Many trans people are concerned about their own voice. Anyone who feels they belong to the female gender wants to be perceived as such. Speech therapist Johanna Joch helps trans woman Jessie with this.
“Meeeeh” – as if on a long thread, Jessy pulls the sound from the back of her throat to the front of her mouth. In the end, it sounds much more nasal, like when you speak through a blocked nose.
Jessy has been in the transition to womanhood for around two years. Before that, she lived and spoke as a man for 20 years. For a year now, she has been taking female sex hormones to adapt her body. However, this does not automatically change her voice. For this, she needs the support of Johanna Joch, speech therapist at laut. Logopädie in Hamburg.
For her job as department head in life export, Jessy found it to be an advantage to speak with a sonorous, deeper voice. It simply came through more clearly in the room. As her body changed over time, however, her voice increasingly matched her appearance. “My colleagues didn’t take me as seriously as they had before,” says Jessy.
With the help of the speech therapist, she learned many nuances of her own voice at the beginning of the voice transition and trained a new voice that also matches her appearance. Most people are not aware of how many factors play a role in speaking. We use our language completely automatically, without thinking about the parameters it consists of.
Voice transition: three factors determine the voice color
For example, the position of the larynx. If it is relatively low, the voice sounds deeper; if the larynx is raised, the pitch of the voice rises. Another factor is the so-called twang. This occurs when Jessy shifts the sound further forward into the mouth and nose and points her tongue high forward to reinforce the nasal resonance. If she uses the resonance in the back of the mouth and throat, the effect disappears more and more. Some singers like Britney Spears (“O Baby, baby”) or the British singer Duffy (“Mercy!”) use a strong twang and thus achieve a high recognition value. The German singer Jan Delay also uses the effect very deliberately.
The third important voice factor is the vocal cord level. The sound of the voice can be made softer or harder. A voice that is more breathy sounds softer, while a voice that is not or hardly breathy sounds harder. Jessy has put together her own individual dream voice from these three components: larynx position, twang and breathiness.
Using this in everyday life requires a lot of practice. At the beginning of the transition, she was very insecure and did not want to make phone calls or be spoken to on the subway, for example. With Johanna Joch’s support, however, she achieved great success relatively quickly: “I hadn’t expected that,” says Jessy.
After just six months of training, she became more confident in conversations at work and also lost her fear of speaking in public. Even though there were small setbacks now and then and she initially lost her authentic voice in stressful situations, Jessy has gained new self-confidence with the voice transition.
You can also change your voice through surgery, says Johanna Joch. Women typically have shorter vocal cords than men, which means that they usually automatically have a higher pitch. Surgery should be carefully considered because, in addition to the medical risks that such an operation entails, the new voice may not necessarily be the one the trans person wants. From experience, most trans people achieve a voice sound that they can identify with through speech therapy training. And they can prevent their voice from being overstrained by learning the vocal techniques.
Source: Stern
I’m Caroline, a journalist and author for 24 Hours Worlds. I specialize in health-related news and stories, bringing real-world impact to readers across the globe. With my experience in journalism and writing in both print and online formats, I strive to provide reliable information that resonates with audiences from all walks of life.
