When looking for solutions or techniques to feminize a voice, most transgender women are faced with two options: speech therapy or surgery. But what is the best option to feminize a voice?
Today we are going to talk about speech therapy, the discipline that usually treats disorders related to language, communication, speech and voice. The speech therapist is in charge of proposing to the transgender woman a vocal training that will allow her to reach a way of speaking in total harmony with her personality and her identity. In this case, we are not talking about a voice disorder but about an aesthetic intervention at the vocal level.
It is true that we speak of feminization of the voice, although we should also speak of feminization of the way of speaking, of the way of expressing oneself, of the way of communicating, since in the vocal training known as the Astudillo method, the aim is not only to increase the pitch of the voice, that is, to obtain higher notes, but above all to work on the form of the speech, that is, the prosodic parameters linked to speech. It would be incorrect to think that a feminine voice is feminine only because it covers high frequencies. The richness of the femininity of the voice or speech cannot be summed up in just a few high notes.
This is why speech therapy is currently the most complete solution for feminizing a voice.
The “tonal augmentation” surgery
There are currently several surgical techniques that allow tonal augmentation, i.e. obtaining higher pitched tones in the voice. But, in reality, these surgical interventions are not “voice feminization” surgeries, since, as several surgeons express it, they are interventions that seek a “stereotypically feminine” voice, that is to say, enclosed in a stereotype of the feminine voice that most of the times is synonymous with a high-pitched voice. Personally, I do not think that a woman’s voice is a high-pitched voice. I know many women around me who do not have high-pitched voices and yet have feminine voices.
It is also important to emphasize that surgery cannot be applied without speech therapy. Any surgical technique of tonal augmentation will always involve a pre and post operative speech therapy intervention. The best known surgical technique is currently called Wendler’s glottoplasty, although there are other techniques such as cricothyropexy, cricothyroid approach, laryngoplasty, lava technique, etc.
All of these procedures carry risks and side effects on the voice that should be discussed with the surgeon.
What results can be obtained without surgery?
I have been in practice since 2006 and have been working with transgender women since 2005. In these almost 15 years, I have dedicated myself exclusively to transgender women, to voice feminization and to the search for natural and reliable results.
Indeed, one of the most recurrent problems in this type of cases is usually the naturalness or lack of it when expressing oneself. That is why the methodology I use on a daily basis allows transgender women to obtain in 10 sessions a natural, personalized way of speaking, in total harmony with their identity but also with their own concept of femininity. We are not looking for a caricature, nor an unnatural voice, but our objectives aim directly at a free, personal and automatic voice.
Therefore, the work we do is precise, thorough and seeks above all that the patient feels comfortable with her new way of expressing herself but above all that she is able to perpetuate this new vocal habit and to apply it more and more naturally in her daily life.
Thanks to speech therapy and the Astudillo method, transgender patients achieve results from the first session. These results are gradually applied in their daily lives until they achieve reliable and lasting results.
What does Speech Therapy work?
The Astudillo method works at the muscular level by proposing exercises linked to laryngeal gymnastics, i.e. movements associated with the expression of vocal femininity, and at the prosodic level by proposing exercises and guidelines that will allow working on melody, rhythm, articulation and other parameters that will enhance the spoken femininity in the speech of the transgender woman.
In summary, feminizing a voice without surgery is entirely possible and is currently the most reliable and least invasive solution proposed to transgender women. Knowing that surgery offers no guarantees whatsoever, that it cannot predict the results that will be obtained, nor the time it will take for the patient to fully recover her voice, it is an option that should be taken as a last resort. In addition, there are always side effects to surgery that are important to evaluate before opting for an intervention of this type.
Other cases
We also talk about vocal harmonization in cases of patients who do not wish to be associated with a binary representation of the voice. In these cases, what we do during the sessions is a work of adaptation of the voice and the way of speaking to the personality of the patient. We also work with other types of cisgender patients who need to enhance or recover the femininity of their voices.
More information at www.femivoz.es