Physical appearance and voice in male-to-female transsexuals.
It has been suggested that sex judgments of male-to-female transsexuals based on the voice may be influenced by the physical appearance of the clients. To explore this hypothesis, a listener experiment was designed in which a panel of 22 laypersons and 22 students in speech-language pathology rated the "femaleness" of fourteen male-to-female transsexuals from video-recorded speech samples in three modes of presentation: auditory-only presentation, visual-only presentation, and audiovisual presentation. Results indicate that appearance and voice are indeed interacting factors. Ratings from the auditory-only presentation were significantly lower than ratings from the audiovisual presentation and ratings from the visual-only presentation were significantly higher than those from the audiovisual presentation. It follows that the success of voice training in male-to-female transsexuals is not solely dependent on vocal characteristics and that speech pathologists should consider incorporating physical appearance as a treatment and outcome variable in the voice training of male-to-female transsexuals.
Van Borsel
J
J
Ghent University Hospital, Belgium. john.vanborsel@rug.ac.be
De Cuypere
G
G
Van den Berghe
H
H
D000328:Adult; D001824:Body Constitution; D005145:Face; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013070:Speech Therapy / Q000379:methods; D014189:Transsexualism / Q000601:surgery*; D014833:Voice Quality