Switching gendered vocal motor behaviour, a self-study design

Background:
Requests for vocal feminization are expanding in the field of speech and language pathology consultations. Researches about patients/clients wanting to adapt their voice to the targeted gender are now available. To our knowledge, none of the research has explored the possibility to develop two vocal motor behaviours in one individual, one typically more masculine and one typically more feminine. Nevertheless, we studied patients’ cases desiring to permanently maintain a female and male voice (e.g., artists, non-binary or gender-fluid people) and also the ability of a speech therapist to masculinize and feminize the voice of their patients. Our questions were “is it possible?” and “can it be done healthily and durably?” More specifically, we wanted to know if vocal feminization therapy could lead to an easy return to the masculine voice. We also wanted to know if the feminized voice acquired, was going to stabilize, improve or degrade with time when switching vocal motor behaviour. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the ability of a clinician to alternate between male and female voices using a Self-Study research design.
Method:
A vocologist trained one SLP student (first author of this presentation) how to feminize his voice. Acoustic measures using Praat software and its Phonanium plug-in as well as a vocal auto-satisfaction scale score were gathered 8 times on a 5-month period time. First, the measures were done on the masculine vocal pattern before the vocal feminization, then we alternated the feminine and masculine measures after the vocal feminization two weeks apart from each other. Acoustic measures were collected on sustained vowels, reading text, and semi spontaneous speech including French intonations. Mean, variation, and range of fo and SPL were collected, as well as formant frequencies (fR1- fR4), vowel length and AVQI index to monitor vocal health.
Results and conclusions:
Two vocal motor patterns were distinguished which were close to the so-called feminine and masculine ones. None voice-related complaints were reported and vocal health markers (AVQI) did not change significantly even in prolonged muscular effort. The “masculine” vocal motor behaviour didn’t change between the four measurement times. The “feminine” motor vocal behaviour only improved with time, the best result being at the end of the process. These phonetic results aligned with the subjective statements and feelings. The self-study research design is efficient and gave opportunity to test the capacity to switch the vocal motor behaviour masculine to feminine and inversely in a healthy way. Thus, we can conclude that alternate the two vocal motor behaviour does not impede the voice feminization or the return to a masculine voice.