Testosterone therapy masculinizes speech and gender presentation in transgender men

Voice is one of the most noticeably dimorphic traits in humans and plays a central role in gender presentation. Transgender males seeking to align internal identity and external gender expression frequently undergo testosterone (T) therapy to masculinize their voices and other traits. We aimed to de...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2021-02, Vol.11 (1), p.3494-10, Article 3494
Main Authors: Hodges-Simeon, Carolyn R., Grail, Graham P. O., Albert, Graham, Groll, Matti D., Stepp, Cara E., Carré, Justin M., Arnocky, Steven A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
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692/163/2743
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Adult
Behavior therapy
Endocrine therapy
Frequency
Gender
Gender identity
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Male
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Speech
Speech - drug effects
Speech - physiology
Speech Acoustics
Speech Perception - drug effects
Speech Perception - physiology
Testosterone
Testosterone - pharmacology
Transgender persons
Transgender Persons - psychology
Transsexualism - drug therapy
Voice - drug effects
Voice Quality - drug effects
Young Adult
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Summary:Voice is one of the most noticeably dimorphic traits in humans and plays a central role in gender presentation. Transgender males seeking to align internal identity and external gender expression frequently undergo testosterone (T) therapy to masculinize their voices and other traits. We aimed to determine the importance of changes in vocal masculinity for transgender men and to determine the effectiveness of T therapy at masculinizing three speech parameters: fundamental frequency (i.e., pitch) mean and variation ( f o and f o -SD) and estimated vocal tract length (VTL) derived from formant frequencies. Thirty transgender men aged 20 to 40 rated their satisfaction with traits prior to and after T therapy and contributed speech samples and salivary T. Similar-aged cisgender men and women contributed speech samples for comparison. We show that transmen viewed voice change as critical to transition success compared to other masculine traits. However, T therapy may not be sufficient to fully masculinize speech: while f o and f o -SD were largely indistinguishable from cismen, VTL was intermediate between cismen and ciswomen. f o was correlated with salivary T, and VTL associated with T therapy duration. This argues for additional approaches, such as behavior therapy and/or longer duration of hormone therapy, to improve speech transition.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-021-82134-2