Working with the transgender voice: The role of the speech and language therapist

How do we perceive speaker gender? What marks a voice as male or female? Most naive listeners would say it is the pitch of a voice that determines the perceived gender of the speaker. However, research has shown that although fundamental frequency is important, non verbal communication, linguistic and phonetic features are also significant. Within individual cultures there will be expected patterns of communication that are gender specific and it is these areas that the therapist is advised to attend to during therapeutic intervention. This article outlines the role of speech and language therapy with the trans population looking at these aspects in detail, based on peer agreed practise and research findings, which relate mainly to English speaking populations. Addressing these aspects enables the individual who presents well physically to 'complete the package' and achieve a more gender specific communication style. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.