This study explores the vocal satisfaction of trans men and transmasculine individuals by employing a global online survey. This study identifies psychosocial and communicative issues that exist for these populations and can be used by speech-language professionals as a diagnostic tool. A validated psychometric assessment exists for trans women such as the TVQMTF [1]. However, minimal research has been conducted on trans men due to the prevailing belief that exogenous androgen hormone treatment lowers the F0 to a satisfactory masculine-sounding voice [2]. It has been found a gender-conforming F0 does not equate to a gender-affirming voice [3].
Participants completed the survey detailing physiological and psychosocial issues as a result of their voice. Some participants provided a voice sample of the passage “North Wind and the Sun”. The results and speech samples were collected on LaBB-CAT [4], a browser-based corpus analysis tool used to investigate large linguistic corpora.
Correlation coefficients were calculated based on the responses, and F0 data have been extracted using Reaper [5]. The benefit of using methods in sociolinguisticsallows us to compare voices from different speech communities and helps us interpret what it means to speak with a masculine sounding voice. The results allows us to understand the communicative needs of trans men, and the impact their voice has on their quality of life.
References
[1] Dacakis, G., Davies, S., Oates, J. M., Douglas, J. M., & Johnston, J. R. (2013). Development and Preliminary Evaluation of the Transsexual Voice Questionnaire for Male-to-Female Transsexuals. Journal of Voice, 27(3), 312–320.
[2] T’Sjoen, G., Moerman, M., Van Borsel, J., Feyen, E., Rubens, R., Monstrey, S., Hoebeke, P., De Sutter, P., & De Cuypere, G. (2006). Impact of Voice in Transsexuals. International Journal of Transgenderism, 9(1), 1–7.
[3] McNeill, E. J. M., Wilson, J. A., Clark, S., & Deakin, J. (2008). Perception of Voice in the Transgender Client. Journal of Voice, 22(6), 727–733.
[4] Fromont, R., & Hay, J. (2017). Language, Brain & Behaviour Corpus Analysis Tool. English, Christchurch, New Zealand: New Zealand Institute of Language, Brain and Behaviour. Retrieved from https://labbcat.canterbury.ac.nz/system/
[5] Talkin, D. (2015). REAPER. Retrieved from http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=17590
