Summary
Transgender and gender diverse people often experience voice-gender incongruence,
which is inversely correlated with health and quality of life. Such incongruence could
be reduced with voice and communication training, but expert-administered training
is often inaccessible while self-guided training is difficult and potentially risky.
Training could alternatively be provided through software (eg, smartphone apps), but
such software is at an early stage. This qualitatively driven mixed-methods study
thus includes surveys and interviews with 21 transfeminine, transmasculine and nonbinary
people to identify general views of voice and communication training software as well
as most desirable features of such software. Participants were positive about the
general idea and described ways to effectively implement four critical features: feedback,
accountability, automated goal setting, and training characteristics other than pitch.
They also discussed optional or undesirable features. These findings may inform development
of voice and communication training software, thus improving health and quality of
life for gender minorities.
Key Words
Abbreviations:
HRT (hormone replacement therapy), IQR (interquartile range), SLP (speech-language pathologist), TGGD (transgender and gender diverse), VCT (voice and communication training)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 02, 2022
Accepted:
March 6,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofFootnotes
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Identification
Copyright
© 2022 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
