For example, some feminine speakers might engage with their speaking partners by asking partner-focused questions (e.g., “What do you think?” or “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”) or inserting verbal affirmations like “uh-huh” or “yes.” Although there is no right or wrong way to communicate pragmatically, utilization of these social communication practices can help to complement your voice practice to achieve a gender expression that is reflective of you.
Non-verbal Communication: Even when we are not speaking, we are communicating with our bodies. We send constant messages with our posture, hand gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, and proximity to our conversation partners. This is a highly individualized and personal arena of self-expression that is only targeted based on each individual client’s desires. Your therapist will never prescribe qualities based on what is typically assumed to be “male” or “female”. You and your speech-language pathologist will work as a team to set non-verbal communication goals based on your authentic gender expression.
None of these qualities in isolation will make a significant impact on vocal gender perception, and not all of these target areas are right for everyone. The art of gender-affirming voice modification is creating an individualized plan for your specific needs, regardless of “male/female voice norms”. Our intention is to provide you with a safe space to practice and achieve a healthy and sustainable voice that reflects your identity, and these are just some examples of tools we can use together to help achieve your goals.
