Self-perception of voice in transgender people

ABSTRACT Purpose: to describe the transgender people’s self-perception of voice. Methods: a total of 60 people participated in this cross-sectional study. They attended a reference outpatient center for the health of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people. The data collection consisted of self-administered questionnaires, a participant’s profile questionnaire, and a voice self-assessment questionnaire. Results: most of the interviewees were young people who had never visited a speech-language-hearing therapist with the Public Health System (Sistema Único de Saúde); in general, they expressed interest in having such attention. The answers revealed an impact in the axes assessed, namely: “use of the voice in social life”, “mischaracterization of gender, due to the voice”, and “indication of dysphonia". Voice symptom characteristic of dysphonia was also identified in some people. Conclusion: transgender people are unsatisfied with their voices, which is an element that hinders the perception of the identified gender. It also has repercussions in their social, emotional, labor, and interpersonal lives. Hence, it is important to include speech-language-hearing therapy in the transgendering process, which is desired by most of the transgender people.摘要 研究目的：阐明跨性别者对自身嗓音的自我认知状况。 研究方法：本横断面研究（cross-sectional study）共纳入60名参与者，所有受试者均就诊于女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋与跨性别者健康专属门诊。数据采集包含三类问卷：自填式调查问卷、参与者基本信息问卷以及嗓音自我评估问卷。 研究结果：多数受访对象为从未通过巴西统一健康系统（Sistema Único de Saúde）就诊于言语语言治疗师（speech-language-hearing therapist）的青年群体；总体而言，他们均对获取此类诊疗服务表现出强烈兴趣。调研结果显示，三大评估维度均受到显著影响，具体包括：“社交生活中的嗓音使用”、“因嗓音导致的性别特征误判”以及“发声障碍（dysphonia）指征”。此外，部分参与者被检出存在典型的发声障碍嗓音症状。 研究结论：跨性别者普遍对自身嗓音不满，这一因素会阻碍其性别身份感知的一致性，并对其社交、情感、职场及人际生活产生不良影响。因此，将言语语言治疗纳入跨性别过渡阶段的诊疗服务体系具有重要意义，这也是多数跨性别群体的共同诉求。